Troperville
Help us survive. All donations are anonymous on the wiki and unacknowledged, as we don't wish to create a hierarchy among Tropers.
Editing
Tools
|
Picard asks Troi for her opinion, and in the most shameless example of Informed Attributes I think I've ever seen, Troi outlines, describes, and explains the entire character of Okona for us. "His emotions suggest he's mischievous, irreverent, and somewhat brazen! The word that seems to best describe him is 'rogue'." This! Is! How you will feel about this character! Live it, love it, learn it! Okona: The Freshmaker! Keep in mind, none of this will turn out to be true about Okona. At least, not from anything we'll actually see.
A character's skill and abilities are frequently mentioned by the cast, but are apparently nonexistent in practice. (This trope is the reason why writers are frequently told to "show, don't tell" the readers.)
This has less to do with a show's budget constraints and more to do with sketchy writing. This is becoming slightly less common due to the increase in technical consultants for some shows.
The trope can also be used to allow a character to be made weaker if they are too powerful to be put in danger reliably. Informed abilities are the first to get nerfed. Many Ineffectual Loners have Informed Abilities.
Waif Fu is a popular informed ability to convince us a 100-pounds-when-wet actress can fend off an attacker... unless he grabs her by the wrist.
More common with "inner" abilities such as intelligence, charisma, cunning, etc. than the kind that can be simulated by special effects. Can also occur with creative abilities - such as painting, dancing, writing, and especially music. When a "creative" character is introduced and said to be very talented, the actual things they produce usually can't live up to the hype when actually presented to the audience, but we're not supposed to notice that. The issue being that unless you've actually hired the greatest writer in the world to script their work, or an all-time dancer to perform their scenes, or whatever, you're not actually going to have any stellar writing/dancing/etc. to put in print or on screen.
This can also be an ability the character is said to have that is deliberately silly, such as (from Buffy The Vampire Slayer) the Fyarl demon's "mucus" power, which is referred to but never employed.
A variation is when RPG characters are built up to be huge villains in their profiles, making it crystal clear they will show up, and then turn out to be utterly ineffectual in the game itself. (The nature of the RP, though, is at least partially to blame for this.)
By definition, Faux Action Girls have Informed Abilities, as do many Designated Heroes.
See Lets Get Dangerous for when this ability is finally manifested. Contrast Stylistic Suck, when the character's abilities are below those of the writers or actors.
Examples:
- Sailor Saturn in Sailor Moon, who supposedly has the power to devastate an entire planet, which is not used for obvious reasons. She also supposedly can erase anyone from existence at the cost of her own life, but Big Bad Galaxia just laughs when Saturn declares the intent to destroy her. The only power she actually uses in the series, an energy shield of sorts called Silent Wall, is less impressive than those of the other Sailor Senshi. At one point she actually attempts to destroy the world to defeat Big Bad Nehellenia, but she's stopped by Chibiusa, so we only see it blow up a building and not the world.
- She does use her world-destroying power in the manga.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
- Cameron "Buck" Williams of Left Behind is supposed to be the "greatest writer ever". 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.
- 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. 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."
- 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.
- Both of these are due to the writers of the book being unbelievably terrible at their "art form," made worse by the fact that one of them actually runs a school for writing. So... expect more bad writers and Informed Ability in the generations to come.
- Similarly, 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.
- In The Inheritance Trilogy, 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: We taught her everything she knows.
Nanny: Yeah...you think we ought to have taught her everything we know?
- In Star Trek, Worf is supposed to be an accomplished marksman, swordsman and Tactical Officer. In practice, he is upstaged on the phaser range by Guinan, only barely manages to beat Gowron (a Klingon famed for his political skills vastly outweighing his combat skills) in a bat'leth duel and frequently fails to fire effectively (or at all, sometimes) at enemy vessels in starship combat (in Star Trek Generations, this led to the destruction of the Enterprise-D). And let's not forget the dozens of times the Enterprise has been boarded and taken over, had prisoners escape or assassins get past security.
- Guinan is several hundred years older than him and still physically fit, so it would make sense that she's a better shot since she's had so much more practice. During their match, she makes no secret how good she is. The other examples, however, are spot on.
- Another possible Trek offender is Will Riker. We're repeatedly told what a great leader he is (pounded home, oddly, by multiple references to, and scenes of, Riker turning down command of his own ship). Yet, when he's shown taking the helm, he doesn't seem particularly more competent than Troi or Dr. Crusher. We're told what a crackerjack pilot he is, but in the one ep that spotlights that skill, we're told up front Geordi, the blind guy, could pull the same maneuver if need be. (Of course, LaForge was often the conn officer in the first season, but still...)
- Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter is famous for her wonderful spell, the Bat Bogey Hex... 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, on the contrary, they gave her a powerful Reducto spell, and showed it in the final battle.
- King Of The Hill combines this with a Running Gag. Throughout the series, Peggy consistently claims that she can speak fluent Spanish. When she actually does, her accent is atrocious and the subtitles of what she's saying look more like what one would say if one threw a bunch of Spanish word magnets onto a refrigerator and made a sentence out of whatever stuck. Not to mention that when someone speaks Spanish to Peggy, she interprets it as the exact opposite of what the person was saying, case in point:
Judge (in Spanish): I find the defendant, Peggy Hill, not guilty.
Peggy: Oh my God! I'M GOING TO JAIL!
- In Hex, it is repeatedly stated that the ghost Thelma is not solid and will pass through anything she touches. This is never actually shown at any point in the series and in fact she picks things up regularly without anyone commenting on it. 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.
- 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 Tracey was (not really) especially compared to how Amber couldn't dance (she really seemed better at it than Tracey at least.)
- In The Office Dwight Shrute is hailed as their number one salesman and apparantly 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.
- Napoleon Dynamite subverts this in that Napoleon can't do any of things he claims, and despite people even encouraging his art, he can't draw either.
- Or can he? After all, in the extra ending they shot after the movie proved so popular, he rides up on a beautiful horse that he claims to have tamed himself, as a wedding present for his brother. Considering his financial resources otherwise, the simplest explanation for this is that he's actually telling the truth, and is in fact some kind of idiot savant... goober savant?
- Not Another Teen Movie subverts 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.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann establishes that the Gulaparls developed during the Time Skip are a significant advancement over the Ganmen. Too bad the only opponents seen post-timeskip are the Anti-Spiral forces, which the Ganmen were designed for fighting,a nd the only advancement the Gulaparls display is the ability to explode really, really quickly.
- Bleach has Retsu Unohana, who sends minor shinigami running for the hills at her presence, has well-established shinigami badasses Shunsui Kyoraku and Jushiro Ukitake fearing her wrath, and even is established in the series' guidebook as the the third-most powerful shinigami 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 also shows up as part of the group of shinigami captains sent to save Ichigo and company from Hueco Mundo and get trapped there when Aizen begins his attack on Karakura Town. Additionally, in the flashback, when trying to rescue the future Vizards (who was once Captains and Vice Captains), she suggested to come along, but Yamamoto tells her to stay).
- Also occurs to Fate's bitchly 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 scoffs Fate off, and falls to a pit. Let us hope she comes back and shows just how dangerous and even more bitchy she can get.
- 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.
- 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. Lampshadehanging by Barney Calhoun in the 2nd game when he says "really putting that PhD to good use, aren't you Gordon?" 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 knowledge of theoretical physics).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Similarly, we are often informed that Sam and Toby are genius speech-writers whose abilities can blow the roofs off houses. Whether or not this is actually true depends on the viewer's point of view.
- In the comic strip For Better Or For Worse, Mike is supposed to be a brilliant best-selling novelist. 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.
- 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.
- In Star Wars, Obi-Wan and Luke are at the site of a recent desert battle. It was apparently a victory for the Sand People, but Obi-Wan observes that the attackers were "too accurate" to have been Sand People: "only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise." Yes, those graduates of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.
- This makes even less sense in light of The Phantom Menace, in which Tusken Raiders shoot a podracer going 900 mph. So clearly, they can't shoot up a huge sandcrawler going 3 mph. Then again, Kenobi does lie. A lot. This might explain the problem.
- He's bit of a douchebag...from a certain point of view.
- This troper remembers hearing that, according to some obscure piece of Expanded Universe material, Obi-Wan was referring to how they were so precise in attacking that one crawler...
- I came across a forum some years ago where someone suggested this makes more sense if you imagine Obi-Wan was saying that line with the same dry wit Ewan McGregor used in the prequels.
- Speaking of Star Wars, you'd be hard-pressed to find a clearer example of this trope than the ruefully incapable Admiral Daala. Immediately after being spoonfed her elaborate background story as Grand Moff Tarkin's ingenious secret protegé kept down by sexism, she arbitrarily loses three quarters of her fleet in a series of glorious defeats before even really starting her campaign. Sucks to be a villain in a universe where everybody has Contractual Immortality, it seems.
- Karen Traviss does a decent job of making her more effective in the Legacy of the Force series, but add her previous incompetence to her doing nothing for about thirty years and the net effect makes it even worse.
- Well, being supposedly brilliant at land combat tactics (which is what got Tarkin's attention) doesn't really mean much in a universe where almost all combat is in space.
- While we're at it, there's party member Bastila from the RPG Knights Of The Old Republic, whose "Battle Meditation" ability, we are told, is just about the only reason the Republic hasn't rolled over and been conquered by Malak yet. Even stranger is that although she is a party member for most of the game, she can't actually use the damn thing during gameplay, and furthermore, despite being told very often just how powerful Battle Meditation is, we are never told what it actually does.
- Um, yeah we are, we're told that it gives your side near-supernatural levels of coordination and battle prowess, and causes a similar disruption in the other guys. Besides, Battle Meditation is actually a long-time part of the Expanded Universe of Star Wars, so it counts as All There In The Manual.
- 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, 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.
- Jonathan Archer, apparently one of Earth's foremost diplomats is, in reality, just short of a whiney ten year-old in practice. Listing examples would quickly take over this page...
- This example should suffice.
- 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.
- Any cop show where the detectives are praised as having the keenest analytical minds on the force, and in practice wind up wandering around for an hour until the story finally relents and lets them pretty much literally stumble over a major break in the case.
- 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 who's voice outshines the entire cast without any electronic enhancement, yet her talent isn't even acknowledged.
- Tess Ocean's informed attractiveness in Oceans Eleven. Maybe this troper is just completely out of synch with the rest of the world, but having Matt Damon's character gush over her like she's the most gorgeous thing he's ever laid eyes on heads off into "Yeah right" territory.
- To an extent, this can happen with pretty much any actor or actress that Hollywood considers big at the moment. Because attractiveness is subjective, you find yourself thinking that you wouldn't particularly notice this person if they were walking down the street, despite magazines and celebrity shows telling you that you should be spontaneously orgasming at the sight of them (sort of the opposite effect of Hollywood Homely).
- 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.
- 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. While David Cain is shown to do a fairly clever thing or two, he doesn't come off as any more difficult to beat than the average elite mercenaries occasionally hired to kill Batman. 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, 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.
- People are afraid to face Deathstroke because of his jobber aura.
- Adric in Doctor Who is supposed to be an unparalleled genius intellect, especially regarding mathematics. However, not only to we rarely see this intellect at work, 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 and / or will be gullible enough to be suckered into supporting or helping the villain's evil plan regardless of how transparently, well, evil it is. For a supposedly smart person, the character doesn't come across as being particularly smart; and what makes it worse (and arguably contributes heavily to the character's status as The Scrappy in Doctor Who fandom) is that Adric is nevertheless insufferably arrogant about skills that he is rarely demonstrated to actually possess.
- Of course, some could argue that the Doctor, especially the Tenth one, has this going too. One of his favorite phrases is "I'm exceptionally clever" or "I'm a genius", when a more accurate phrase might be "knowledgeable" or "learned". After all, most of his seeming genius is actually from multiple lifetimes of study, and access to an extremely broad wealth of information and technology. Someone who was truly clever might eventually pick up on the idea that it's not too bright to go around pointing out to everybody how very much more clever you are than them, especially if they're exceptionally afraid, stressed, and looking for someone to throw out an airlock to improve their situation. For someone who's supposedly the biggest genius in the galaxy, sometimes it seems like the Doctor might be Too Dumb To Live.
- 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.
- Faye's slight overweightness was an Informed Ability in the early strips of Questionable Content; thankfully, Art Evolution has changed this.
- The main character of I Know Who Killed Me is supposed to be a great writer and piano player. Supposed to be.
- 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.
- 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.
- Also a case of Informed Attractiveness, since while the actress isn't bad-looking in the least, she's not really that exceptional and even a little cookie-cutter. This troper, as well as many others, have pointed out that for Lana to be the most popular, lusted-after girl in the entire friggin' town, Chloe is actually quite a bit cuter, as is Lois.
- Perhaps as he is never the protagonist, Lord Vetinari's Magnificent Bastardry has no opportunity to be truly revealed, and is mostly spoken of rather than shown. Compared to Littlefinger, Vetinari seems to fall a little short.
- 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.
|
|
