Informed Ability - Television Tropes & Idioms

Mai Kujaku/Valentine in Yu-Gi-Oh is supposed to be a great duelist, having made it to the semifinals of Duelist Kingdom, and the top 8 of Battle City... and she did it all off the backs of offscreen characters (with a few exceptions in Duelist Kingdom, where the ends of her victories are shown). She loses all duels we see in their entirety (except against Jean Claude-Magnum, and that was filler).
- This was mercilessly parodied in episode 17 of Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series. "Yeah, that Mai Valentine. She's a great duelist, all right." Episode 26 took another shot at her when Mai openly wondered why she was even allowed to participate in Battle City despite never winning any duels. And in episode 31, when she shows Joey that she has four locator cards, he accuses her of sleeping with Kaiba. Finally, when the Abridged Series got around to that one duel she did win, Tea exclaimed, "I can't believe we found a duelist even worse than Mai!"
- In Yu Gi Oh GX Fubuki is said to be one of the top duelists of the school and is even lauded as the best duelist they have left after Kaiser graduates. Despite, this he never wins a single duel on-screen.
- In the mang, her brother Asuka is said to be as good as Manjoume, but did not win any of her three shown duels, although she won enough duels to qualify for the finals, and Seika Kohinata, a fellow Obelisk Blue duelist, knows she has no chance against her.
  - However, Asuka's most recent duel may have changed things for the better.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh R, the Devil Gods are borderline unstoppable and immune to everything. In real life, the Devil Gods are statistically bog-standard in the modern environment, virtually unsummonable without an absurd swarm that could be better used for Synchros, and will be destroyed by a dozen one-for-one cards as soon as they hit the field.
Bleach has Retsu Unohana, who sends minor Soul Reapers running for the hills at her presence, has well-established Soul Reaper badasses Shunsui Kyoraku and Jushiro Ukitake fearing her wrath, and even is established in the series' guidebook as the the third-most powerful Soul Reaper captain in Soul Society - and has yet to actually be shown in a fight. While this is mostly due to her friendly, motherly demeanor and her role as Soul Society's head Staff Chick, the few times that could potentially show off her power are dashed due to the plot. She corners Aizen at the end of the Soul Society arc but he makes a quick getaway; then she shows up as part of the group of Soul Reaper captains sent to save Ichigo and company from Hueco Mundo and gets trapped there by Aizen. Additionally, in the flashback arc, she is kept from helping the Soul Reapers who would eventually become the Vizard).
- Toshiro Hitsugaya is hailed as a super-genius, and insanely skilled in all attributes of combat, as well as a phenomenal swordsman in his own right. This has translated in action into relying exclusively on Bankai to be a threat, throwing lots of ice at things until they die or someone else takes care of it, and getting his ass handed to him.
- The Bankai's elite, super-powerful status is a bit of an informed attribute in itself. It's made out to be something so hellishly difficult to achieve that only a few people in the history of the universe should have been able to do it, and so powerful that it could destroy worlds if you twitched it the wrong way. But pretty much everyone knows it, and it's usually not all that impressive an upgrade in the series' constant Lensman Arms Race.
- No less than four of the ten Espada suffer from this:
  - The Primera, Coyote Starrk is supposedly the second strongest Espada, but his feats leave something to be desired, especially in comparison to Espada #4.
  - After Starrk comes Tia Harribel, Espada #3 whose feats were not only lackluster, but she had trouble fighting Hitsugaya (due mainly to her refusal to fight him seriously) and she was eventually killed off by Aizen.
  - Next up is Espada #9, Aaroniero, who supposedly had the powers of over 30,000 Hollows. Guess how many he used before he was killed? If you guessed ONE, you guessed right.
  - And last and certainly least, Espada #0, Yammy Rialgo. Constantly hailed as THE strongest Espada hands down, half of the words out of his mouth are him calling all the other Espada trash. He's currently getting his butt kicked by Kenpachi and Byakuya (both of whom are holding back) who had trouble fighting Espadas 5 and 7 respectively, even when they were at their strongest.
Fate's bitchy, abusive mother Precia Testarossa in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Sure, she's rumored to be a top class mage with impressive powers, and has performed various research that actually deems her REALLY dangerous. But the only time we see her in action is... whipping Fate for unsatisfying results in her eyes, one that doesn't require MUCH magical prowess. And during her final moments, she just blows Fate's last attempts at affection off, and falls into a pit.
- Note that she's gone batshit crazy, and sometimes, sanity can lend a hand in your competence.
- She announces her existence to the TSAB by zapping their entire freaking battleship while simultaneously doing the same thing to her daughter from her place in a completely different dimension! It's also explained that the reason that the TSAB were so caught off guard by that attack is that they would have never thought that anyone was capable of it. In addition it's also demonstrated that by that period in the series, she's in pretty poor health, regularly coughing up blood and all that.
- There's also Shamal's supposedly awful cooking; in the first A's Sound Stage, while the other Wolkenritter treat her dishes as poisonous, after Hayate convinces them that it's safe to eat and that she's getting better at it, they actually concede it isn't bad.
Shinra from They Are My Noble Masters is supposed to be a world-famous, talented conductor. Yet all we see her do is waving her staff around in a very unprofessional manner and answering stupid questions from her musicians. The music that results from her conducting is also not really noteworthy.
Yukito from Air supposedly managed to support himself for years by performing tricks with his magic doll, but in the TV series and manga he hardly makes a single yen with his act. He fares a bit better in the movie, though.
It is mentioned over and over in Honey And Clover that Hagu is an extremely talented painter and sculptor, yet her work as shown in the series doesn't generally rise above the average stuff that one can see at the local art club. Admittedly, her view of giraffes is somewhat interesting, but the rest is dull and unimaginative (Classic-oriented huge sculpture? Cherry trees under a blue sky? Wow, nobody ever thought of that before...)
- The same can be said about Yamada's pottery. Sure, it takes skill to make large pots, but a talented art student should be able to make more interesting objects than the standard stuff that is shown in the series.
Gates, the villain of the second season of Full Metal Panic!, is supposedly an extremely skilled and dangerous Humongous Mecha pilot who leads a team of specially trained hunter-killers for Amalgam, all of whom are equipped with extremely powerful BlackBox mecha (for a comparison, one such mecha in the hands of a lower-standing member of the organization fought Sousuke to a standstill three times, killed several redshirts and mortally wounded a mauve shirt during the first season). Alas, five minutes after actually entering combat and proving his 'fearsomeness' by killing an overstrained and mentally unstable girl who was using an inferior machine, he and his entire team are bowled over by Sousuke in one go like so many mooks.
Yuuko from XXXHolic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is described as an astounding wish-granter and the only person in The Multiverse with the power to the dimensions truly at will. We see very little actual use of her powers in Holic until quite late in the series; much of her wish-granting seems to come from functioning as a pawnshop. Tsubasa showcases some instances of big magic earlier on, but still leaves much of her power simply implied. The reason for this is that she is forbidden from interfering in the workings of fate unless she is actually granting a wish.
- Fay from Tsubasa also has a canonical explanation for not using his powers on-screen, despite being a world-class wizard. In the second half of the series, however, we see that even at half-strength he can blast apart an entire arena when he loses emotional control.
Monica Kruszewski from Code Geass; her official profile says that "her gentle looks belie just how dangerous she can be", and the fact that she's a Knight of the Round means she's one of the twelve strongest soldiers in the Britannian Empire. All she does in the show is look surprised when the Emperor acts strange, then look surprised when an apparent rebellion (actually sparked by Lelouch's Evil Eye powers) breaks out, then looks surprised when she gets killed in a matter of seconds by Suzaku without even firing a single shot. Dorothea also counts being called one of the Elite Knights of the Round, but is seen in a crappy Mook mech and dies in seconds too. Really only Suzaku and Bismarck ever really lived up to the hype of being the "Best Pilots in Britannia".
- Li Xingke's actions seemed rather underwhelmingly insignificant considering he was said to be a strategist on par with Lelouch with the fighting abilities rivaling Suzaku. Even worse is Tohdoh, who is described as a great general (having beat Knightmare Frames during the invasion without any of his own), only to have disaster strike whenever he is put in a leadership position, the most obvious instance being the season finale where he manages to get nearly his entire army either killed or captured. Code Geass was quite big on informing of someone's genius outside of Lelouch.
  - To be fair, Todhoh's abilities had stagnated since the time when he lead the Japanese army and he came to rely on Zero more than he should have. Tohdoh also admits that much of the legend surrounding him is hype, and that at the end of the day it was just good planning that allowed him to win that famous battle.
  - At least Xingke called out Schneizel's bluffs, more often than not. Compare and contrast with Ohgi, who rated high on intelligence. An Informed Ability if there ever was one.
  - To be fair, Xingke did defeat Lelouch in battle once (although only because he had homefield advantage).
- The worst case of informed ability in the series has to be Marianne "the Flash" vi Britannia, who's piloting skills supposedly rival Bismarck with his Geass, and yet we never see her in action.
Butch and Cassidy from Pokemon are supposedly the "competent" counterparts of Jessie, James, and Meowth, but in every episode they are in they screw up just as horribly to the main characters they happen to be dealing with, whether in the regular series or Chronicles episodes.
- Not to mention that when they do inevitably fail, they usually fail harder than Jessie and James. Butch and Cassidy tend to get arrested and thrown in jail (and then not seen again for a season or two) at the end of most of their schemes. Jessie and James, despite being beaten Once An Episode always manage to escape the clutches of the law (even if it's usually by "blasting off again.")
- It's really less that they're more competent, and more that they're willing to go that extra mile. They're usually stronger, too, and with more effective plots. But they still fail every time.
Punie from Dai Mahou Touge is supposed to have nigh-infallable submission techniques to bring down her opponents, but everybody who knows a bit about martial arts should see that it's a bit silly. Most opponents don't even defend against her approaches—and when they fall down they don't even try to get up anymore, making it all too easy for Punie to perform a lock on them.
The Chunin examinees are said to be the best Genin in the Naruto world, but all nine of the rookies fresh out of the Konoha academy, as well as Team Guy, whose members have been ninjas for a little over a year, all make it to the finals while many more experienced ninja fail although in Kabuto's case, he did it on purpose to gather intelligence on the competitors.
- Kakashi Hatake is said to have "over a thousand" different abilities he has copied from people over the years. Unfortunately we only see about six of them over the course of hundreds of episodes.
- Kakashi is better off than Sarutobi Asuma or especially Yuuhi Kurenai. Asuma is supposedly one of the most powerful guys in Naruto, and besides defeating cannon fodder Sound nins, he is schooled by two different Akatsuki teams, the second time he ended up dead. Kurenai... jeez girl, what did Kishimoto DO to you? You're a jounin! You should know better than using a genjutsu against an Uchiha, especially Itachi! (Doesn't help that the only thing she really does in the plot afterwards is get knocked up by Asuma shortly before he died.)
- The worst offender, however, goes to the ANBU. They're sent on all the most dangerous missions, any Bad Ass main character has spent time in the ANBU, and overall, supposed to be the SEALs of the ninja world. When they actually get into a fight, they're degraded to mook status, those formerly Bad Ass masks now cementing their status as Cannon Fodder.
  - During the arc where Orochimaru attacks the village and starts fighting The Third Hokage, some of the elite Sound Ninja create a barrier around the fight that is clearly visible, and will likely do something bad if anything touches it. So, instead of say, throwing something at the barrier to at least test it, one of the Anbu JUMPS STRAIGHT AT THE BARRIER, bouncing off ineffectually, lighting himself on fire, and dying almost immediately. Highly trained ninjas my ass.
- Hanzou, leader of the Village Hidden in the Rain, also suffers from this. The audience is told of his almost unstoppable power and skills but we never actually see him in combat. This is then mixed with The Worf Effect when Hanzou's assassination is used to hype up Pain's own power, emphasized even more by the fact that Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru all lost to Hanzou during the war. Both of these tropes are eventually averted for Pain when he proceeds to kill Jiraiya and blow up Konoha proving that the rumors of his abilities are no exaggeration.
In Hitohira, Nono is supposed to be able to beat up all of the karate club on her own, even though later she is shown to have her hands full fighting only one person, namely her female fellow club member Risaki—which even results in a tie.
Mahou Sensei Negima had the Canis Niger group of bounty hunters, who were made out to be an incredibly strong group of mages. We see them capture Nodoka (a total noncombatant) and her group of treasure hunters (who we've never seen fight), before Negi shows up and wipes them all out single handedly. The only real thing of note that they pull off successfully is luring Setsuna and Kaede into a trap.
- In an odd in-universe example, Nagi Springfield the Thousand Master's legend says he knows 1000 spells. In truth, he knows 6. To his credit, though, most of the other rumors tend to be true.
- Any given monster or non-humanoid creature generally fits, most notably the Sealed Evil In A Can Ryoman Sukuna no Kami, who was overwhelmed by an even more evil being Evangeline the Dark Evangel (among her many titles). Also odd was a massive black dragon which Ninja Kaede defeated while blind-folded. Not to mention resident Medic Konoka being able to heal said black dragon to full health despite being less than a one hundreth of its size if not smaller.
Even when it's not being done for the sake of slapstick, the writers of One Piece tend to forget that Luffy's rubberman powers make him immune to blunt damage, as he becomes bruised during most of his fights. While some, such as Rob Lucci, are powerful enough to bypass this, others, like Foxy, do not come off as people who should be strong enough to do this.
- Then again, Foxy was cheating left and right and had those bomb gloves. And he even admitted his punches were not that potent, hence he had to make all of them all hit at once. Also, Foxy used a large number of spikes and plenty of fire in that fight, to which Luffy IS vulnerable. He had spiked gloves, a spiked pit, slow-motion bombs, and even his punch-machine lit things on fire, just to be safe.
- The Sea Kings are supposedly very powerful, and serve as a means of dissuading sailors from entering the Calm Belt, but they only demonstrate how deadly they are when the Lord of the Coast eats Higuma the Bear in Luffy’s past, and then eats Shanks’ arm. They mostly serve to show how powerful certain characters are by falling in battle against them.
  - Most of the danger involved with Sea Kings is that they are capable of easily destroying most ships due to their massive size (an average sized ship like the Going Merry can fit comfortably inside their mouth). The Calm Belt notwithstanding, the Grand Line is widely renowned as the most treacherous ocean in the world, so surviving without a ship, even for someone very powerful, would be difficult. Add on to the fact the number of Devil Fruit users sticking around...
Reportedly Asuka of Neon Genesis Evangelion was a prodigy who graduated from a German University by the age of 13, and though this emphasizes the competitiveness of her character, she never displays the education level she should have. Further, accelerated admission to higher learning in Germany is as much dependent on emotional maturity of the student, but her temperament doesn't suggest someone who'd be considered for Gymnasium early, much less Universitat, or even someone who'd been immersed in mature peer group, academic or otherwise.
- She's definitely the most capable of the EVA pilots by a fair margin. In the anime she regularly performs maneuvers that none of the other pilots would even consider and in the manga she dispatches her first Angel in 40 seconds flat. Plus y'know the MP-EVA battle in End. Her academic ability is definitely an Informed Ability but her combat ability is second to none (Other than Shinji when Unit-01 goes beserk but that's not Asuka being bad, that's Unit-01 being, well Unit-01).
- To be fair, the only one who ever makes reference to Asuka being a college graduate is Asuka herself, and she might not be the best person to ask about this sort of thing.
Kurama supposedly can heal people very well with his plants in Yu Yu Hakusho, as seen when Yusuke suggests that he heal the mortally wounded Genkai, but apart from that instance, his plant healing abilities are only brought up in a manga bonus chapter showing how he first met Hiei and in a manga chapter after the Three Kings Saga that was never adapted into the anime, and are never actually shown.
- The Mook demons that Tarukane hires to guard his mansion are supposedly strong enough to defeat an entire squad of special forces troopers each, but get taken down quite easily by Yusuke and Kuwabara.
Lampshaded in the Prince Of Tennis 40.5 databook. Aragaki, a character whose sole contribution was to lose a doubles match the author didn't even bother showing, is given a bio something like: "In order to hold his own on such a formidable team, he must have awesome tennis powers ... well, he should..."
Spirit Albarn is a flirt. But he is not shown as quite the cheating pervert Maka makes him out to be. In fact, most of his scenes in a bar with pretty ladies involve him drinking and moping about his life. He also has exceptionally bad, short, history outside of being a divorcee - a) Medusa, whom he threw himself at in one chapter, turns out to be a anarchist witch out to destroy the world whom he has to fight (which he has no problem with) b) Risa and Arisa, the two women at the cabaret club, turn out to also be witches, albeit daft and mostly harmless-seeming ones who are passing on random information to Arachnaphobia. He doesn't kill these ones, mind, merely arrests them.
Koyuki is supposed to have a singing voice that immediately grabs your attention and can turn a skeptical, if not borderline hostile, crowd into fans. In the manga, it's easy enough to tell us this, since we can't HEAR him sing. In the anime (the dubbed version, at least)... there's nothing WRONG with Greg Ayres' singing voice (his speaking voice on the other hand...), but it's hardly the type that justifies that sort of reaction.
Inverted in Elfen Lied: We're told Lucy's vectors only have a range of two meters, but judging from visual estimates, she often extends them a good few meters further. This can be explained as actual misinformation on Lucy's part, as much younger diclonius have faked weaker abilities to put their captors off guard.

Green Lantern's ring. The two most used descriptions for it are "the most powerful weapon in the universe" and "it can do anything you will it to". However, what this really translates to is "you can make glowy items with it". Any time a Green Lantern does something besides making glowy items with the ring that can, remember, do anything, other people react with shock, and it's generally a huge story point.
- Later comics try to fix this, mostly because a glowy item may be the best solution for a problem.
- Kyle Rayner's ring was explained to be different, that his ring could "create anything that he wills it to." This may have been to go back on the concept of "can do anything you will it to do, but you will only make glowing boxing gloves with it". Or possibly to highlight his background as an artist and thus will create giant mechs, video game characters, robots, and other fun things that were not glowing boxing gloves. (Except in that one instance.)
- In Geoff John's Rebirth series, it's revealed that using the ring for anything requires a huge amount of stamina and willpower. When Green Arrow used it to make a glowy arrow he felt like a total wreck afterwards. When he asked Kyle if that's what using the ring feels like, Kyle answered "Every time". Using the ring for anything grander than a glowy item would probably leave the Lantern badly weakened. OTOH, since this particular trait hasn't been seen before or since, it comes off as an Informed Flaw.
  - Something similar happened to Batman once. He tried to use the ring, and after great strain, could only use it to manifest a construct that looked like his parents. Presumably, using the ring requires either that the user have no mental hang-ups or distractions, or be very, very good at controlling them.
- In Justice, Hal Jordan is trapped inside his ring by Sinestro, and finds, to his dismay, that he can replicate his city, but only as he wills it. In other words, as soon as Hal stops focusing on making something, the ring stops making it.
Batman comics repeatedly refer to the character of David Cain as "the greatest assassin on the planet". Note, that's the greatest assassin, which means he's better than Deathstroke the Terminator, a character that makes most of the DCU shudder to even think about tangling with. Fans of the character have tried to point out that Cain was considered the finest when he was "in his prime", ignoring that the characters themselves continue to use the title in the present tense. The character has never actually succeeded in an assassination he personally participated in while on-panel.
- In fact, most of the events fans cite as proof of David's (current or past) badassness tend to actually reinforce that it's an Informed Ability. His supposed Crowning Moment Of Awesome, defeating Lady Shiva (variously said to be the greatest, second greatest, or third greatest martial artist in the DCU - although this too seems to be only an Informed Ability), consisted of standing around and letting her fight League of Assassins ninjas that were protecting him until she was exhausted, then putting a gun to her head once she was too tired and injured to stand. This could make him very smart, and possibly a great assassin, but he's not a particularly noteworthy fighter, which is what most of the DCU's great assassins tend to also be.
Tim Drake's Robin is supposed to be a brilliant leader on par with his predecessor Nightwing in the Teen Titans comics. Except that his team mostly does what they want, when they want. And they keep quitting because he and Wonder Girl are a dick and a bitch, respectively. Indeed, Robin's leadership is mostly shown only as him shouting "You, fight him! You, fight her! The rest of you, fight the rest of them! Go!" What's really infuriating is that way back before Young Justice jumped the shark, Tim's leadership of that team was on par with Nightwing's best moments re: superpowered cat herding.
Megatron himself from All Hail Megatron is supposed to be some sort of amazing tactical genius, but his strategies as shown in the comic itself pretty much boils down to "Blow stuff up, hope the enemy is too dumb or weak to fight back, and rely on blind luck, lots and lots of blind luck".

In Ever After, Danielle tells her captor that she is a good swordswoman. This comes at the end of the movie, and we have never seen her a) use or b) even mention her prowess with swordfighting. She may have been bluffing, but still...
Though it's usually justified the in the stage version of the play, the recent movie-music version of Hairspray had numerous characters mention how great a dancer Tracy was (not really) especially compared to how Amber couldn't dance (she really seemed better at it than Tracy at least).
Not Another Teen Movie parodies this in that Janey is supposed to be a great artist but is clearly only capable of drawing the same stick figures over and over. It also parodies Hollywood Homely, which is a sub-trope of Informed Ability.
In Star Wars:
- Stormtroopers are supposed to be capable soldiers of the fearsome Empire. While surveying damage done to a sandcrawler, Obi-Wan observes that the attackers were "too accurate" to have been Sand People: "Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise." However, throughout the rest of the film, you'll be hard-pressed to find a single Stormtrooper who hits what he's aiming at. It's also interesting that in The Phantom Menace, a Tusken Raider snipers a podracer going 900 mph, a feat no Stormtrooper matches in the whole series. However, Stormtrooper inaccuracy is occasionally justified, such as in the Death Star, where they have express orders to allow the main characters to escape. In certain parts of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, various authors try to avert the trope by showing off badass Stormtroopers.
- Anakin's potential is supposed to be an even greater Jedi than Yoda, revealed via a blood test in the first movie. However, his heroics in the Clone Wars are later described only in passing, and almost every fight scene in the remaining movies has him attacking outmatched civilians, fighting offscreen, or coming up about even with his opponent. Possibly a deliberate effort by Lucas to avoid turning Anakin into a mascot for Evil Is Cool (he reportedly was very unhappy that Vader fell into that trope), but anyone wondering what Darth Vader was like at his peak would still be left wondering after watching the prequels. This is somewhat averted in the final film when Anakin puts a Curb Stomp Battle down on Dooku. The EU also fills in the details on some of his deeds.
- General Grievous is said to be a fearsome combatant that has personally killed dozens of Jedi, and such an effective and brutal tactician that he replaces Count Dooku as the greatest threat to the Republic during the Clone Wars, yet in both the films and the most recent animated series he's seen running away more than fighting and all the battles in which he fights are losses. It's only Star Wars Clone Wars that shows him as the former, repeatedly performing impressive feats even by the ridiculous standards set by other characters. We don't see any of his strategic brilliance, though most strategy in Star Wars seems to look like Zerg Rushes anyway.
  - I don't remember whether or not Grievous was called a strategic genius before or after the assault or Coruscant but when your opponent seemingly manages to a)Read and counter your movements to throw your plans of balance b) Use this newly gained advantage to scatter your forces so badly that he can march a massive army into your capital planet and kidnap your leader, you don't take him lightly. Never mind the fact that his strategic outlines were likely made under the guidance of Darth Sidious who was at least somewhat involved in the Republic's military decisions in the first place. And since the Jedi didn't know that at the time... a Justified Trope?
The main character of I Know Who Killed Me is supposed to be a great writer and piano player. Supposed to be.
The Riddler's "Box" invention from Batman Forever allegedly makes him smarter, until by the climax he's a supergenius. Actually, all he does as the film progresses is keep acting like Jim Carrey, only more so. In fact, he seemed like a fairly competent scientist in the beginning. The smarter he gets, the dumber he seems to act.
According to his profile on the official Kung Fu Panda website, Master Crane is the "mother hen" of the group and prefers to avoid conflict, neither of which was actually shown in the film.
- To be fair, he does ask Po to get out of his room; compare to Tigress, who calls him an idiot and then orders him out.
In Stranger Than Fiction, Emma Thompson's character is supposed to be a great writer, yet the few examples of her writing we're given aren't exactly stunning prose.
- Considering her reputation for Kill Em All and Wangst as noted in the film, it could be a subtle jab at writers who are praised because True Art Is Angsty, which the ending of the film seems to support - a tragic ending doesn't make a story good but the literary critics don't think that.
- Or just because her rather purple prose was funny.
Save the Last Dance would have us believe that the character played by Julia Stiles is an amazing dancer, who is auditioning for a prestigious dance school. Unfortunately, Stiles has very minimal ballet training, and it shows. Stiles was not at all believable as a high level dancer who had any realistic shot at her goal. It's particularly apparent when she's in a dance class scene, where she should be at least as good as if not better than the other dancers— when in fact, she is visibly struggling to even keep up. (For those not in the loop about ballet, the clearest example of this is her extension, meaning hip flexibility and how high she can raise her leg. The angle of her leg is noticeably lower than those around her, even to the untrained eye.) Obviously, given the type of story this is, the character is successful in her audition... which is entirely unbelievable, given how severely Stiles's limited ballet experience shows in every scene where she does her own dancing.
Averted in the 1983 film Flashdance. Star Jennifer Beals was not a trained dancer, so in the sequences when her character Alex is actually dancing, we're actually seeing body doubles who are actually good at it. The camera also focuses on closeup shots of her feet, or otherwise makes it difficult for the viewers to see her face. Also played straight when Tracey remarks that David is "the funniest guy I ever met." We don't see a single trace of the sense of humor that supposedly won over David's wife.
In Reality Bites, we are expected to sympathize with Winona Ryder's character because she finds herself unemployable after graduation, despite having been valedictorian in journalism at her college. In the film, she flunks a job interview with an editor because she cannot define the word 'irony' to any coherent degree, and later fails an interview with a fast-food manager because she cannot add $0.85 and $0.55 in her head.
Played For Laughs with brave, brave, brave brave Sir Robin of Monty Python And The Holy Grail (as well as the stage adaptation), who was not was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp. Or to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken. We never saw him have the chance to not be afraid as such acts were imposed on him, though we did see him "bravely beat a brave retreat" as his bard narrated.
Goes both ways in The Phantom Of The Opera (the movie):
- Workers in the opera house are seen stuffing cotton into their ears while Carlotta is singing. Her singing is actually legit, and only employs some contrived scoops to make her sound bad. This is a case of Informed Flaw.
- The singing ability of the Phantom himself is described by Christine as transcendantly beautiful and a reason to believe he is the Angel of Music. In the film, Gerard Butler's singing ability is debatable, but few would describe it as transcendant.
- Basically the main reason why people adore Christine is for her lovely opera singing voice, and Emmy Rossum doesn't even almost fit the description. She keeps scooping, she can't enunciate while singing higher notes and they even had to change the end of "Think of Me" because she couldn't sing the operatic bit. And still the characters go around talking about how you're bound to love her when you hear her wonderful opera voice...
- And we can't forget how Christine (and most others) keep describing the Phantom as "hideous" when he is revealed to be danged good looking with a mild burn-patch and a clump of hair missing on one side. Seriously, all he had to do was get some face powder and a wig and he could have gone outside all he wanted.
  - A natural result of a character consistently receiving the Draco In Leather Pants treatment, with each subsequent version of the story reducing the Phantom's deformity, because sympathising with an ugly person is just wrong.
Deckard in Blade Runner is, or was, supposed to be one of the best Bladerunners in the business; however, he spends most of the film getting beaten black and blue by the NEXUS 6 replicants. This is somewhat justified when you consider that the job seems to be a mix of INS agent and high-tech polygraph operator. Deckard does prove himself to be a good detective and is able to truthfully identify the most advanced replicants on the market. Also, Deckard has never been up against NEXUS 6 replicants before, which are top of the line and led by Super Soldier Roy Batty. The only other Bladerunner we see in action fares much worse than Deckard. In the book the movie is based on, however, Deckard has little trouble out-smarting and killing the androids to the point that he's almost a Boring Invincible Hero, though the androids in the book have no physical advantages over humans.
Played For Laughs in Wet Hot American Summer — a character runs offscreen and engages in some heroics while another character stands in front of the camera, looking on and describing the action with obvious hero-worship.
Anne Bancroft plays a great ballerina past her prime in The Turning Point. Herbert Ross, the director, wisely keeps Bancroft's "dancing" to a few shots (e.g., brief barre work), but even so, Bancroft fails to either look or move like a dancer, nearing retirement or otherwise.
In The Good The Bad And The Ugly, Tuco nicknames Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name "Blondie", and interrogates other characters as to his whereabouts by asking for a 'tall blond man'. Angel Eyes goes so far as to gush over Blondie's beautiful blond hair, calling him a 'blond-haired angel'. His hair is brown. This is particularly bizarre because the part was almost certainly written for Eastwood.
Played with in Pirates Of The Caribbean, to the point of several characters lampshading it. Jack Sparrow is touted to be the best pirate ever, yet he is mutinied after being captain for a year, in the first movie is captured twice and saved twice (first by Will, then Elizabeth), gets knocked out from behind twice, and his Xanatos Gambit almost fails. In the second movie another one fails after Norrington discovers his Bait And Switch and pulls a switch of his own, setting into place the events of the third movie, where everything finally seems to go his way. The characters themselves can't seem to figure out if he's a bumbling quirk or an unlucky Magnificent Bastard whose Xanatos Gambits/Indy Ploys keep getting spanned.
It's hard to imagine that Fred Astaire's dancing could be an Informed Ability. But in Shall We Dance, Astaire's character is supposed to be a successful ballet dancer. A convincing ballet dancer, Astaire is not.

Thufir Hawat, from Dune, alleged Master of Assassins, failed not once (Duke Leto Atreides´ father), twice (the assassination of Duke Leto´s first born son because of a Harkonnen spy he allowed to sneak inside Caladan) but at least three times (not being able to stop Baron Vladimir Harkonnen from killing Duke Leto at the first Dune book). In all six original books and the prequel trilogy, there isn't even one action that would make him deserve the "Master of Assassins" title.
- Four times. He failed to prevent Rabban's hunter-seeker and its controller from infiltrating Paul's room after having more than adequate opportunity to sweep the palace. It was only Paul's skill and a bit of good luck that thwarted that one.
- Although it is repeatedly stated that Thufir was getting on in years, and was well past his prime. His abilities as a Mentat were also hindered by lack of information (as are all Mentats), since he couldn't have anticipated that the Harkonenns would break Yueh's conditioning, as it was unprecedented. The death of the Old Duke was also a result of an accident brought on by that man's dangerous bull-fighting hobby. Thufir's true success can be seen in the success of his final student, Paul.
Robert Langdon, of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, is supposedly a Harvard professor of "symbology" ) and expert in religions. However, in Angels, he mistranslates "Novus Ordo Seclorum" as "New Secular Order," when any high school Latin student would know that it means "New Order of the Ages."
- Yeah, this guy is supposed to be this huge expert on Da Vinci, but he misses the simple "it's written backwards" code, which Da Vinci famously used in all of his personal notes...
- And as a supposed scholar of European history, he can't read Latin, French, or Italian (makes doing first-hand research difficult).
- The very first words of The Da Vinci Code have been made infamous by the Hatedom for their Show Dont Tell fail: "Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered..." Yeah no. Do anything in the first sentence of a book but introduce a character as if you're captioning him on a talk show.
- Also note that there is no such thing as being a "Professor of Symbology", at Harvard or elsewhere. Even its status as a real word is debatable. Not only is he lousy at his job, it's not even a real job to begin with. Maybe he's just an idiot who pretends to be an expert to sell books? Considering his creator, it would be appropriate.
One of Magnus's powers includes "supernatural cunning", which he never demonstrates. He demonstrates knowledge, yes, but he is two thousand years old. In fact he walks into an ambush obliviously. Likewise, a scanner reveals that Iscarius Alchemy has an I.Q. of 666, and yet never demonstrates it.
Left Behind has a few:
- Cameron "Buck" Williams is supposed to be the "greatest investigative reporter of all time", with such amazing prose as this: "To say the Israelis were taken by surprise, is like saying the Great Wall of China is long". Yeah, that's deserving of a Pulitzer, alright. Then again, we don't really see him doing much journalism or writing in the series, so maybe he just threw it all together just before the deadline.
- Similarly, Nicholae Carpathia's amazing oration is illustrated by a speech in which he rattles off a very long list of trivial details about the people in attendance and the agencies of the UN. Actually listening to this speech would grow tedious very quickly, and also be a thorough waste of time.
- This trope is part of Slacktivist's funny critique of the novel.
The Inheritance Trilogy somehow manages to combine Instant Expert with Informed Ability. We are told at various points that Eragon is the Greatest Swordsman Ever. Except that he's not. At all. One particularly dreadful example is when ~~Yoda~~ Oromis tells him he has already mastered the art just pages after he handed Eragon's ass to him in a spar.
- It's funny when you think if it in terms like this exchange from Discworld:
  Granny Weatherwax: We taught her everything she knows.
  Nanny Ogg: Yeah...you think we ought to have taught her everything we know?
- Admittedly, Inheritance elves are posessed of superhuman speed and strength - once Eragon gains these too, no elf is able to defeat him in a duel.
  - Unfortunately, though he can now defeat elves, Eragon is no match for his human combatant, later in the same book. Then again, Murtagh is awesome.
Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter is famous for her wonderful spell, the Bat Bogey Hex (which, apparently being just what it sounds like really shouldn't even be much more than a gag spell)... yet Harry (and as a consequence, the readers) never saw it (although it was reportedly used to help them escape Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad).
- In the fifth movie, meanwhile, they gave her a powerful knack for the much more impressive Reducto spell, and showed it in the final battle.
- Don't forget poor Dawlish who supposedly got straight O's in his NEWTs, yet loses to everyone he tries to go up against.
- Or Voldemort, who was allegedly one of the most brilliant students Hogwarts has ever seen. Not brilliant enough to avoid making every single mistake the Evil Overlord List advises against, but still!
- A more minor example is the character of Fenrir Greyback. We're told he's a werewolf, but does he ever actually change shape within the story? This is particularly bad in the movies, where (due to their fast pace) it's easy to miss that he even is a werewolf at all, and the poor viewer is left wondering why that one bad guy has a perpetual rapeface.
In Vampirates, Grace is constantly described as the smart twin, yet her brother figures out that she's on the ship with the eponymous creatures before she does even though he's never seen them.
The eponymous character of the Ciaphas Cain novels says he's willing to sacrifice his men when it is needed, like all Comissars do. When such a time actually comes, he doesn't and goes on to look for another way to deal with the problem.
- Remember, the books are supposed to be his personal memoirs in-universe, and Cain is a self-admitted liar. He also has a reputation to maintain.
- We did get to see him gun down two soldiers when needed in the first book. In most other circumstances, he's running on his number one tactic: don't get shot in the back by your own men.
Alistair MacLean's (actually John Denis) Air Force One Is Down goes to great detail describing master thief (now secret agent) Sabrina and how good she is, then portrays her as a classic Damsel In Distress throughout the rest of the book. Most notably in a scene where Sabrina can't lie to the Big Bad because she can't keep her thoughts off her face (and she's supposed to be a former criminal???)
Bella from Twilight apparently read all of Chaucer and Shakespeare and countless more classics back in Arizona. But she displays no particular understanding of these works, and is Completely Missing The Point in Romeo And Juliet and Wuthering Heights.
- Not to mention, we're told numerous times how mature and intelligent she is, and to back it up, she's portrayed as being much too smart for her new school and has a backstory of having raised herself while looking after her irresponsible mother. But onscreen and outside of school, there's very little to indicate anything except immaturity and especially stupidity.
  - Not to mention people say over and over that she is very selfless and puts others before herself...
- Edward is described as being the epitome of a loving boyfriend, when it is made very clear that he is possessive and very controling.
Marguerite, in The Scarlet Pimpernel. We are told at length how "brilliant" she is, and she is repeatedly referred to as "the cleverest woman in Europe" by her peers. In practice, however, while she doesn't seem excessively dumb, her intelligence rarely seems more than average. She is consistently taken in by the Pimpernel's ploys, and the audience is almost certain to guess his identity before she does, even though she lives with him. This is probably partly a product of the portrayal of women at the time (even though the author was also female) and more importantly a product of the suspense narrative— since a lot of the drama would be lost if the narrator guessed things instantly. Regardless of the reasons, though, we are told in the descriptive passages that Marguerite has intellectual skills that she doesn't really demonstrate in the narrative.
While arguably not an actual example when he was first introduced, Thrawn in the Star Wars Expanded Universe is a good example of why this happens. He's supposed to be a brilliant tactician, but most of those writing him aren't tactical experts, so they must either leave his abilities vague, show him outwitting the protagonist in nontactical ways, or give his opponents an Idiot Ball.
- Also in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the ruefully incapable Admiral Daala applies. Immediately after being spoonfed her elaborate background story as Grand Moff Tarkin's ingenious secret protegé kept down by sexism, she arbitrarily loses three quarters of her fleet in a series of glorious defeats before even really starting her campaign. Sucks to be a villain in a universe where everybody has Contractual Immortality, it seems. Karen Traviss does a decent job of making her more effective in the Legacy Of The Force series - although she gets herself unanimously elected as the leader of the free galaxy - but add her previous incompetence to her doing nothing for about thirty years and the net effect makes it even worse.
  - Even in her introduction, it seemed like a halfhearted attempt was being made to justify Daala's soon to be revealed incompetence: it was her prowess at infantry tactics that caught Tarkin's eye, which probably doesn't translate very well into starship combat. A better justification was introduced 17 years later in the novel Death Star, set a decade earlier, in which Daala suffers brain damage during a Rebel attack.
In Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle, the father is supposed to be a brilliant comic book artist whose latest work is supposed to be one of the most ambitious and literary comics ever produced. Too bad she went and got an artist to produce some pages...
Ron Carmichael, of The Dresden Files, is hailed as a "razor-sharp cop". However, all we ever see him doing is not figuring out who the bad guy is. Then he dies.
- He's a good cop, not a good detective. Not every police officer is Sherlock Holmes, they need a lot of other people too.
In Edgar Rice Burroughs's Thuvia, Maid of Mars, we hear Cathoris declaiming on his inventions, which are marvellous. He never shows any mechanical appitude on stage, or even any interest in machinery.
Countless Fairy Tales directly come out and say that a character is "the wisest of them all," only to have them do incomprehendable things that only idiots would do.

In one episode of Fringe, a computer programmer is repeatedly described as being lightyears ahead of his colleagues or revolutionary in his thinking, shown able of developing a program that can hypnotize and ultimately liquify the brains of victims, but when shown in person the programmer appears and acts like a deadbeat simpleton who's almost-childish motives for murder make his involvement clear to the FBI very quickly, though he could simply be a case of being a Idiot Savant.
Played for laughs in The Mighty Boosh with Kirk, a shaman who looks like a normal boy but is apparently a menacing interdimensional being. We never see him do anything, but the other shamans accuse him of being "a vehicular menace," and "an erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind," which he does not deny. He also has a far greater capacity for narcotics than the other shamans.
The central protagonists in Babylon 5 suffered from a bad case of Informed Ability in that they were implicitly and explicitly regarded as special and/or brilliant despite the fact that their demonstrated abilities and behaviors did not warrant unreserved praise.
- Some characters do observe this, and it is a main plot point of Series 4.
- Babylon 5 had a Forbidden Planet-style, miles-long machine with Deus Ex Machina-level powers and full allegiance to the protagonists. They used it to broadcast television. And occasionally travel through time. And, once, as a guest room. It did once blow up a small fleet of a breakaway faction of the people who built the Great Machine, but it's never used again in such a capacity.
  - To be fair, this is because the individual in charge of the planet doesn't fully understand what it's capable of, can't control everything he is aware of, and has repeatedly hinted that he's holding back much of the power he *does* have control of.
Annie on So Weird is supposed to be a great singer, and they manage to work in a song of hers in nearly every episode of the third season. But the actress who plays her couldn't carry a tune if you gave her a bucket.
Matt Albie and his writing team on Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip are described as creating brilliant sketches, most of which fall flat in reality.
- 30 Rock, the perceived rival of Studio 60, manages to avoid this. Not by showing brilliant sketches, mind you, but rather by never suggesting that the Show Within The Show is any good. In fact, since the second or third seasons, all sketches shown are played for Stylistic Suck.
  - Speaking of 30 Rock, I find Tracey Morgan's supposed hilarity to be quite the informed ability.
Deep Space Nine describes Morn as fairly eloquent (if occasionally long-winded), quite humorous (which helps make him a lady's man), and one one occasion, an accomplished fighter (granted, it was Worf who said this). And yet, we hardly see him doing anything but sit on the same seat in Quark's Bar, drinking and never speaking. This, however, was a Running Gag, and a great one at that—it seems Informed Ability is best when it's used for comedic purposes.
- In the Shatnerverse, Morn apparently runs a small orbital skydiving business off of DS 9. Kirk and Picard note that the distinctive voice over the intercom giving them their instructions on the skydive must be a member of Morn's species (the implication being that it's Morn himself,) because they all have a distinctive, pleasant tone of voice. Naturally, as this is a written narrative, it's just taking the running gag to a new level.
Also from Star Trek, the Romulan intelligence agency and Secret Police the Tal Shiar are feared by just about everyone, but the evidence on screen hardly warrants such a reputation. We have seen them compromised by both the Federation and the Dominion at the highest levels, tricked into a war against the Dominion and fail utterly to prevent a coup wiping out the whole Romulan Senate (note that with the partial exception of the Dominion War none of these was down to the actions of main characters, so it isn't simply a case of the heroes beating the bad guys).
Gwen Cooper's character on Torchwood is constantly referred to as the 'heart of the team' (both within show and by fanon) and quickly supersedes the other characters to become second in command. This is despite, in the case of the former attribute, displaying only sporadic fits of empathy, not particularly greater than any other character, and frequent moments of insensitivity, for example callously telling her colleague Ianto, a survivor of the horrors of the Battle at Canary Warf, to "cheer the bloody hell up" when he reflects that no Torchwood employee lives past the age of thirty-five. The latter is despite her minimal leadership skills or experience, and more a result of the other team members actually performing specific roles (Tosh the tech whiz, Owen the medic, Ianto the archivist/general support) than her own qualities. As for someone so deeply in love with her husband and commited to her relationship... she has an affair with Owen and constant, constant flirting with/semi declarations of love for Jack.
In Hex, it is repeatedly stated that the ghost Thelma will pass through anything living that she touches and thus can't get physical with Cassie outside of dreams. This is never actually shown at any point in the series, nor do they spend any time talking about the fact that she can handle inanimate objects (as she frequently does) without breaking the rules. An Informed Inability.
In the Monk episode "Mr. Monk Paints his Masterpiece", the entire episode centers around how Monk is a terrible artist but has an inflated opinion of his abilities because a mysterious patron actually a member of the Russian mob is paying an exorbitant amount of money for his work because Monk is painting on canvases which are actually made of the paper used to print U.S. currency. Oddly enough, Monk's art isn't all that bad: it's insanely stylized (his paintings are composed of geometric figures and solid colors), but we are told repeatedly that it is utter and complete crap. Mind you, his flat banana, blue swoosh and portrait of Natalie Teeger are that bad, but his art teacher's lambasting of his landscape was probably a bit uncalled for... all the more considering that said teacher's entry in the art show is "Marriage", Edvard Munch's The Scream in a wedding dress with one foot in a bear trap and the other in a ball and chain.
In The Office Dwight Shrute is hailed as their number one salesman and apparently has the numbers to back it up. Yet whenever we see him at a meeting or over the phone, his usual abrasive and arrogant nature persists and drive away the sale. This is especially obvious in the episode where he quits and goes to work for Staples. He immediately breaks records by selling two printers in his first day (off screen) but when we see him, he's chasing off a customer by insulting their printer paper choice. In contrast Michael, likewise touted as an excellent salesman, has been repeatedly shown winning over customers on-screen.
- Well it may be that Dwight makes up for chasing off customers with an equal amount of scary "I will skin you alive if you don't buy from me" looks he gives other ones.
Josh in The West Wing is supposed to be a political savant. He certainly comes off as absurdly smart, if thoroughly arrogant. But in terms of actually playing politics and running campaigns, he screws up. Frequently. His crowning moment as a political operative is taking Jimmy Smits and making him president, but that's more a result of Smits' character taking steps that fly in the face of Josh's advice.
- Often Truth In Television. A surprising number of "campaign experts" are famous for being in the right place at the right time, for having one or two really good ideas, or for sounding impressive without actually being very good at winning campaigns. Some do live up to the hype, but many don't.
In the second half of Power Rangers SPD, each episode's alien criminal was said to have committed crimes that were more and more outlandish, until virtually nobody hadn't singlehandedly devastated dozens of planets. Then they come to Earth... alone, with barely effective energy blasts and a Humongous Mecha (typically recently bought from the arms-dealing recurring villain, meaning they didn't have it when they wiped out fifty planets) that's quickly taken out. Especially jarring because earlier in the season, they weren't nearly as ridiculous about this. So the powerful enemy who commanded an army destroyed nine planets... and the powerless enemy with nothing but zappy claws destroyed a hundred. Suuuuuure, we buy that.
- The original version, Dekaranger, is a little better about it. Usually the only Alienizers that have done any planet-destroying are the ones that practically kill the Dekarangers before they're put down. Most of the rest have often committed quite a few crimes, but they're usually just related to the Alienizer's modus operandi. (Possessing people, stealing stuff, destroying property on a car-to-city scale, putting people on the other side of mirrors, things like that.) The Alienizers also usually arrive in their Kaijuki, rather than buying it from the monstrous sarariman arms dealer, so it's a bit more believable that they pulled off whatever they were doing.
The Musical Episode of Thats So Raven has everyone act as though Raven put on the best musical performance of anyone. While Raven is a good singer, Annelise Van Der Pol is a Broadway powerhouse whose voice outshines the entire cast without any electronic enhancement, yet her talent isn't even acknowledged.
Adric in Doctor Who is supposed to be an genius, but of all the TARDIS crew travelling at the time, it is inevitably Adric who will somehow screw up the Doctor's latest plan to defeat the bad guy by doing something stupid, or will be gullible enough to be suckered into helping the villain's evil plan regardless of how transparently evil it is. For a supposedly smart person, the character doesn't come across as being particularly smart; and what makes it worse is that Adric is insufferably arrogant about skills that he is rarely demonstrated to actually possess.
- To be fair, it's explicitly stated that mathematics is really the only thing he's good at, and he does manage to do some extremely complex things like Block Transfer Computations, plotting a course that was supposed to be impossible to plot, and piloting the TARDIS. That doesn't make him any less annoying.
- Martha also tends to fall into this trope. For being such a well qualified doctor, she manages to be much much less useful than Rose and Donna, until she takes a level in badass at the end of the third series.
Smallville 's Lana got a scholarship to an art school in Paris. We've never seen any of her artwork, and that was the only time she's even shown some interest in art.
Violet on Saved By The Bell is a really amazing singer, so much so that the Glee Club never mentioned before or since wins a singing contest by having her sing solo. But the audience can hear that her amazing singing amounts to being able to carry a tune.
Beautifully inverted in Angel, in that Angel is shown repeatedly to be an amazing sketch artist, though no one (not even Angel himself) ever mentions it at all. In one episode, Cordelia buys Angel a sketchbook and pencils - not because she remembers that he's a great sketch artist, but because she's worried that he has no hobbies, and the person she's talking to suggests drawing as a way of relieving stress.
- In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, his gift was acknowledged when his soul was removed. As Angelus, he would sketch his victims, intended victims etc, and leave them for Buffy to find, as a sort of calling card for her.
  - Indeed, this is indicative of one of the reasons why he was possibly (Your Mileage May Vary) the best Big Bad they ever had. His murder of Jenny Calender and the subsequent staging of the scene of the crime was pure art, and David Boreanaz as Angelus was a Large Ham of awesome proportions.
One CSI episode had murders taking place at a comedy club, whose native-son star attracted huge crowds even though he was a Jerk Ass. The few moments of him actually performing were... disappointing.
- Which was of course one of the reasons he was murdered by a fellow comic who was so infuriated by him and jealous. When the crowd fails to respond to his own act he mockingly apes the terrible act of the dead guy (which includes randomly spitting water at them) and they lap it up. If he hadn't been led away at that point there probably would have been a massacre.
In The Outer Limits episode "Falling Star", the heroine's music is supposed to have such amazing influence that if she lives and succeeds as a pop star, the future will become a Utopia. The heroine is played (and presumably, her music composed) by Sheena Easton. Your Mileage May Vary.
Alan Shore from The Practice and Boston Legal is introduced as one of the best anti-trust lawyers in Massachusetts, and references to that being his real area of expertise are frequently made. Over the years, he is seen practicing criminal law, tort law, administrative law, constitutional law, procedural law, evidence law and many others. He is never actually seen practicing anti-trust law. Paradoxically, he is introduced as having little-to-no criminal law experience, yet ends up spending most of his time representing criminal defendants.
Neatly averted in a third-season episode of Married With Children where Kelly is forced to join the school tap-dancing class, gets some extra coaching from neighbor Steve, and finally does an erotic dance with her would-be boyfriend. As Christina Applegate, David Garrison and the actor who played the boyfriend were all trained dancers themselves, it wasn't much of a stretch for their characters to do it.
The character of Kate in the latest series of Robin Hood is described on the official website as an "indispensible" member of the team, whose weapon of choice is "her imagination." The former claim is strange enough considering she's entirely useless (and more often than not acting as a complete liability what with her complete disregard for her own and everyone else's safety), but the latter is even more incomprehensible. Thus far the heights of her "imagination" involve her secretly palming an arrowhead into Robin's hand and using a sword to pull a key close enough for her to pick it up. Hardly a test of ingenuity.
- It becomes even less impressive when you realise she's the Replacement Scrappy of a character who once successfully disguised the outlaws' weapons as musical instruments in order to sneak them into the castle.
Rory Gilmore of Gilmore Girls fame is repeatedly described as a brilliant writing prodigy who can make the most mundane story come to life with scintillating prose and profound insight. In the rare instances her articles and speeches are actually read aloud they never rise at all above what any high school student could do.
- Also, she's constantly referred to as a great success story, having accomplished so much. But all she ever does is get things handed to her. Her grandparents paid for her expensive private school, which is what got her in to Yale. Then her grandparents paid for Yale, until such a time as her father started paying for Yale instead. Also, she started dating a really rich guy and got to live in a penthouse apartment instead of staying in a dorm. Throughout the entire run of the series, other than being a reasonably good student, Rory doesn't accomplish or earn anything.
Arguably, the Venjix Virus, the antagonist of Power Rangers RPM. This virus took down the entire planet but cannot take down the last city on Earth.
Soap Opera example: in One Life To Live, Matthew was basically Sam Weir until he was paralyzed in a car accident in March 2009. Since then, his pre-disability athletic exploits have grown to the point where the yearbook shows him on the 9th grade interscholastic team in every fall and winter sport.
Glee casts a cute guy who's never sung before in the role of a cute guy who's never sung before. Good choice, he plays the part well, and has obvious talent and potential. However, the other characters heap praises on him as if he's superior to the other (gay and disabled) boys in the club, who are played by (and sound like) trained singers with lots of experience.
Susan Meyer of Desperate Housewives, a character who even her actress has called a 'clumsy idiot' and who has certainly never displayed any academic qualities was casually mentioned as having been valedictorian at her high school.
In a highly unexpected subversion of this trope - notable for how rarely a show successfully pulls it off, the Supernatural season 2 episode "Crossroad Blues" features a man who sells his soul in order to become a great artist. They do actually show a number of his artworks, all of which are interesting and emotive. How great they actually are still remains a matter of opinion, of course, and the writers acknowledge this by having the character create artworks that he pours his heart into, but never actually manages to sell.
On Heroes, Mohinder is theoretically a geneticist with some idea of how the superpowers work. But he's constantly having plot points and technobabble explained to him by other characters, such as Bennet and Sylar.
- In Season 4, Samuel's ability to be incredibly charming and convincing seems to be an Informed Ability that is also shown. He sways several characters, and the writers ensure that the supporting cast comments on his persuasiveness, yet he's never that convincing. Characters (especially Claire) must be given several Idiot Balls to juggle so that they'll follow him.
On Jonathan Creek Joey is initially introduced as Jonathan's intellectual equal, described on a television show as "someone whose powers of deduction and truly phenomenal flair for solving seemingly impossibly puzzles are beyond cool." Yet apart from ascertaining that the Nightmare Room is inescapable and discovering a clue that Jonathan misses (one which ends up being a false lead), she doesn't solve any part of the mystery, and eventually admits: "I'm out of my depth here."
Brian, the marketing genius of Queer As Folk, os really more of a one trick pony; No matter if he's selling booze, a steakhouse or a mayor candidate,he works the sex angle, and only the sex angle.
This is less of an Informed Ability for an actual person as it is one for a career, but in Firefly, it is constantly being mentioned that Companions are respected and admired members of society. Yet more often than not Inara is being insulted by her clients (Atherton Wing, Magistrate Higgins, the guy in the first episode who accused her of tampering with the clock), who ultimately seem to view her more as a high class prostitute than a respectable "Companion." Then again, maybe that was the point...

In For Better Or For Worse:
- Mike is supposed to be a brilliant best-selling novelist who sold his first book on his first try with no editing needed. Yet the excerpts from his first novel, as featured in the character's letters, are filled with implausible and maudlin situations, and insightful lines like "The living buried the dead."
  - Have you read some best-selling novels? Two words: Stephenie Meyer.
  - Dan Brown
- Liz's parents and friends are constantly telling her how successful, smart, funny, and great Anthony is. However, he only got his job through connections, never says anything witty, and isn't even shown at the astronomy club, his only social outlet.
  - Kate Beaton made fun of this once; Anthony is talking dirty to Liz, telling her that his love burns like a lukewarm drink, and that he's only been working at the gas station for like three years, but after ten years or so he will have been working there for like thirteen years. PS I liked the guy better when he had a mustache, at least then there was something interesting about the guy.
Charlie Brown in Peanuts claims that everyone hates him and he has no friends, even though Schroeder and Linus are clearly his friends, and although Lucy insults him, she also hangs around with him an awful lot. Also, all the neighborhood kids let him be manager and captain of the baseball team. Of course, this makes more sense when you know that the creator Charles M. Schulz, even when he had a wife, five children and millions of fans, still complained of being anxious and lonely.
- Depends on the strip: sometimes even Linus and Schroeder belittle him, and not in a Vitriolic Best Buds way. It's also been stated in the strip that Charlie Brown is the manager of the team because he's the only person who really cares about it that much (to the extent that he'd rather manage than eat).
Dennis the Menace, despite being regarded as such by his parents and neighbors, is hardly ever shown misbehaving at all anymore, no doubt due to parents complaining about him being a "bad example" or the fear thereof. But he was a real terror in the early days.
- [[Simpsons Bart Simpson]] was created specifically because Matt Groening remembered how disappointed he was with Dennis, and wanted to create one whose trouble making wasn't an Informed Ability
In Calvin And Hobbes, this is used for comedic effect. Calvin's imaginary alter ego Spaceman Spiff is constantly described as a tremendous pilot, superb marksman and all round brilliant space explorer, though he is almost constantly shot down and/or captured by aliens. Same with Stupendous Man; after yet another blunder, Hobbes asks Calvin if Stupendous Man ever won any battle. Calvin replies they are all "moral victories".

One of the few places this is put to good use is here. Example, if the fans hate a wrestler who doesn't do anything impressive, the commentators will often refer to the amazing technical ability he lacks, or at least doesn't show. They describe his skills when the man is clearly being out preformed by someone the fans actually like. If the locker room is lining up to kick his ass, make sure to mention how intimidating he is. Even better is to talk about the dedicated fans said wrestler doesn't have.

Happens often in tabletop RPGs, where a character might have a lot of points in charisma, intelligence, or wisdom, but will still be played like a boorish nincompoop because of player incompetence.
- In GURPS it's possible to take the advantage "Common Sense" to avoid this. The description says that if you do something outrageously stupid (like having your charismatic rogue urinate in the King's face) the GM has to mention it and let you decide on a different course of action.
- Some D&D rulebooks will discuss this as well - a character may have fantastic intelligence, wisdom, or charisma, but the player will have nothing of the sort. In that case, it's acceptable to just stick with ability checks in lieu of roleplaying. Or a DM can do what many D&D CRPGs do, nudging a mentally-endowed character appropriately toward correct solutions and insights, or warning them away from stupendous mistakes.
- Some games also suggest the GM allow players to Meta Game when playing a character smarter than themselves.
- There's a case of this applying to the game itself - the rulebooks repeatedly insist that D&D is balanced between players. Um... No.
It is interesting to read the original AD&D Dragonlance adventures and compare them with how the characters act in the novels. Laurana for instance is given an Intelligence score of 15, higher than anyone else other than Raistlin (in the books she's smart enough but not the near-genius this would make her). Conversely Flint has an Int of 7 (very stupid in AD&D terms, and certainly far dimmer than the character in the novels). Raistlin, the epitome of the sickly Squishy Wizard is given a Constitution of 10 - perfectly average.
Some Ravenloft Modules by their very nature cause Rudolph Van Richten to fall under this trope, considering a good number of the Quests involves the man getting tricked by any number of evil entities far more often then the 'Land's Premier Expert on Undead and Other Evil Horrors' really should be. It takes a skilled GM to not turn Van Richten into an unintentional Miles Gloriosus.
In Warhammer 40000 most of the lore you'll run into makes the Space Marines out to be the biggest badasses in the history of ever, but ingame in terms of stats and abilities they're pretty damned baseline.
- Do note however that this is entirely the point. Compared to Puny Humans Space Marines are the best of the best and the baddest of the bad. It's when compared to everyone else in the setting that they are shown to be average.
- 1d4chan's description of Abbadon says it best: "Abaddon the Despoiler is Horus' successor and is renowned as the single greatest threat to the Imperium in the galaxy. This says more about the Imperium than Abaddon as his raging incompetence is now well known. He has launched thirteen consecutive Black Crusades against the Imperium, every one of which has failed miserably. He will not revise his strategy, so don't ask."

In the musical Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim, we are frequently told that Franklin Shepard is a gifted Broadway composer. However, all of "Frank's" songs are of course written by Sondheim and so it's impossible to view Frank as a composing talent in his own right.
Likewise, in Sondheim's Sunday In The Park With George, Act II George is supposed to be an innovative artist (or "inventor-sculptor" as he thinks of himself), but all we see of his artwork is a stage prop that breaks down when he tries to activate it.
- But the point of Act II George is that he's worried his art is beginning to grow stale, as shown in his conversation with the art critic and the song "Lesson #8."

Gordon Freeman from Half Life is a theoretical physicist... yet the most technically advanced things he does in the series is push a cart, flip switches, and plug in equipment. Lampshaded by Barney Calhoun in the 2nd game when he says "Good job hitting that switch. I can see that MIT education really pays for itself." Of course, given that the games are first person shooters, it's understandable that this isn't one of his skills (because it would require players to have some kind of basic knowledge of theoretical physics). The second he does anything physics-related, he gets swapped up in gun-battles with soldiers, aliens, robots, and mutants, so it's not like he gets a chance to use his abilities.
Metal Gear Solid: Metal Gear RAY's ability to take down Metal Gear REX and its clones is either an informed ability, or in-universe false advertising. Wuss Raiden can take down multiple RAYs on foot with a rocket launcher in the same time it took Solid Snake to take out a single REX. When REX and RAY finally square off in MGS4, REX can take it down without too much difficulty.
- This is partially justified actually, since the RAYs that Raiden fought were somewhat downgraded to be cheaper to produce and were made to defend Arsenal Gear, not to fight REX. Also, it's implied that Snake having Otacon for support is enough to cancel out RAY's advantages. In point of fact, Otacon actually says via CODEC call that REX's close-combat ability isn't part of the original design and the designers installed it anyway, in secret, despite being told not to; RAY's design wouldn't take this ability into account, so while it would be perfectly effective against REX's knockoffs, also based on the design lacking in melee ability, the original REX itself has a major ability for which RAY has no countermeasure. Did any player actually beat RAY by shooting at it instead of kicking it to death?
- Snake's 180 IQ probably qualifies. His six languages almost count, had he not spoken French in one of the non-canon games and a single line in French in Metal Gear Solid 4.
  - Well, he's never had the opportunity to use the languages. As for the IQ, it's not always indicative of how smart a person it is, and both he and his father are shown to be naive on a lot of things.
In the non-existent Star Control 3, you are told over and over again how powerful The Eternal Ones are, and yet, you never actually fight them, even when you get to the end, expecting to at least be able to fight the big baddy in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. Instead, you meet up with the secretary of The Eternal Ones, who lost to the last secretary, and somehow have never been defeated before. Of course, this is found out after you defeat them with a single ship and no losses.
Godot apparently can do an excellent impression of a previous witness, but seeing as the games are text based all that happens is that his Leit Motif changes..
- Averted in a clever way with Lamiroir in Apollo Justice:Ace Attorney. She is considered a world-class singer, with an angelic voice. How do they put this on a DS game? They don't record vocals, and instead give her voice as a musical tone. The effect works, her voice sounds brilliant, but it isn't quite 'show don't tell', as it's clear each of those tones represents her voice.
  - And when they show it, it ain't so bad either.
In Fallout 3, your stats do have an impact on your interaction with the world outside the vault. In the tutorial in the vault, however, Butch (strength 5 out of maximum 10 according to the construction kit) will always attempt to bully, even if logic dictates that if you are stronger than him he is going to get his ass kicked if he provokes you. Neither will your charisma score affect your interactions with other vault dwellers in the slightest: even if you have 10 in Charisma, Amata will still be the only one in your age group that actually likes you, all others being hostile or indifferent.
Used for a gag in Megaman Battle Network 2; when a villain is captured, he expresses disbelief at how two kids could beat him, future head of Gospel (note: ego), with an IQ of 170. Chaud informs him "Your IQ of 170 didn't help you this time."
Leon Silverberg of Suikoden II is supposed to be perhaps the greatest strategists to ever live. Except we only see brilliance from his former student Shu, who is so terrified of Leon's unbeatable brilliance that he nearly kills himself to bring Leon down. Never mind that we never see Leon do anything all that special. Considering the mind-boggling brilliance of some of the strategists in the series, Leon is an extreme case of this trope.
Street Fighter is a fine example with this on Akuma's "Shun Goku Satsu" as it supposedly killed off M. Bison and Gouken. However as for Street Fighter 4 apparently both of those deaths were retconned. (Doesn't help that the fact that Akuma killed Bison in SF2 was the only canon result of that game.) Granted its been said on how that's only because while Street Fighter 3 is renowned with the fanbase its treatment of the cast has been rather... mixed.
- It's worse than that (and it has nothing to do with 3): The Hadoken, Shoryuken, and Tatsumakisenpukyaku were supposed to be killing techniques. Obviously, that being actually true would've made Street Fighter the least playable fighting game ever, not to mention all the continuuity nightmares. So it's later explained that what Ryu and Ken use are actually watered-down, less-lethal (nerfed) versions of the "actual" attacks. (The release of Mortal Kombat, which showed us what REAL killing techniques look like, may have had something to do with it as well.) The "Shin" in Shin Shoryuken, BTW, means "real", i.e. that's what a Shoryuken is in its pure, unnerfed form.
- The Shun Goku Satsu itself could also qualify as a sort of Informed TECHNIQUE. It's supposed to be a powerful killing move, yet the screen goes dark when the move lands so you don't see what's going on. Maybe it's to protect our sensitive eyes.
  - Both Street Fighter: the Animated Series and Street Fighter IV seem to imply that the actual technique is ~~just a glowing punch~~ a horrifically vicious barrage of glowing punches.
In Fate Stay Night, Saber has a rank in Charisma high enough to lead a country... yet she's quiet, expressionless and in fact is pointed out as being quite uncharismatic. It's why the people rebelled, after all. Gilgamesh is even more so considering he's actually a total jerkass.
Ramirez in Skies Of Arcadia is referred to as a brilliant strategist and tactician. However his strategies tend to simply be bombarding stationary or slow-moving targets into submission from afar. He's never actually seen to command a battle (occasionally just hanging back while his own ships or troops are destroyed and then either bombarding from afar or wading in and single-handedly taking down the heroes' party. He doesn't even take part in either of the game's climactic large-scale ship battles.
The wingmen you fly with in the Wing Commander games are all supposed to be truly badass veteran pilots, but with a relative few exceptions... well, they aren't.
- Except for Maniac; the stunts he pulls while wingman are in character for him.
In Viva Pinata, it is mentioned that the Eaglair "has earned respect through its natural nobility, tempered strength, and thumping great talons." Somehow that 'respect' doesn't seem to stop larger Pinatas from walking over it, and it's 'talons' are somewhat nonexistant due to the Eaglair's legs and feet being a pair of stumps.
In Monster Rancher Battle Card: Episode 2, you're allowed to lose as many times as you want because you're always wagering a "Critical" card, which Cue has a massive stack of. Every NPC seems quite interested in getting this card for themelves, going so far as betting fifteen other cards or one Monster Card (...and more skill cards) against it. Critical, however, isn't that good a card— it takes two GUTS to use, and adds two points to another attack (which can still be dodged or blocked). A lot of attacks have better GUTS-to-damage ratios, so it's often better to replace Critical with... just about any other card.
- To be fair, the card could be valuable in the sense that the card itself is very, very rare. In that case, it wouldn't matter what it did.
A lot of Pokemon have an Informed Ability in their Pokedex entry, which we never ever actually see, especially not after catching them. While many Ghost-type Pokemon are supposed to steal souls, some Psychic-types are supposed to be hyper-intelligent and empathic and able to rip apart time and space. Meanwhile, some legendaries are stated to be able to travel through time, wipe peoples memories, permanently paralize them or even kill them by merely looking in their eyes. In the end, all that's really impressive about them are their stats in battle... if you train them properly.
Averted in Boktai. Master Otenko is the representation of The Sun, and a guardian of the Solar System... but he makes it clear to Django in the first game that he can't fight. Indeed, Otenko does get his leafy stem handed to him on a regular basis. He gets better, though.
In Soul Calibur IV, Angol Fear, the "King of Terror" is said to weigh 1.44 tons, and be 14800 years old. Given that, you would think that she would be super strong, unjugglable, and more of a threat than all of the fighters in the game considering the knowledge she should have amassed. The character is Seong Mina. Not Shin Seong Mina or Seong Mina with a speed boost or a health boost or extra combos or power armor or juggle resistance or any discernible advantage whatsoever. It's just Seong Mina. Actually a little worse, because her weapon is slightly shorter than Seong Mina's, meaning that in a scant few cases, she doesn't have the range that Mina has.
In Lunar, one of the main characters is loved by her entire village for her singing voice. Unfortunately, they gave her a voice actress who doesn't measure up to the apparent reverence and occasionally hits a sour note.
João Franco playing the lute in Uncharted Waters: New Horizons. Although his leitmotif is called "Caprice for Lute".
Touhou characters possess a vast array of magical abilities, ranging from control of insects to being an intense luck charm to manipulation of wind to absolute mastery of borders, however as the genre of the games is Bullet Hell those abilities never appear in gameplay, which a few exceptions (like Utsuho throwing miniature suns at the player). This is given an in-story explanation with the implementation of the spell card rules, both providing the weaker denizens of Gensokyo a reasonable chance of success and preventing the stronger denizens from simply vaporising their opponents.
Celes Chere in Final Fantasy VI. No, she's not a Faux Action Girl, but she spends much more time pining over Locke than acting like someone who was once one of the Empire's top three generals—the other two being the Sacrificial Lion and the Big Bad. Most of the strategy (such as it is) gets handled by Edgar, while Celes firmly believes that a bandanna on a bird is a surefire sign of a lost party member. (This being a video game she ends up being right, but it's still kind of silly.)

Faye's being somewhat overweight was an Informed Ability in the early strips of Questionable Content; thankfully, Art Evolution has changed this.
Similarly, in Something Positive, we have to take cast members' word that Davan is as homely as they say, mostly due to Randy MilHolland's art style.
Dr. Narbon's mad science skills in Narbonic. Another character brings this up eventually.
Least I Could Do features Rayne, supposedly a master at picking up chicks. Yet virtually every strip featuring him hitting on a girl shows his asinine pick-up lines, childish behavior, and utter shoot-downs from the girls. 95% of the time, his hook-ups are only shown AFTER they've already happened. Sure, Rayne's supposed to be good-looking, but it's more than a little obvious the writer doesn't really know how a master pick-up artist works.
- Which moves from annoying to sad when you realize that Rayne is an admitted self-insert for the writer, who apparently actually tries to play this image up for himself as well as his comic counterpart.
- To be fair though the girls Rayne actually succeeds in getting with are either usually slutty, stupid, or dress slutty because they're too stupid to wear normal clothes. He tends to strike out with women of even moderate intelligence more often then not and those who he does sleep with normally only do after he befriends them through an act of kindness and after knowing him for years and seeing that he's not actually as much of a jerk as he pretends to be (most of the time anyway).
- This may be a problem of Rayne being the center of attention.
Kore from Goblins is supposedly a paladin who slaughters the innocent because he has a very warped concept of good and evil, but for some reason has not had his powers revoked (which defies the logic of the universe). But he has yet to demonstrate an actual paladin power. He doesn't use Summon Mount to ride around, he doesn't use Lay on Hands to heal himself after being injured, and he doesn't even use Smite Evil on the monsters he kills. The closest he's come was what appears to be a cleric spell, which considering the most likely candidate spell (Speak With Dead) doesn't have a material component, this seems to be an expendable-use wondrous item. Which suggests he either fell long ago, or never was a paladin to begin with, except in his deluded mind.
- More generally, the notion that the Goblins comic follows actual D&D rules is, by itself, an informed ability. Apart from the occasional Shout Out like having negative numbers float over a character's head, or the name-drop of some class term, in general whenever the D&D rules would actually make a difference to the story, the comic doesn't follow them.
One of Dominic Deegan's old classmates informs Luna that Dominic's Aloof Big Brother Jacob is a talented writer, something that is also never seen (though quite believable, considering his poetic way of speaking).
- Luna is supposedly The Chosen One because she managed to turn her tusk mouth curse into a blessing. Thing is, her tusks have been nothing but a burden and the fact that she thrives is in fact despite them.
Misho of Keychain Of Creation supposedly possesses supernaturally keen senses, but the only time this is brought up is when he misses something obvious, and he never actually seems to have better senses than the other party members. Except when he's using All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, but that's an Occult ~~skill~~ Charm, not an Awareness ~~skill~~ Charm.
- He's a Solar Exalted, nothing prohibits him from having a great stable of Charms. Nor does it prevent his player from forgetting all about them, as can happen, or his GM from forgetting to.
In Sonichu, Chris has given descriptions to each of the female characters' personalities, ranging from "smart and quick-wit" to "generic high-school girl personality." Of course, we never actually see any of this, since every female character is either interchangeable or useless.

In Tales Of MU, Amaranth seems to border on having Informed Flaws. Word Of God is that if the author had wanted to write a Mary Sue, it would have been Amaranth without the flaws. The problem is that while Amaranth's perspective on some matters is clearly skewed, her actual effect on the storyline is always extremely positive.
- Indeed, even her informed flaws are that she's not quite perfect. She's not quite as genius-level smart as she thinks she is, she's not quite perfectly adjusted, and she's not quite as sensitive and empathetic as someone perfect would be. Saying Amaranth has flaws is like saying that an M&M is less chocolatey than a Hershey's Kiss.
  - This, of course, assumes you don't subscribe to the Alternate Character Interpretation of Amaranth as a domineering self-important mini-tyrant who's only a positive influence on the main character because the alternative was even worse physical and emotional abuse.
  - The story itself pushes the "better alternative" informed trait, where clearly Mack would have become a complete introvert and probably offed herself or become Puddy's slave or something like that rather than just, you know, probably staying rather shy and keeping to herself for a few years. That everyone who's not some sneering asshole pushes the idea that Mack is better off routinely getting fucked and dominated in public and having her heritage known to all and sundry makes even Amaranth's relatively positive influence informed, no matter what character interpretation you use.
In lonelygirl15, the main characters have a strange tendency to panic whenever they see Lucy show up. As a sunglasses-wearing Order operative, there is reason to consider her dangerous by default, but she is treated as if she were the single deadliest person that could be thrown at them. She gets nastily proactive toward the end of the series, but before that point, her greatest known feat was physically restraining a smallish teenage girl.
- The behind-the-scenes InsideLG15 videos do include non-canon clips of Lucy shooting Danielbeast in the crotch and shooting P. Monkey in the head.
  - In general, the supporting material (this promotional photo◊, the above video's "Talk." moment) and brief moments in-canon make it clear what kind of image she's supposed to present. Maybe if she actually carried a gun on a regular basis...
Adonis Zorba of Survival Of The Fittest is played up as a awesome fighter, excelling in multiple fighting disciplines, however in his brief fight with plain-old boxer Bobby Jacks (admittedly a hulking Scary Black Man) Adonis came very close to getting his ass kicked. Notable also is that previously (in a pregame tournament) Bobby was defeated with relative ease by an opponent with far less 'fighting ability' than Adonis is touted to have.
- Dan Brent, of V3, is a decent example of this, as his every attempt to score kills fell horribly flat.
In Red Vs Blue Reconstruction, Washington concluded that Church was the Alpha partially based on the fact that he always agreed with Delta (read: the logic aspect of the AI in question). The singular time Delta made a conclusion in Church's presence that he ever commented on.

Inverted in Metalocalypse; Toki Wartooth, Dethklok's rhythm guitarist and almost-literal second-fiddle to Skwisgaar Skwigelf, has an entire episode devoted to his inability to play the guitar. However, the only time we actually hear him play during the episode, he's upstaging Skwisgaar during a concert and doing a good enough job of it to threaten his confidence. The rest of the time, he's not as good as Skwisgaar and there is considerable distance between them in terms of skill, but he's still the world's second-fastest guitarist.
- The general implication throughout the series seems to be that Toki plays the guitar entirely by instinct and muscle memory. If he actually is forced to THINK about it, say, by being handed some sheet music (which he cannot read) or by being called out on his skills by others, then he falls apart and can't play. He plays guitar by not thinking about playing guitar.
- In an interview, Skwisgaar says that Toki was given the title Second-Fastest Guitarist as a booby prize after he was declared World's Fastest, though whether or not that's just Skwisgaar being a primadonna and an asshole is up for debate.
Professor Dementor from Kim Possible is said to be such a great villain that compared to him Dr. Drakken is even more of a joke. (Though at least Dementor invents his own doomsday devices.) But in the end he's foiled just as easily as Drakken, sometimes even more easily.
- It doesn't help his case that the rather weak Team Impossible managed to beat Dementor just as easily as they beat Drakken.
- In fact, it could be reasonably argued that Dementor is actually worse than Drakken, between Drakken actually having a good number of near victories under his belt (particularly in ''So the Drama''), and Shego.
Inversion in Home Movies. Especially in the last season, everyone criticizes the main character's movies as being horrible, but they're actually pretty good, even by adult standards - and the characters doing them are pre-teens.
Parodied in Family Guy during the episode where Peter writes pornographic novels. Everyone absolutely loves them, and they become a major hit, which would normally leave the audience wondering how Peter could possibly write anything halfway readable; however, the episode takes every possible opportunity to read excerpts from Peter's work, confirming that his writing is, in fact, downright abysmal.
Raven from Teen Titans, the Emotionless Girl, was said to have to be emotionless to prevent her powers from going out of control. This was shown precisely twice, with most of the series showing her expressing varying degrees of emotion (and even falling in love in one episode) with no apparent problem. She did become a more developed character for it, albiet by ignoring the limitation instead of finding ways to work around it.
- The only emotions ever shown affecting her powers seem to be rage, which she sublimates into anti-social sarcasm rather than temper tantrums. When she does get angry, though...
- The episode about her fear running amok would seem to imply that it's more important for her to acknowledge and control her emotions rather than to be completely empty of them. And remember, whenever it's said that she has to be emotionless or go out of control, it's Raven saying that, and she's repeatedly shown to be pretty down on herself and her abilities. Since it's her, and not some outside source of absolute canon speaking on her powers, she can be assumed to be an Unreliable Narrator about their nature.
Ben 10 devoted two episodes to his future persona Ben 10,000, who was established as having obtained that many alien forms on the Omnitrix. Between the two episodes, he and his son use fewer than twenty of them total, and only three couldn't be found on Ben's watch in the present day. And that's ignoring Alien Force...
- Possibly justified: he may be just using the forms he's most familiar with. As Bruce Lee said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
In an episode of Rockos Modern Life, Rocko and Heffer have to watch over Filburt's pet myna bird Turdy, whom he claims has a beautiful singing voice. We see no evidence of this throughout the episode, as all he does is squawk.
Played for laughs in Futurama, where the window wipers of the car from Knight Rider were the most evil window wipers in the world. It just didn't come up much in the show.
Also played for laughs in The Simpsons episode, "Lisa's Wedding" where we meet Lisa's first love (or at least, first fiancée), in which Hibbert comments of Maggie, "She's quite a hellion but she does have an incredible voice." The closest thing she ever got to saying anything on screen was when Marge interrupted her when she spoke with her mouth full. (Or for that matter, immediately after Hibbert's quote, where said fiancée cuts her off when she's asked to sing.)
In the Phineas And Ferb episode "Finding Mary McGuffin", Mr. Fletcher described Dr. Doofensmirtz as having "some sort of German accent". Despite one use of the word "dummkopf" later on, there's nothing German about his accent.
From Avatar The Last Airbender, we have what's more a case of implied ability in the case of Fire Lord Ozai. As the man who raised Azula (and kept her under control, by far the more difficult feat) and stole the throne out from under his brother Iroh, one would expect Ozai to logically be a Magnificent Bastard in his own right, or at least a Chessmaster. Due to his role in the story, however, he never gets a chance to demonstrate this, or really do anything at all until the finale, at which point he's too drunk on power to think clearly in any case.
It's suggested multiple times in Darkwing Duck that Doctor Slug is St. Canard's most dangerous villain. Darkwing never faces Doctor Slug in a single episode.
Winx Club, 4Kids: In one of the S1 episodes, Musa talks to two background students Ortensia and Priscilla about having to work together to save Alfea, letting drop that Ortensia has the best counterspell skills and that no one can fly as fast as Priscilla. Which would be nice for the final battle, except that, well, they're background characters. (Original: She's only talking about how everyone has a part, without any abilities being mentioned.)
- If we're mentioning Musa, might as well also let drop that in another S1 ep has Flora mention before an exam that Musa gets the best grades out of the Winx.^*
  ^{(Her exact words differ slightly... Original: "Give us a break, we all know you're a straight A student." 4K: "I'm sure you'll be fine. You've got the best grades out of all of us.")}
  It's a break from the usual expectation of having the tech whiz be the straight A student, but not only do the writers never use this fact, at least one scene actually seems to be inconsistent with it (read main post, then 2nd reply).^*
  ^{(Incidentally, the 4Kids dub of the scene in question doesn't have this problem, as the dialog goes: "I competed in the All-Realm Magic Games. In fact, I was the first female black belt gold medalist." "And what year was that?" "It was 20 years ago, but I can still fight like a champion!")}
  Point is, the writers have never done anything that would require Musa to really show off her smarts.

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