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Picard asks Troi for her opinion, and in the most shameless example of Informed Attributes I think I've ever seen, Troi outlines, describes, and explains the entire character of Okona for us. "His emotions suggest he's mischievous, irreverent, and somewhat brazen! The word that seems to best describe him is 'rogue'." This! Is! How you will feel about this character! Live it, love it, learn it! Okona: The Freshmaker! Keep in mind, none of this will turn out to be true about Okona. At least, not from anything we'll actually see.
A character's skill and abilities are frequently mentioned by the cast, but are apparently nonexistent in practice. (This trope is the reason why writers are frequently told to "show, don't tell" the readers.)
This has less to do with a show's budget constraints and more to do with sketchy writing. This is becoming slightly less common due to the increase in technical consultants for some shows.
This is more common with "inner" abilities such as intelligence, charisma, cunning, etc. than the kind that can be simulated by special effects. Can also occur with creative abilities - such as painting, dancing, writing, and especially music. When a "creative" character is introduced and said to be very talented, the actual things they produce usually can't live up to the hype when actually presented to the audience, but we're not supposed to notice that. The issue being that unless you've actually hired the greatest writer/painter/musician/dancer in the world to do their work, the viewer might become underwhelmed by the actual product. There can also be issues with the media the story is being told in - a great novelist in a movie or a great singer in a book literally can't demonstrate their skill to the audience, so we must be told instead.
This is sometimes frustrating to the audience, because they know they are being played with. But it usually works when it is deliberately silly, such as (from Buffy The Vampire Slayer) the Fyarl demon's "mucus" power, which is referred to but never employed.
A variation is when RPG characters are built up to be huge villains in their profiles, making it crystal clear they will show up, and then turn out to be a Joke Boss. (The nature of the RP, though, is at least partially to blame for this.)
By definition, Faux Action Girls have Informed Abilities, as do many Designated Heroes.
Lets Get Dangerous is when this ability is finally manifested. If the ability is revealed at all, then it ceases to be Informed Ability and may become Chekhovs Skill.
See Informed Flaw for when this trope is applied to a character's shortcomings. Contrast Stylistic Suck, when the character's abilities are below those of the writers or actors. Compare Smart Ball, for a demonstrated ability that we were never informed of.
This should not be confused with situations in which the rest of the cast ascribe an ability to a character that he does not actually possess because they do not truly know the character. This is not necessarily an Informed Ability but more of a case of The Boo Radley.
Not to be confused with Take Our Word For It, which is when the writers deliberately don't show it because they know they can't do it justice.
Writers will often attempt to improve a character's fortunes not by having them demonstrate their abilities, but by having the other characters engage in Shilling The Wesley and discuss how awesome the character is because of them. This never works.
A Sub Trope of Show, Don't Tell.
Examples
Anime
- 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 actually see in their entirety (except against Jean Claude-Magnum, and that was filler).
- In her defense, the only other duels we've seen her in were against Jonouchi/Joey (who needed to win to get some Character Development), Yugi (who is a Boring Invincible Hero), and Marik (who was the Big Bad of the season and naturally needed to fight Yugi, so losing to Mai was out of the question). She DID lose against Panik in an unseen duel, but he apparently applied psychological warfare aginst her (read: scared the crap out of her) to throw her off her game (of course, this didn't even slow down Yugi, but again, Boring Invincible Hero). Well, there WERE some duels in season 4, but being a rather crappy season and Filler to boot, it's to be taken with a grain of salt (or forgotten completely).
- 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. Finaly, when the Abridged Series got around to that one duel she did win, Tea excalimed, "I can't believe we found a duelist even worse than Mai!"
- In The Yu-Gi-Oh GX Manga, 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.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann establishes that the Grapearls developed during the Time Skip are a significant advancement over the Gunmen. Too bad the only opponents seen post-timeskip are the Anti-Spiral forces, which the Gunmen were designed to fight, and the only advancement the Grapearls display is the ability to explode really, really quickly.
- This is, of course, pointed out moments into the first fight that involves both Gurren Lagann and Grapearls.
- Also, this all doesn't apply to Gimi and Dari's Grapearls, thanks to them being equipped with Plot Armor.
- Note also that the one making this claim is Rossiu, who has... some blank spots in his genre savviness. Also, they were developed by taking their (limited) knowledge of the Ganmen and improving it a bit, so naturally they'd think newer = better. How would they know Ganmen were built specifically for fighting Anti-Spirals?
- 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).
- 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.
- To be fair, Bankai was the end-all-be-all form obtainable only by a select few for several millennium, it's only recently that the Arrancar and Vizard have made the ability obsolete. Consider, too, that the number of characters who have legitimately learned Bankai is about 20 to 25 characters in a series focusing on super-elite characters - all the Arrancar have attained Bankai through artificial means, which explains why so many are pathetically weak - and Ichigo and Renji learning Bankai in such short times is unheard of amongst Soul Reapers. It's sort of like the Akkadians with iron weapons in a bronze-age world... absolute beatdown, until everyone else figures out how to do it, too - then it's a massive free-for-all orgy of beatdown all around.
- Of course, this is the logical continuation of Dragon Ball Z's "Super Saiyan for everyone" trend.
- Bleach also has the 9th Espada, Aaroniero Arruruerie, who has the ability to absorb dead Hollows and steal their powers and abilities for himself. While fighting Rukia, he gloats that he has so far consumed 33,650 hollows ; and not only that, in his released form he can manifest any and all of these stolen powers at will. "Fighting me," he claims, "is like FACING AN ARMY OF 33,650 HOLLOWS!" He then proceeds to manifest a sum total of none of these powers over the course of the rest of the battle - unless every Hollow he's eaten so far only has the ability to smack things with tentacles.
- Also occurs with 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.
- 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 Black Box 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 get 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 Todoh who is described as a great general but anytime his in a leadership position disaster will strike, the most obvious is the season finale where he manages to get nearly his entire army either dead or captured. Code Geass was quite big on informing of someone's genius outside of Lelouch.
- Twenty Faces from The Daughter Of Twenty Faces is supposed to be very cunning, yet any detective or villain worth his salt should be able to see right through his tricks and be prepared, especially since he keeps pulling the same stuff. Twenty steals your bullets? Carry extra or bring an extra gun—or a knife. Twenty wants to bring a little girl with him on your vulnerable submarine? Refuse her. Twenty and his gang always escape with their airship? Have fighter planes ready to intercept it. It's not so hard.
- 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.")
- 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.
- He's 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 supposed do be a step above Jonin, 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 however, they're degraded to mook status, those formerly Bad Ass masks now cementing their status as Cannon Fodder.
- 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.
- To be fair, Negi was a lot stronger, and faster than them. They later on admit to being overwhelmed by his power.
- 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.
- 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.
- This is probably allowable though, since Asuka's prodigy status, like her backstory and temperment, are probably just part of the show's deconstruction of anime tropes.
- Once the Earth Shattering Kaboom abilities of Frieza (and to some extent, even Master Roshi several story arcs before) were demonstrated in Dragonball Z, every villain tends to fall into this pattern, as actually using their ever-increasing destructive abilities would quickly end the series. We have to assume the androids are capable of far more destruction than Frieza, though the only evidence is that they effortlessly defeat a hero who'd effortlessly defeated Frieza. Their villainous successor Cell says that he can destroy an entire star system and, though there's really no reason to doubt him, we don't see him do anything close to it. Even the uber-villain Buu, a being described as having annihilated most of the universe in ancient times, sticks to destroying planets: he simply does so with more reckless disregard than earlier villains.
- 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.
- Ikki Tousen Koukin Shuuyu, it is said that he is suppose to be a strong capable martial artist. Though if he is ever involved in a fight good luck finding a scene where he isn't seen lying down implied that he got beaten up.
Comic Book
- 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 thusly will create giant mechs, video game characters, robots, and other fun things that were not glowing boxing gloves. (Except in that once 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.
- 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. To this troper's knowledge, 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.
Film
- 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.
- In Star Wars, Obi-Wan and Luke are at the site of a recent desert battle. It was apparently a victory for the Sand People, but Obi-Wan observes that the attackers were "too accurate" to have been Sand People: "only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise." Yes, those graduates of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.
- This makes even less sense in light of The Phantom Menace, in which Tusken Raiders shoot a podracer going 900 mph. So clearly, they can't shoot up a huge sandcrawler going 3 mph. Then again, Kenobi does lie. A lot
 . This might explain the problem.
- Speaking of Star Wars, you'd be hard-pressed to find a clearer example of this trope in the Expanded Universe than the ruefully incapable Admiral Daala. 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, 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.
- Even Anakin falls victim to this, throughout all three prequel movies. His potential to be an even greater Jedi than Yoda is revealed via a blood test in the first movie, 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, or fighting offscreen, or evenly matched 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. Averted somewhat by the EU, particularly both of the Clone Wars animated series, which showcase Anakin's role as a One Man Army.
- 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, although his strategies are only Zerg Rushes.
- Well when all you have is a hammer (swarms of idiot droids), then everything starts to look like nails (squishy meat creatures).
- The main character of I Know Who Killed Me is supposed to be a great writer and piano player. Supposed to be.
- 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, as far as this troper can recall.
- This troper found Viper fitting that role far better (what with her being the only one on the team to be nice to Po, and all). The only thing that stands out about Crane is being an ass over how Po was in his room the first night.
- 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. For this ballet-trained Troper, 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.
- 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.
- Used for comedic purposes 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.
- Sort of an inversion (an informed inability, if you will): In The Phantom Of The Opera (the movie), workers in the opera house are seen stuffing cotton into their ears while Carlotta is singing. Never mind that she is a MUCH better singer than Emmy Rossum, whose voice would never fill a hall that size. The singing voice of Carlotta in the movie just employs some tasteless scoops to maker her sound bad; the singing itself is legit.
- The singing ability of the Phantom himself, as played by Gerard Butler, is also debatable — it's noted at the film's writeup under Narm — which isn't good when the character's voice is described by Christine as transcendently beautiful, and a reason she believed he was the Angel of Music. Combined with his ugliness turning out to be a case of mere Hollywood Homely, it's no wonder the movie left the musical's fandom with a Broken Base.
Literature
- 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."
- 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.
- Cameron "Buck" Williams of Left Behind 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 is described as being an amazing orator, even though his speeches consist of him reading long lists of countries and the history of the United Nations. Granted, he does have mind control powers, but still. Here's a direct quote from the books:
"...he casually worked in the name of every secretary-general from Trygve Lie of Norway to Ngumo and mentioned their terms of office not just by year but also by specific day and date of their installation and conclusion... Then he swept through the 18 U.N. agencies, mentioning every one, its current director, and its headquarters city. This was an amazing display, and suddenly it was no wonder this man had risen so quickly in his own nation, no wonder the previous leader had stepped aside."
- Try as he might, this troper cannot possibly conceive of a speech, even one spoken by Barack Obama and written by Shakespeare, that would sound impressive including the names of every past President and the date of each inauguration. Unless he was giving a history lecture.
- Yeah but Obama and Shakespeare had to go on talent and charisma, instead of being demonic anti-christs mind control powers. I'm sure if, say, a Jedi started reading a phone book while making that little "Jedi Mind Trick" hand sign we'd all say it was the greatest speech ever given...
- It also falls flat in attempting to impress the reader with Carpathia's memory, since any important UN official should know who's who. It's like being impressed that the President knows who's in his own cabinet.
- Well, with the last guy we might have been...
- 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.
- 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.
- This troper always thought of it as an ongoing Noodle Incident, where we're left to wonder just what it could possibly look like.
- We're never shown the effects of the spell on it's own, but in one of the books (the one where there's a brief thaumaturgical scuffle on the train at the end) it appears to have combined with someone else's hex to give Goyle little tentacles all over his face.
- Actually, it was a combination of George's Jelly-Legs Jinx and Harry's Furnunculus Curse
- Don't forget poor Dawlish who supposedly got straight O's in his NEW Ts, yet loses to everyone he tries to go up against.
- In Vampirates, Grace is constantly described as the smart twin, yet her brother figures out that she's on the ship with the titular creatures before she does even though he's never seen them.
- Dr. Watson is supposed to have 130 IQ, probably to show how, insanely smart Sherlock Holmes is by comparison.
- Watson being a dumb schlub is largely Adaptation Decay, though; in the originals he's only that way compared to Holmes, not compared to everyone.
- The idea that Watson had a specific IQ is entirely fanon. There was no such thing as an IQ test for adults during Arthur Conan Doyle's life, so he would never have specified it.
- Karen Harper's Elizabeth I Mysteries series is full of characters with Informed Ability, possibly because the author's real intent may be to produce anti-science and anti-medicine propaganda in the guise of mystery novels. The worst is her character Meg the Herb Strewing Mistress, who despite being said to be brilliant, caring, loving, etc., actually acts selfish and stupid throughout the entire series. Of course, the actual mysteries are pretty bad, but this troper supposes it's futile to expect a good evidence-based mystery from someone who apparently thinks evidence-based medicine is the purview of cruel psychopathic murderers.
- 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.
- 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.
- The Sword Of Truth in the book series by the same name is described in the first book as having a magical punishment for each time a human is killed with it; the wielder is supposedly forced to see the event from their victim's point of view, seeing all their own faults and shortcomings. However, this never seems to happen. The first time is supposedly different, dealing physical instead of emotional pain, and so it seems when Richard does kill an assassin with the sword. However, the punishments and pains and points of view are never mentioned in the series again after this one time.
- Thrawn in the Star Wars Expanded Universe is a good example of why this happens. He's supposed to be a brilliant general, but most of those writing him aren't tactical experts, so they must either leave his abilities vague, or give his opponents an Idiot Ball.
- 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...
Live Action TV
- 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.
- 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. As one reviewer put it, 30 Rock makes it look incredible that any show, good or bad, gets made.
- 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.
- 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).
- In Hex, it is repeatedly stated that the ghost Thelma is not solid and will pass through anything living that she touches. This is never actually shown at any point in the series, nor do they spend any time establishing that she can handle inanimate objects (as she frequently does) without breaking the rules. An Informed Inability.
- And just how does A GHOST phone the Samaritans anyway? And where did she get the phone?
- 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 comprised 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.
- 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 Savedbythe 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.
- 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.
- 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, 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.
Newspaper Comics
- In the comic strip 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 on the strip web site, are filled with implausible and maudlin situations, and insightful lines like "The living buried the dead."
- 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 thteen years. PS I liked the guy better when he had a mustache, at least thene 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 neighbourhood 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).
Tabletop Games
- 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 CRP Gs 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.
- This troper, when D Ming, follows the rule that if the character has a high ability score and the player makes at least an attempt to work it (for instance, befriending people if high charisma, having intellectual interests if high intelligence) then that counts for a lot, but if they don't it falls flat. Neither NP Cs nor other players will love the cha 18 sorcerer if he's constantly acting like a jerk, for instance.
Theatre
- 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."
- In Wicked this is done to Elphaba with the Ozzians attributing all sorts of abilities, from skin-shedding to extra eyes to never sleeping, to her when what she actually turns out to be is a moderately powerful witch with a knack for obscure languages.
Video Games
- 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).
- Arguably justified in that at the beginning of the first game, he is just starting his career and hasn't worked his way above the "grunt work" level of the totem pole. After that he's too busy being an action hero to put a stop to the narrative and make the player solve some physics equations.
- 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 the Super Prototype RAY finally square off in MGS 4, REX can take it down without too much difficulty.
- This is partially jutified actually, since the RAYs that Raiden fought were somewhat downgraded to be cheaper to produce. These particular ones 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 that RAY has no countermeasure for. Did any player actually beat RAY by shooting at it instead of kicking it to death?
- The RAY that REX fights is not the prototype; it doesn't have the prototype's distinctive tail. Look closely at the RAY units Outer Haven deploys later, and they all have the same two-eyed design as the one REX fights, so the two-eyed design isn't indicative of a RAY not being AI-driven like the one-eyed production models in Sons of Liberty. The original RAY built by the Marines to be a REX-killer is unaccounted for.
- 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.
- 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.
- In ''Mother 3', Kumatora is universally described as strong, tough, and masculine, and off-screen, is capable of single-handedly smacking down two bodyguards that the player (playing as Lucas) isn't even allowed to approach because they're too dangerous, but she's still a squishy wizard and still does less than half the melee damage that Lucas does (and around half to three-quarters damage output with nearly all her spells in comparison with PK Love.)
- Except for awesome moves that blast the enemy over and over again, like higher-leveled PK Thunder or the almighty PK Ground.
- Mario and Luigi, the famous Mario Brothers, are known far and wide as professional Plumbers that keep getting caught up in various adventures. Except that we haven't actually seen them do *any* plumbing in any of the scores of games we have seen them in over the last 25 years! Sure they jump into pipes a lot, but they never actually unclog anything or stop anything from leaking. Too busy racing stock cars apparently....
- The cartoons avoid this, and on occasion show the pair doing some plumbing, or using their plumbing equipment to help in their adventures.
- In Superstar Saga, you have to fix the Beanbean Castle's plumbing system. Granted, it involves hammering stuff, but you still have to plug leaks.
- To be fair, the game Mario Bros. (which predates Super Mario Bros., to my knowledge) does have you fighting monsters among pipes in a sewer...
- 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.
- Uh... how about being the guy who devised most things about the strategy to kill Luca Blight? It's very unlikely that either Shu or Jowy can devise that alone without his help...
- Averted in a clever way with Lamiroir in Phoenix Wright. 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.
- 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 SF 2 was the only canon result of that game.) Granted its been said on how thats only because while Street Fighter 3 is renowned with the fanbase its treatment of the cast has been rather... mixed.
- 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. A master at throwing Dark daggers, True Assassin? Did you ever hit anyone with one? Dark Saber is tougher than normal Saber at least in terms of combat? Loses to Shirou 1v1; granted, it's in a bad end because he cause himself brain damage but.... A Shirou with only Projection because he can't use UBW. Even with UBW and being much more competent Archer had to settle for a draw against normal Saber. Oh, and Berserker. Six deaths against Archer and then seven more to in one blow against Saber/Shirou and that's before he starts jobbing.
- 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.
Webcomics
- Faye's being somewhat overweight was an Informed Ability in the early strips of Questionable Content; thankfully, Art Evolution has changed this.
- 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)
- Feng from Sluggy Freelance is supposed to be a Badass Grandpa, but is never actually shown in combat.
- Averted in a recent storyline. He fights (and outwits) Kusari bare-handed without suffering even a scratch, before he jumps out a window to his opponent's doom, making a mistake that gets him captured.
- 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, like Summon Mount or Lay on Hands or even Smite Evil. 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.
- One of Dominic Deegan's old classmates informs Luna that Dominic is an impressive actor, though all we see of it is Dom attempting to "kill" said classmate. She also states 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).
Web Original
- 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.
Western Animation
- 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 easy as Drakken, sometimes even easier.
- It doesn't help his case that the rather weak Team Impossible managed to beat Dementor just as easy as they beat Drakken.
- A rare case of this in reverse is 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.
- 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 . . .
- 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...
- In an episode of RockosModernLife Rocko and Heffer have to watch over Filburt's pet myna bird Turdy whom he claims has a beautiful singing voice, and yet we see no evidence of this throughout the episode as all he did was sqwack.
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