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 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). In short, she's the poster child for Necessary Fail.
- 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 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.
- An odd version occurs in Yugioh 5D's. All of the Big Bad Eldritch Abominations have card forms. They all have the same overall effects of being almost invincible and then they each have a special effect after that. Ccarayhua never uses that second effect and the only reason we know about it is because it was released in actual card form and had the extra effect.
- 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.
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.
- Well, she does beat the crap out of Arf, once. And kill off a load of unnamed TSAB soldiers. Still, nothing that any other named character (Except maybe Yuuno) couldn't have done just as easily.
- 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! What part of that is not badass? 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 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 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.
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 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.
  - Then again, that demon god was still apparently stronger than Fate is, if you believe Rakan. Who blatantly lies. This troper has to wonder if Evangeline and Nagi actually ever had a real fight. After all, Eishun helped him with the Demon God, and Eva oneshotted it.
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.
- 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.
Koukin Shuuyu from Ikki Tousen is seen rather often lying on his back, implying he got beaten op, for someone who is claimed to be a very strong martial artist.
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..."

Close Anime

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.
  - Not really Green Arrow's willpower wasn't "refine" and didn't know how to use it.
  - This was sort of the feeling I got from the old DC Heroes RPG. There a Green Lantern's ability to make their ring do anything they will is represented by a power called Omni-Power. To use it you choose the power you want to mimic, then spend a number of Hero Points equal to the amount it costs to buy that power on a permanent basis. The catch is that even when you complete a really challenging adventures with dire consequences, you don't really get that many Hero Points as a reward, and the more exotic/unusual a power is the more it tends to cost. Whereas they can use their "make glowy objects" power with impunity. Bottom line, while that ability is handy, it's not good to rely on it.
- 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.
  - Wouldn't the world's greatest assassin be the one who can most efficiently actually kill people, with the least personal risk?
  - No. It's the one that can do the above and have absolutely no one suspect he was remotely connected.
  - Also some DCU "assassins" are superhumans. No one would realistically expect even the greatest human fighter in the world to be able to compete with someone who happens to be bulletproof or can turn immaterial or something crazy like that.
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.

Close Comic Book

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.
- The examples everyone cites for Stormtrooper inaccuracy, the Death Star, is when the Empire expressly let them escape. Killing them would have been counterproductive. Say what you will about other plot holes. ;D Same goes with Empire Strikes Back, where firing at the main characters would have been detrimental. And everyone always points to the Ewoks Beating Them in Return of the Jedi, when, in fact, the Ewoks were losing the battle within minutes and it was only Chewie in a walker that saved the day.
- 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.
- Stormtroopers in certain parts of the Star Wars Expanded Universe might have something to say about that characterization...
- 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 - 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.
- 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.
In Flashdance, 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.
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.
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 maker her sound bad. This is a case of "Informed Inability."
- 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...
- Can we not 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.
Deckard in Blade Runner is, or was, supposed to be one of the best blade runners 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 the super-soldier Roy Batty. The only other blade runner we see in action fares much worse than Deckard.
- This is important - the Nexus-6 has only just been created and in some versions of the film Deckard and Bryant are unsure if the Voight-Kampff machine will even work on them. It does - barely.
Averted in the film Center Stage with the character of Maureen, played by Susan May Pratt. Pratt had little to no actual skill at dancing, despite her attempts to learn ballet for the role. As a result, when Maureen is actually dancing, we never see her from the waist up and the dancing is actually being done by a body double.
"...they get better."

Close Film

I have a hard time believing Thufir Hawat, from Dune, alleged Master of Assassins, hasn´t been posted here. For God´s sake, he 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 ). I´ve read the six original books and the prequel trilogy, and haven´t found even ONE action that would make him deserve the "Master of Assassins" title.
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.
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.
- Of course, Shakespeare and Obama aren't inhuman jackal-born demon-men with psychic powers. That kind of changes the game. If a Jedi walked in and did that "Jedi Mind Trick" gesture and started reading the phone book, you'd think he was the greatest public speaker in history.
  - Mind you, there are lots of people who do believe Obama is the Antichrist. I am not making this up.
- 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.
  - Slacktivist has a funny analysis of the novel, showing how truly incompetent Le Haye is at writing, especially in areas he Did Not Do The Research and You Fail Geography Forever.
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
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.
  - Well she does say at one point that she left Goyle with "large flying bogies" attacking him...
  - 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 all fairness to Dawlish, in two of those confrontations he's up against Albus Dumbledore. Given that their are all of two other wizards in the world who are known to be a rough match for Dumbledore, this doesn't make Dawlish particularly weak.
- 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!
  - Being good at math doesn't make you a strategic genius, and quite intelligent people are more than capable of doing stupid things, especially in the name of hubris. Indeed, it's made pretty clear that Voldemort is someone who got too powerful in too short a time, from childhood he had the ability to hurt people badly and never had a proper positive influence to help him (Dumbledore arrogantly thought that his object lesson with the wardrobe and Hogwarts corrective measures would be sufficient, and was wrong.) Dumbledore is sympathetic to him because Voldemort is every inch an insecure coward, whose overwhelming fears and personally perceived inadequacies led to dangerous and destructive complexes. This isn't to disentangle Voldemort from responsibility for his actions, even if no one ever punctured his overweening arrogance while there was still time, he still made all those decisions and certainly deserved death in the end.
  - Also keep in mind that Voldemort was the most brilliant student ever seen at a school for magic. No one ever questions or is given reason to doubt his magical brilliance, but at the same time no one ever really makes him out to be a Magnificent Bastard either. They're afraid of him because he's powerful and evil, not because he's brilliant. Also keep in mind that he's been getting steadily more Axe Crazy the more horcruxes he makes...
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.
  - In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson is even complimented by Holmes on the quality of the prelimary detective work he performed while Holmes was otherwise disposed.
- 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.
- Also, while this may be along the lines of an Informed Flaw, Holmes is stated to have no knowlegde of anything that doesn't relate to his work. He is, for example, so uninterested in astronomy that he neither knows nor cares if the sun orbits the earth or vice versa.
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.
- 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...yeah.
- 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 [1] 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, 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...
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.
P D James's detective Adam Dalgleish was supposed to be a critically acclaimed poet on the side. We never, however, see any examples of his poetry.
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.

Close Literature

Kirk, the (apparent) child shaman on The Mighty Boosh is questioned by Saboo about some disagreeable aspects of his personality, including being "a vehicular menace," and "an erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind," to which he always answers (in a separate shot) "yes." He also has attributed to him drug-taking abilities beyond those of 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.
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.
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).
- It's entirely possible that the Tal'Shiar were in on the assassination of the senate (since, after all, the military was)
- Except that the Next Generation shows that the military and the Tal Shiar don't get along making them the last people likely to be in on a navy assisted coup (the same episode further evidences the weakness of the Tal Shiar by showing them infiltrated by the Romulan underground movement).
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 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.
- 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 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.
- 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, 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.

Close Live Action TV

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."
  - Have you read some best-selling novels? Two words: Stephenie Meyer.
- 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 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 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.
Calvin And Hobbes. Calvin's imaginary alter ego Spaceman Spiff is constantly described as a tremendous pilot, superb marksman and all round brilliant space explorer. Now count the number of times he has been shot down and/or captured by aliens. Though this is probably intentional for comedic effect.
- Ditto in the case of "Stupendous Man". Lampshaded when after yet another blunder, Hobbes asks Calvin if Stupendous Man ever won any battle. Calvin replies he only had "moral victories".

Close Newspaper Comics

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.

Close Professional Wrestling

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.
It is interesting to read the original AD&D Dragonlance adventures and compare them with the way 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 40K 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.
- That's entirely a play consideration. White Wolf DID publish rules for Proper Marines in one of their magazines (but only the US version, oddly) called Movie Marines. A single full squad cost as much as your average army. It could also defeat your above average army.
- Plus basically all the lore is supposed to be Imperial propaganda. Of course the Imperium is going to claim their soldiers are the best of the best.
- 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."

Close Tabletop Games

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."

Close Theatre

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.
- Um, what? There's no point in putting a scientist on grunt work exclusively, totem pole or not. His education is a hard-won skill that demands a lot of money to hire out, so he's going to be used. No, in all likelihood, he was just on hand at those moments and never got a chance to get to his labwork by simple fact of early doom.
- Why on earth would anyone put a doctor of theoretical physics to participate in an experiment of applied physics is anybody's guess, however.
  - Because at Black Mesa there's not such thing as theoretical work. You go out and do it.
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.
  - Well, he's never had the opportunity to use them. 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..
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...
  - what strategy, they got a tip were he would be and just jumped him.
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.
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.
- 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, exspecially not after catching the. 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.

Close Video Games

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.
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.
- 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 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).
- Er, the above troper is, of course, aware that Dominic conducts huge Batman Gambits, often while pretending that he's completely oblivious, fooling even a number of readers of his role in the events, correct?
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.

Close Webcomics

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.

Close Web Original

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.
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.
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 . . .
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 Rockos Modern Life 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.
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 future episode where we meet Lisa's first love (or at least, first fiancée), they comment about Maggie is always yammering and how she's got a beautiful singing voice. The closest thing she ever got to saying anything on screen was when Marge interrupted her when she spoke with her mouth full.
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.

Close Western Animation

Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing Help

Tools

Toys

Examples: