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Neo: Can you fly that thing?
That was not time-lapse magic! I kicked a chair across the room, and seconds later I knew Jarate!
Congratulations! You just won the Superpower Lottery! You now have at your disposal super-strength, flight, super-speed, nigh invulnerability, fireballs, and heart. And Just In Time, too, because on the other side of the city (requiring you to fly really quickly, even through buildings if necessary), there's an emergency that can only be solved with fire and making animals do things.
There's a few problems, though: you've never thrown a fireball before in your life. Beyond that, you've never flown and you've never had to control the immense speed and strength that you have now. Or heart. But, don't you worry. Powers are programs, and so it follows that you are also programmed with the instruction manual on how to use them. Within seconds of being struck by lightning after being infused with radioactive nanomachines that alter your genetic structure, you're both physically and mentally ready to bathe supervillains in hellfire and plague them with assorted urban animals.
This is especially true of characters whose main ability is to copy other characters' skills. Whether or not they initially have trouble figuring out their own powers, they are almost universally capable of instantly figuring out how to use their stolen powers, typically to the same level of skill or effectiveness (or even a greater level!) as the character who had the power first. Shapeshifters (especially animal-based shapeshifters, or with otherwise non-humanoid forms) get bonus points for intuitively being able to transform into various objects and intuitively control limbs and other moving parts that weren't there previously.
For some characters, this newfound knowledge doesn't always come instantly. At times, they'll remain blissfully unaware that they have powers, accidentally shooting laser beams out of their eyes when staring too hard or ripping doors off hinges when opening them too abruptly. The opposite end of the spectrum is severe Power Incontinence, where the character can't figure out how to turn off his telepathy or stop sending people flying with each exhale. Rarely will extensive training be needed to fix this; a Training Montage is enough. Give the new hero a day and he'll be ready to put his newfound powers to use. At most, a mentor will have to stop by to tell the new hero the activation phrase or show the hero how it's done a few times.
Often times, this is coupled with a time limit to become the greatest x in the world. In these cases, Training From Hell is sometimes used, but the character still emerges an expert — one of the greatest people to ever learn the craft — after only a month or so of work. Especially jarring when it's used to explain away gaining a skill most people take a lifetime to perfect. There's rarely even any hand waving to explain this away, the audience is just supposed to believe that the characters are that damn good.
If they become really good at their skills through trial and error, including bruises and collateral damage along the way, then odds are they were Taught By Experience.
Often a sign of a Mary Sue or Marty Stu.
Compare Possession Implies Mastery. Contrast How Do I Shot Web.
Examples:
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- Goku in Dragonball and the other Saiyans to lesser extent. Roshi took almost a century to master the Kamehameha wave, Goku picks it up by seeing Roshi do it once. Similarly Goku picks up Tien's Solar Flare technique simply because Tien's used it twice on him. Tien explicitly has the ability to pick up and master other people's techniques by studying them briefly, while Cell and Buu can both master any technique known by someone whom they absorbed.
- Ranma (and to a lesser extent his Worthy Opponent Ryoga) can practically osmose an entirely new martial art or technique in the span of a week, mastering it so well that they can beat the rival of the week who may have spent a lifetime honing that skill in a Cooking Duel. Handwaved in that Ranma is the heir of the "Anything Goes" School of Martial Arts, a school that focuses on
stealing incorporating moves from other martial arts. Ryoga, almost entirely self-trained, has no such excuse.
- To be fair, most of the styles they learn are basically variants on skills and abilities they already have, plus whatever schtick their opponent of the week specializes in, and Ranma and Ryouga are both consistently at or near the top tier of strength, durability, agility and speed in the series. Even if they can barely stand up on the ice, they can still pound the crap out of any Martial Arts Figure Skater that comes close enough to take a swing at them.
- Also Ryoga does have an excuse - he's self trained. That means he's very very good at picking up martial arts, without even needing a trainer to help him!
- The eponymous character of Naruto frequently does this. Partially justified in one instance in that he gets a sped up training regimen by creating a thousand or so clones of himself, thereby training a thousand times faster. What's even more ridiculous is he does this shortly after returning from three years of training where all he learned was one technique that was only useful once and how to have strategies beyond his usual use of the Indy Ploy.
- He also tends to only learn them partially at first instead of full mastery: after he "learned" summoning he couldn't get anything bigger than a dog without using nine-tails chakra, and when he learned the Rasengan he could initially only do it because he found his own method for forming it that requires two hands instead of one. He only gets past these limitations after the Time Skip.
- Likewise with the Rasengan's evolution, the Rasensuriken, in Part 2. He can literally level mountains with it, but initially he uses an incomplete version that needs him to run straight up to his opponent to use it and damages his arm on impact.
- He never fully conquers any of his limitations. He still needs a shadow clone for the Rasengan even after using it for 3-odd years, and while he finally completed the Rasenshuriken, he can only use it in Sage Mode, which in turn he can only use for a few minutes at a time because unlike Jiraiya he couldn't learn how to fuse with Shima and Fukasaku to gather more nature chakra.
- While most of the abilities Sasuke has he either got through the Sharingan's ability to copy abilities, training off-screen, or absorbing Orochimaru (temporarily), he's still falls into this when after only a couple uses (one to learn how to use it at all) he somehow learned how to use Amaterasu in ways its only ever user wasn't shown to have been able to after having it for years.
- Sasuke is an interesting character as, noted above, all his powers has to come from some offscreen training. But because it is obviously offscreen, most of it seems completely out of nowhere. For example, recently Sasuke summoned a hawk, with even Madara asking when did this happen.
- Averted in Fortress Macross. After Falling Into The Cockpit, the young hotshot pilot prodigy proceeds to fall over repeatedly and cause extensive property damage. A crash course by a pilot who's actually qualified in operating robots keeps him from bumping into things, but only after signing up for the army and undergoing combat training does he become competent.
- Similarly in Neon Genesis Evangelion, Shinji gets browbeaten into the cockpit of Unit-01 and sent against the Monster Of The Week... and promptly falls on his face before getting beaten like a red-haired stepchild until the 'mech' takes over.
- Though the way this particular sequence was executed in the original anime series made it more of a triple subversion rather than simple aversion, at least in this troper's opinion.
- Somewhat subverted in Macross Frontier, where the main character gets punched in the face and kicked out of the hangar for wanting to repeat his no-training Falling Into The Cockpit experience when a mission alert goes up.
- Ichigo, from Bleach, goes from rank novice to one of the strongest fighters in the universe, able to go toe-to-toe with shinigami captains and take out lieutenants without even using his sword, after two Training From Hell sessions which collectively comprise about twelve days.
- It's actually stated that this his ability to learn advanced concepts quickly is one of his most important skills.
- However, most of this is not conscious. It's often a plot point that he has only a vague idea of what to do with this power, and while he can manage brilliantly when he's properly motivated (ie. has to save someone), otherwise his power fluctuates.
- The fluctuation is best explained thusly: he was able to beat, without his Bankai, a captain. That captain, without his shikai, was able to beat TWO captains, both of which used Bankai. Then, with Bankai, Ichigo barely defeated a captain equal to his first foe.
- That was mostly because he was going out of his way to drag the fight out so that he could grind that captain's pride into dust on philosophical grounds, as he had the opportunity to just stab said captain in the throat too fast for him to even see him move, right at the start of the fight. And because of his unfamiliarity with his Bankai state, he ended up dragging the fight out too long and imperceptibly damaging himself to the point where his insane speed edge practically vanished. And to be fair, Ichigo and Kenpachi both thought that the other one had won their fight, until perhaps after the fighting had settled down.
- It's a good idea to note that Ichigo cannot use Kido... at all. They're essentially one third of any shinigami's power. Some shinigami are better with their shikai/bankai, some with normal kendo, and others can use kido impressively. In fact, one vizard uses kido as his main way of attacking. Think of it this way: most shinigami are Magic Knights, some more than others. Ichigo is just a standard knight and still manages to beat people who can use kido. Granted, most people forsake kido for their zanpakuto but the point still stands.
- Like with many other tropes, Excel Saga parodies this when Excel's bowling training from Nabeshin is over in a matter of seconds, leaving Excel capable of scoring strikes while simultaneously knocking her opponents' balls out of their alleys. Lampshaded when Nabeshin notes there's nothing more he can teach her, whereupon Excel complains, "That wasn't even five seconds!"
- Whenever the protagonist of Fate Stay Night uses projection to replicate a weapon, he will instantly gain all experience of battles the weapon itself has gone through, allowing him to wield it (or, depending on interpretation, for it to wield itself with his body following its lead) with ease as if he were a complete master.
- Projection itself. Not only is he an instant expert literally better than anyone at it in the entire world, he's even doing it in a form that should be more difficult. And he learns enough to project a perfect Noble Phantasm in less than two weeks. His projection is so good that some of it actually breaks the rules of magic and doesn't disappear, which is apparently almost one of the True Magics. Naturally, he's unconsciously cheating like crazy to do it but...
- It's not so much that he's cheating, as that his unique mental condition (having literally no sense of self) allows him the ability to do something that no sane person's mind will let them do. IIRC, when he chose to do something that involved putting his own desires above those of others, his internal world changed to become incompatible with its original form which is the one that Archer, and thus Archer's Arm, possessed, so that trying to use projection was destroying his mind and causing his body to be converted into swords. Painfully. When it comes to being a living repository of legendary weapons (mostly swords and at least one shield), it probably helped that he had a magical sheathe with shielding properties of legendary proportions embedded in him without his knowledge for as long as he could remember.
- This isn't actually true. The problem with Archer's arm is simply that it is too powerful for him to resist in his current state, and thus it tries to overwrite his mind and body with Archer's. He lacks a sense of self just as much in HF as in the other two routes. It's just that his goal alters slightly to put protecting the people he loves (in particular, Sakura) first.
- Though he did cheat during the UBW duel against Archer, using the fact that they were the same person to subconsciously steal skills that he would otherwise spend his entire lifetime creating, though he did end the fight just wailing away with no technique. I think that UBW was the first arc in which he learned how to use the skills of the owner, as ISTR that he couldn't use Caliburn properly without Saber's assistance.
- The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya has Yuki (an artificial human with supernatural powers). The main character Haruhi appears to be this at first (thanks to being a god and having spent her entire childhood trying to be better and different) but it's clear that the instant expert abilities are mostly in her head (she is, however, clearly a expert at a surprising number of things).
- Like the guitar. Expert enough to pull off a Crowning Music Of Awesome in the same day that she first picks it up.
- Haruhi is singing (very well, but she never said she hadn't sung before) and playing a few chords in time. The phenomenal guitar riffs in "God Knows" are coming from Yuki; see the above spoiler.
- Humorously enough, Yuki is shown to be inept at using computers... for about three days or so. A week later, and she's able to hack at beyond human limits.
- Both subverted and played straight in Code Geass. All the characters who are said to be exceptional pilots are either career soldiers or rebels with experience from the School of Hard Knocks. Especially noticeable is the main character who, despite using a Humongous Mecha as a Mundane Utility annually, is actually one of the worst pilots in the whole series, a fact which the show's creators seem proud of. Made especially ironic in that his late mother was a nigh-legendary pilot back when the Humongous Mecha were still new.
- Averted in the Pokémon anime, played straight in the games. The anime shows Trainers actually practicing new attacks, complete with funny misfires, while in the games, the mon becomes an Instant Expert with a move simply by reaching the right level.
- Kintaro Oe of Golden Boy can master complex skills overnight, through nothing more than insane determination.
- Nanoha and Hayate of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
- Subaru and Erio both could qualify, as they pick up new powers and techniques far faster than either Teana or Caro do.
- In the supplemental manga, Ginga mentions that Subaru spent some time at school, but didn't go to a magic school, and only started taking her training seriously after Nanoha rescued her from the airport fire and gave her inspiration. Teana notes that she understands how Subaru learns so quickly.
- Inu Yasha has learned how to execute the Wind Scar and Backlash Wave by instinctivly senseing where and when to strike, while in combat.
- He also completes Yourei Taisei's trials and thus masters Dragon Scale Tessaiga thanks to his instinct. He also masters Meido Zangetsuha while fighting the Big Bad Naraku in the Grand Finale. He almost always "learns" successfully when he's on the verge of death. Still it's pretty averted, due to the fact that in general he's not an incredibly fast learner after all. Sesshomaru performs the Windscar right before his eyes, then discusses with Totosai on the technique while fighting Inuyasha, yet Inuyasha still cannot sense the "scar". Only when Sesshomaru temporarily blinds his halfbrother, Inuyasha is forced to rely on his other senses, and successfully performs the technique on... Sesshomaru, who nearly loses his life there (Inuyasha does hold back and Tenseiga suddenly interferes to save its master). Sesshomaru also has to help Inuyasha to master Dragon Scale Tessaiga (this time consciously, though half-heartedly) by pointing out that he is using Tessaiga the wrong way. Maybe Sesshomaru himself, being Sesshomaru, does fit this trope more. He's stated in his official character profile to be able to use any weapon to its full potential. The only sword he's unable to master instantly is his Tenseiga, which requires compassion (he has no interest in mastering this healing sword anyway), and the only fighting technique he's unable to master instantly is Meido Zangetsuha, which requires sacrifice. The master swordsmith Totosai, who despises Sesshomaru for his cruelty, has to admire him for his incredible talent and power.
- Averted in One Piece, where Devil Fruit users often have at least some difficulty figuring out what their powers are, and often take a great deal of time figuring out how to use them to full effect. After over ten years for Luffy and over twenty for Robin, the both of them are still learning new ways to utilize their abilities.
- Also there are Kaku and Califa, two agents of CP9 who were given their Devil Fruits hours (if that) before going into combat against the Straw Hats. Califa in particular, while they should have had barely enough time to grasp the basics of their powers (Giraffe-transformation and strength sapping soap bubbles respectively), is shown to be quite proficient when she faces Sanji and Nami. Kaku flounders a bit more, though, coming up with ideas and attacks on the spot in the course of his fight with Zoro.
- You are forgetting Luffy's ability to make up ingenious ways in the middle of battles, which he uses to basically kick ass on every big bad that he has won against at some point or another. Take Crocodile for instance; after the second fight, he learns to use water against an enemy that uses sand in order to attack him, although he didn't win that fight, round for was using his blood as a substitute for water to kick Crocodile's ass.
- Saito from Zero No Tsukaima gained this as his power of a familiar. He instantly understands how a given weapon works and how to use it, he also gains a considerable boost in speed, endurance and strength when using a weapon. There is just one condition that must be met, the weapon must have been created for combat. For example a sword that was created as a decoration won't trigger Saito's powers. Also it can be Any weapon, from a simple sword to a fighter plane or artillery cannon.
- Claymore has a disturbing subversion. Clare tries to learn the Quicksword skill and after several days is told she is mentally incapable of ever mastering it. But her teacher has nothing left to live for and cuts off her own arm so Clare can use it.
- Adam Blade in Needless has the power to learn any Needless ability simply by encountering it. Handwaved in that his power is the ability to memorize other powers.
- Memorably averted in Slam Dunk. Hanamichi Sakuragi is The Fool and does have enormous potential, but not only he has no idea of how to use it, his sempai and teammates treat him like the rookie he is and he's stuck for a long time learning the basics.
- Kurapika from Hunter X Hunter learns the basics of Nen in a few months, and is then able to go toe to toe with, and eventually kill Ubogin and later kidnaps Chrollo. Both are members are the Genei Ryodan, and very accomplished fighters and Nen users. Justified, in that Kurapika's designed some of his powers to work strictly on Genei Ryodan and no one else, on pain of his own death. If he'd been fighting anyone else of similar experience, he would have gotten his tail kicked. Even with fighting Genei Ryodan, it still takes a toll on his body.
- Played straight with Apollo of Genesis Of Aquarion in the first episode.
- Taskmaster, in the Marvel Universe, can instantly learn how to do any physical skill or martial arts maneuver his body is physiologically capable of surviving simply by watching anyone else do it once, either live or via recorded media. Handwaved away by explicitly giving him the superpower of "photographic reflexes", or the ability to instantly learn by watching. His most recent mini-series also gave him the more conventional form of photographic memory in addition to his superpower, further enhancing his rapid learning abilities. He also has Awesomeness By Analysis in that he understands what he learns so thoroughly that he can teach other people how to do it.
- The whole thing worked against him, however, when he tried to use it on Deadpool, who is just too unpredictable. He even started dancing partway through the fight with Taskmaster, just because.
- Similarly, Prometheus, a supervillain of the DC Universe, has a helmet with some fancy technology where he can just pop in a disc with whatever skill or knowledge he needs. This can range from the blueprints for a space station to the skills of the top thirty martial artists in the world—with which he handily defeated Batman.
- Once. The rematch was far more humiliating... and that was while it still was a hand-to-hand fight, before Prometheus pulled a gun and then Batman triggered the logic bomb he'd hidden in Prometheus' helmet software: he replaces Prometheus's nervous and muscular systems with the physical characteristics of one man: Stephen Hawking. So awesome.
- Reed Richards has done this a few times. In one instance taking a piece of heretofore unknown alien tech that transmitted information by smell and rigging a device that translated it. Into a video. In ten minutes.
- A character from The Tick comics, Oedipus Ashley Stevens, is a bored rich girl who becomes one of the world's greatest ninjas... after training for "nearly two weeks!"
- Black Alice from The DCU can temporarily steal the magical powers of any spellcaster she can think of, and is shown to be pretty proficient with their powers with no prior experience. At one point she stole power from two spell casters at once. She even stole the powers of the Spectre. Crosses over with Mega Manning. She was nerfed to hell and back in the Reign In Hell event but it seems she'll be making a comeback in Secret Six.
- The enslaved humans from Battlefield Earth. Despite never having worked with any technology at all, they quickly become expert pilots, due to a "teaching machine" which beams information straight into the user's brain.
- In Deep Rising, the ship's owner, Simon Canton, knows facts about the sea monster attacking them for no apparent reason.
- Lampooned mercilessly in the "We Need A Montage" sequenced of the film Team America World Police, where the protagonist Gary goes from being a talented actor to a talented actor capable of performing at Special Forces levels with any or all weapons and his bare hands... in about ten minutes of real time. But hey, he had a really cool montage sequence, complete with 80s-style power ballad, so why not?
- This was not even the first time Parker and Stone used this gag. The exact same song was previously used to accompany a montage of Stan learning to ski in the South Park episode "Asspen".
- Daniel-san, of Karate Kid fame, manages to go from dweeb to a Force To Be Reckoned With in the space of a couple Training Montages, with some yardwork thrown in. To the point of being able to trash the Cobra Kai and, later, the guy on Okinawa. Though to be fair, he only learned some four or five techniques.
- Also, in fairness, several weeks worth of practice are crammed into those montages.
- Lampshaded a bit in The Matrix, where all humans spend most of their lives plugged into a computer network through which they receive simulated experiences anyway — their Unusual User Interfaces can also act as Upgrade Artifacts, making it a trivial matter to have a full training regimen for anything from martial arts to piloting written directly into your brain in a matter of seconds. Whether this carries over to the real world is up in the air.
- This troper assumed it did at least to a partial extent, since Neo used martial arts techniques to fight a man in the real world who wanted to kill him because he was possessed by Smith. The physics-defying part obviously didn't because, well, the real world's laws of physics are impossible to break.
- Many characters in various Star Wars media. This is usually justified by explaining that the reason they're so good is due to their Force-sensitivity. One example that comes to mind is 9 year old Anakin Skywalker winning his freedom in a podrace despite having never won before (or even reached the finish line before) and that's not even taking into account the fact that humans normally can't even survive podraces.
- Anakin really isn't an example, at least in that instance. He may not have won a podrace before (or even finished), but it's mentioned that he has been in quite a few of them, and is a gifted pilot, and in the last race he's driving a pod that he designed himself instead of Watto's. It's not like he just dropped into the seat for the first time.
- He might not be an Instant Expert at the time of the movie, but the mere fact that he didn't die the first time he tried to race a pod indicates some level of instant expertise.
- Luke becomes a Jedi in either a few days or a few hours (depending on how long you figure it took the Millenium Falcon to reach Bespin sans hyperdrive). Those few hours/days of training are enough that he can hold his on against Vader rather competently (he does lose, but he still puts up a rather valiant effort, helped along by the fact that Vader wasn't trying to kill him) and he's fully capable of using powers like force jump. By Return Of The Jedi, Luke, who's otherwise spent most of his time looking for Han rather than training (though the Expanded Universe may beg to differ while failing to explain why he never bothers to revisit Yoda for more Jedi Crash Course during those years), is now a full-blown Jedi, being able to employ mind tricks and numerous other Jedi powers with little efforts. He's also a far better swordsman, being able to defeat Vader this time.
- It would have been closer to weeks or months, if they payed the slightest bit of attention to physics, although that's little more that wishful thinking given how often they butcher most laws of physics.
- Madison from the movie Splash was able to learn English in a single afternoon simply by watching TV. Granted, she's a mermaid with magical powers, but this does seem a bit of a Handwave.
- The protagonists of Zombie Apocalypse movies seem to become Instant Expert at any weapon they pick up. But that may just be adapting as a survival mechanism.
- In the case of the Russo movies, sometimes the Zombie Infectee has this same trait while they still have their humanity and intelligence.
- And then there's Shaun Of The Dead, where Shawn shows amazing head-bashing ability with a cricket bat, but he's absolutely atrocious with a rifle.
- "Amazing head-bashing ability"? Is it really that hard to hit a slow, shuffling, stupid creature in the head with a blunt object?
- Yes. Yes it is.
- In the film Meteor Man, anyone with meteor powers can temporarily absorb all the information in a book just by touching it. Apparently, they can also apply it, considering that at one point the protagonist acquires martial arts skills from touching a book on the subject. And immediately afterward? Runway modeling.
- The Last Samurai has this aspect in spades, though it's not apparent until you think about it a little. Tom Cruise's character, Nathan Algren, is built up as a quick study at linguistics in particular and war generally. However, in the course of one winter — a miserable three months — that he stays with a villageful of samurai, he picks up fluent Japanese and manages to master both the katana and unarmed combat. The level of his mastery — again, after only three months — is such that he's able to fight to a draw a samurai who's been practicing the art for a lifetime... and later, tops it off by taking on six toughs unarmed and comes out of it with two swords and not one drop of his own blood spilled. Not exactly Instant Expert, but about as "realistic" as Hollywood gets.
- Algren is established as an experienced cavalry officer, though, and he's pretty handy with his saber from what we see in the first major battle against the rebels. This Troper can buy that he already had most of the skills, he just needed training in the particular handling of a katana. And it's also made clear that he's recovering from being a self-loathing alcoholic, so it's more like climbing back to his previous (unseen, but implied) level of Badass.
- That doesn't excuse the language issue, though. While most of the biggest difficulty in achieving fluency in Japanese is in reading and writing, fluency in a language after only three months, especially fluency on advanced topics like strategics rather than simple everyday conversation, is fairly far-fetched.
- It seems unlikely he actually used the katana as an over-sized sabre. On the other hand, if he did you'd see complaints that katanas aren't used that way.
- In Push Nick has been telekenetic all his life, but sucks as the film opens. He couldn't even levitate a notebook. Yet he just suddenly starts kicking ass as soon as he confronts Carter and Victor.
- The commentary notes that he sucks early on because he never practiced using his abilities, but as he used the more and more, the easy it became. He wasn't quite an instant expert, but it didn't take long for him to be pretty good.
- Troy and Gabriella in High School Musical, despite neither being a supposedly trained singer manager to harmonise and be perfectly pitched to a song playing on a Karoake machine.
- And highlighted at the end of HSM2 where Troy is told to learn a new song, literally two minutes before going on and after goggling for a moment tells Ryan "I can't learn a new song". Of course, when he goes on stage two minutes later, he's not only learned a new song, but learned how to harmonise with his absent partner.
- In The Fifth Element, Leeloo (a cloned human-alien-hybrid-thing) learns English in the space of about a day. She does this by speed-reading the 23rd century equivalent of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
- After becoming a vampire, Bella is instantly good at hunting, has no blood lust, is beautiful, and has all the same wonderful strengths of the other Cullens.
- Eragon in The Inheritance Trilogy goes from never having used a sword before to being one of the greatest swordsmen who ever lived (or maybe not, considering how many times he's gotten his butt whooped by supposedly lesser swordmen), after a month of practice. He similarly goes from totally illiterate to being fully literate in a month.
- Just for the record, longsword fencers reckon it takes about six months to make a halfway-decent swordsman, and years to be any good.
- He also manages to write a fourteen-page epic poem about his experiences up to the point where he's getting trained by the elves. In an hour and a half. In a language that a month ago (give or take a few weeks) he only knew a couple of words of. Apparently without having to review it in any way. And good enough that the Elf Queen has him read it a second time because apparently the elves can learn something from it. Yeah...
- What's sad is that the poem is treated as a work of art when in real life it's only kinda alright. He also manages to master magic in a short period of time, annoyingly enough.
- Memoirs Of A Geisha revolves around this trope, deconstructing it at one point: The protagonist explains that, due to a wager made between her legal guardian and her teacher, she wasn't given much time to actually practice certain skills. Instead, she would visualize them constantly, study when her mind was most pliable and invented a plethora of mnemonic devices to help her, because there was absolutely no other way for her to achieve her goals and change her situation. She explains that while it looked to others like she was mastering her skills without ever practicing, in truth her mind was working on little else.
- Lord Hong of Interesting Times regularly masters in a matter of weeks disciplines that require other human beings a lifetime of study. Everyone else's problem is that they just don't focus.
- Subverted in Vernor Vinge's novel Rainbows End, where JITT (Just-in-Time Training) allows anyone to become an Instant Expert in anything, but with the added complication of "JITT-stick", which essentially turns the character into a semi-permanent idiot savant in the area they received JITT in. JITT-stick plays a significant role in the novel's conclusion.
- Kellhus from Second Apocalypse does this a lot, but it is justified by him being a super-intelligent result of a breeding program. That's why he can do things like become fluent in a foreign language in a matter of days.
- In the second Sword Of Truth book, the protagonist learns the "dance with death" using the titular blade. The sword apparently stores all the sword fighting skills of anyone who's ever wielded it, and Richard is able to download the knowledge into himself, to the point where he can slaughter garrisons of trained soldiers even without the magic blade.
- Subverted somewhat in his role as a War Wizard, in that he never really learns how to control it.
- Becoming an instant expert in more or less anything that takes their fancy is one of the advantages of the transhuman Luculenti in John Meaney's To Hold Infinity. Many taught themselves to paint or dance at the level of the masters of those arts on Earth... as hobbies, taking them perhaps a month or two of practice alongside their normal day jobs.
- Another science fiction story invoking this trope is Galactic Odyssey by Keith Laumer, in which the protagonist is put to work sorting indistinguishable glorm-bulbs... which turns out to give him the ability to learn essentially anything with a single run-through.
- The heroes of the Piers Anthony fantasy novel Centaur Aisle end up in possession of a magical sword which turns anyone who wields it into an example of this trope.
- Though the sword doesn't really teach you how to fight, it just moves itself for you. This becomes important in a later book when someone wielding the sword has an object thrown at them (a metal-destroying sphere I think) that would be completely harmless if they just let it hit them, but because the sword is enchanted to block everything, ends up disarming them.
- In the Heralds Of Valdemar series, this is usually averted (mastering magic and mind-magic powers usually takes years and a lot of practice). When played straight, it is justified, usually through the agency of Need, a possessed blade which can take over a user and work through him/her with consent.
- In Heroes there was Charlie (and now Sylar through power theft) who could not only remember everything she read but could also properly apply it as well.
- In Season 2 there's also Monica who, like Taskmaster above, is able to instantly learn how to do any physical skill or martial arts maneuver she's physically capable of simply by watching anyone else do it once, either live or via recorded media.
- Sylar's main power is the ability to "understand how things work", which goes towards explaining how he's able to rapidly master all his stolen abilities. And even he has to take a few days to iron out the kinks in particularly cumbersome abilities, such as superhearing (high pitched noises become a Weaksauce Weakness) or shapeshifting (involuntary shapeshifting due to major psychological issues).
- Lana Lang in Smallville learned Kung Fu in three days...
- She also learned how to successfully run her own coffee shop instantly and while still in high school. Fuck you, Lana.
- Subverted in Firefly. Malcolm has to learn to duel with swords overnight. In the actual duel, he starts mocking his opponent. Inara: "He actually thinks he's doing well".
- He does manage to win the fight, however, using a skill he already mastered over a period of years (at great personal cost): no-holds-barred brawling. He still sucks at fighting a swordsman using a sword. Now, throwing jagged pointy things, punching people, stuff like that? That's another story.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Xander kept his millitary knowledge for years after the Halloween incident where everyone became their costume. Very useful to the Scooby Gang, which makes this troper wonder if Ethan had good motives behind his crazy spell. And how many seven year olds dressed up like G.I.Joe and spent the next several years knowing how to assemble an AK-47 in the dark?
- Or the kids who dressed up as firemen, and gained advanced first aid skills.
- Or the kids dressed up as ninjas who learned how to assassinate people at a master level.
- The ability of imprinting technology to make Actives experts in any given field at the press of a button is a series premise of Dollhouse.
- However, it's not possible for a Doll to possess more than one set of skills at a time without being wiped and reloaded... until Echo starts retaining imprints and they load her with every combat-based imprint they have.
- This trope is pretty much what makes the title character of Kyle XY so special.
- The whole shtick of The Pretender: with a little learning time, Pretenders such as Jarod could master any role from janitor to astronaut.
- A standard of the Power Rangers series, where the characters generally are barely old enough to have a driver's license, yet can handle a giant robot without so much as a training montage.
- The very first episode has Trini and Billy lampshade the fact they can pilot the Dinozords. It seems their powers provide the knowledge as well as fighting skills. Played with in that the heroes don't retain these skills when they change back: Billy still has to train with Jason and Zack to build his martial arts skills.
- The title character of John Doe is a perfect example of this - he can look up any piece of information at any time, making him an expert in every field. This is consistently shown as he flies a helicopter with no training, is a capable doctor, makes significant profits in the stock market, and pulls of MacGyver-esque stunts.
- Not content at being the World's Greatest Diagnostic Physician, an accomplished musician and speaker of several languages, House recently was advised to get a hobby to help manage his pain without Vicodin. He accompanies Wilson to his cooking class, and by the end of the episode is told he has created "the best thing I have ever eaten."
- Between seasons nine and ten of CSI, Ray Langston went to CSI school in a big way, and instantly caught up to (and possibly surpassed) the regular crew on suspiciously specific scientific knowledge.
- "Keyboards just make sense to me."
- GURPS has the advantage Wild Talent which is an odd version of this trope. A few times per game you can try absolutely any skill at better than default (a Medieval ascetic can try to program a superscience computer from ten thousand years in the future). For a few points extra this event provides enough experience to gain a level of skill.
- In Deus Ex, the player is allowed to train JC's various skills by using skill points gained at various points in the game. However, all that is needed to gain/upgrade a skill is the appropriate amount of skill points, and they can be learned at any time with immediate effect.
- At least some justification in that JC already took extensive training in those skills at the UNATCO academy. And that in normal gameplay, he's practicing those skills all the time.
- Celes from Final Fantasy VI is somehow able to not only pick up the ability to learn opera, but is also able to memorize an entire musical score in the space of an afternoon. She does it well enough to be a convincing facsimile of the famous opera singer she resembles, to boot. But damned if singing her Leitmotif isn't nifty.
- Dante from Devil May Cry seems to be able to use a new type of weapon just by picking it up, as well as gaining new moves just by paying for them. Some cases, however, can be partially Justified as an extension of normal abilities, like the bat-conjuring electric guitar/scythe Nevan, and the move-acquisition is handwaved by the existence of the Time God, who grants "the power of the ancient magic clans".
- Vergil can do it too, so it's hand waved as just being something that Sparda's family is capable of doing. Nero, on the other hand, never gains different weapons from those he starts with- he simply gains new techniques.
- Also note that, except for the weapons they start out with (and presumably have trained with for years), all of their Devil Arms are living weapons that have acknowledged them as their master. The weapons themselves could be contributing to their skills.
- An explicit power of Mega Man, Bass, X, and sometimes Protoman, in their games. Falls under Powers As Programs.
- Here's hoping you don't play X5 first, though. From that point on, all powers are explicitly gained from the opponent's DNA. Nevermind the fact that all opponents are Extremely Advanced Robots. Since when to robots have DNA, extremely advanced or otherwise?
- Due to sketchy translation, it's not clear that they actually mean that the weapons are developed from studying the DNA of the defeated enemy. As in, they studied how the weapon worked and adapted it for use by X and Zero.
- All Navis in the Battle Network series, in which powers really are programs.
- Link displays this to the degree that fans argue that it might be a side-effect of the Triforce of Courage. No matter how odd a new item is, he instantly acquires the knowledge how to use them when he picks them up, despite the fact that he usually starts the games living a fairly normal life. It's more believable in Twilight Princess, where he had Epona for a while and had a mentor teaching him a thing or two. Then again, the game also had some of the weirdest items in the series such as the Spinner (an apparently magical cog that can be used to ride on rails).
- However, it is questionable if this is because of the Triforce: In Wind Waker, where he starts out without the Triforce of Courage (he get's it near the end of the game), Orca gives him his very first sword-lesson ever, because he reached the age of twelve - and comments on how amazingly good he already is for a beginner.
- Plus, he's Link. Being a reincarnated hero makes you special.
- In many MMORPGs, learning a new spell or ability is usually just a matter of shelling out the appropriate amount of cash. World Of Warcraft averts it with weapon skills, which need to be trained to be effective (although any effect from equipping a weapon other than being able to whack things with it are instantly available when you learn the skill. Depending on the item, this can vary from improving spells to being able to open a portal to a specific location).
- There is a Hand Wave in City Of Heroes, in that you gain immediate benefits from leveling (increased HP), but in order to get new skills, you have to visit a trainer.
- In Knights Of The Old Republic, the main character picks up Jedi proficiency with a lightsaber and Force powers in a matter of weeks, where most Jedi apprentices take years. In this case it's almost entirely justified, as the main character actually was a Jedi for years, then had his memories wiped as part of a brainwashing program. So the training really only had to reconnect the main character with their former powers.
- Knights Of The Old Republic II actually makes this a plot point. You spend much of the game seeking out Jedi masters who teach you new force forms or lightsabers techniques, afterwards remarking in amazement that you're able to learn highly advanced techniques that should take you years to perfect in a matter of minutes. If you choose to attack the Jedi you find instead of gathering them, you go one better and can actually learn their techniques by watching their technique as you're in the process of killing them, which horrifies them.
- Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist from MIT, came to work one day, and the place swarmed with aliens. Ever since he picked up a crowbar, he started kicking unfathomable amounts of ass, including use of every weapon he ever finds without even the slightest hint of natural inaccuracy. This is the guy who can hold and use a rocket launcher with both hands while climbing a ladder.
- This is even lampshaded in one of Dr. Breen's broadcasts, chewing out the Combine Overwatch for their inability to capture or kill Gordon despite his lack of weapons or tactical training.
- While still qualifying as this trope, it isn't as ridiculous as it sounds, as the optional training level for the first Half-Life has Gordon receiving firearms training in a hazard course, so he at least has some experience with them. It's when he proficiently uses things he's never even seen before (like the nuclear cannon or the alien weapon that fires hornets) that it becomes silly. It also makes Adrian Shephard from the Opposing Force expansion an example of this trope, as not even career soldiers receive training on operating a symbiotic insect that fires electricity or a larval alien used to launch spores. As for the ladder thing... uh, Acceptable Break From Reality?
- Vagrant Story gives us Ashley Riot. Physically, he's an unstoppable powerhouse who gradually "remembers" techniques he once knew, and can use every weapon he finds. With the proper equipment, he can smith his own armor and weapons, even though some of the metals are explicitly described as not being found outside of Lea Monde. But the real kicker is that he can learn magic just by reading a tome. And after killing a Lich, Ashley learns to teleport by its spirit speaking to him. There is some implication that The Dark is awakening latent talents within Ashley, but that doesn't change the fact that Agent Riot has a steep learning curve.
- In Prototype, Alex Mercer gains the knowledge of those he devours, leading to an almost instant (and expert) knowledge of how to use firearms, operate helicopters, etc.
- In Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, the protagonist (who had previously just been a first-person shooter hero for a game and three levels) is instantly and completely proficient with a lightsaber, having the exact skill level as he does at the end of the game, arguably better than all seven bosses at dueling. Then he goes on to gain powers at the Jedi Master (later "Jedi Lord") skill level after a few days or weeks at the most.
- In Real Life, changing from one fighter type to another requires a conversion course. In Ace Combat and related flight-action games like Tom Clancy's HAWX, the player characters can leap straight into the new plane they've just bought and have no problem controlling it. Of course, this is partly excusable by Rule Of Fun; Anyone remember flying school from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas?
- This trope is almost ubiquitous in RPGs. You can rest assured that within the handful of days or weeks or months that make up the game's plotline, your utter weakling character who sets out to save the world with the clothes on his back and a pointy stick will reach the end as a nearly unstoppable engine of pain and death armed with an Infinity Plus One Sword and capable of going toe-to-toe with nigh-Godlike entities. NPCs with many decades - or possibly centuries/millenia - more experience than you simply can't compete.
- Averted in the second Master Of Orion game, where only telepathic races can immediately use captured ships.
- This is actually part of the plot in Assassins Creed II: the main character (Desmond Miles) is put in a machine called the Animus to relive the genetic memories of his assassin ancestor, Ezio, in the hopes that he'll gain Ezio's skills in a few days rather than years.
- Super Mario Bros (and it's spinoffs). Mario doesn't apparently even need to train to suddenly learn new abilities once per game, master new power ups and items per game, and be good at every single sport he's tried in some way. In the RPG games like Paper Mario and Mario And Luigi, he can literally get a new item or ability one minute and have apparently completed mastered it the next.
Web Original
- Parodied and played straight in this strip
 from The Order Of The Stick.
- Played straight with annoying regularity in Survival Of The Fittest. Many characters pick up their weapons and seem to immediately know everything about it, despite there being absolutely no (or only a tenuous) reason for their knowledge. Although instructions are provided this still does not fully justify this trope's presence. On the other hand, there are, admittedly, some characters who would have the knowhow due to prior experiences.
- Kim Possible.
- Katara from Avatar The Last Airbender masters the art of Waterbending without explanation in three weeks, an act that normally takes a lifetime. On a lesser note, Aang as well, but he's supposed to.
- Sokka also inexplicably learns to use the sword in a matter of a days. Not even Training From Hell would be able to give normal people any passable sword skills in that manner of time — and Sokka seems to spend just as much time doing calligraphy and feng shui as actual sword practice during said days.
- In the interest of fairness, they had been training their skills casually since before they met Aang. Sokka was already proficient with his boomerang, club, spear (though it got broken right away), and machete at the start of the show.
- In Danny Phantom, Danny masters his ice power to a tee through extensive training in the same episode when he first received them. Especially notable in that it took both time and practice for him to be even reasonably proficient in his other abilites.
- Toyed with in Megas XLR. The main character, Coop, is (usually) an expert at piloting his enormous mecha, Megas. However, this is only because he had specifically modified it to control just like the video games he'd been playing his whole life. When Kiva (an experienced pilot who was designated to pilot Megas before Coop modified it) attempted to pilot it, she could barely get it to go in the right direction.
- Averted in The Real Ghostbusters when Janine tries using a proton pack for the first time.
- There was this episode of {{Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers}} in which an alien dinosaur learned English in just a few hours by reading Dale's comic books.
- Starfire of Teen Titans can learn languages instantly just by kissing the speaker on the lips.
- This Troper had a music teacher who had mastered dozens of instruments. One day said teacher picked up a saxophone, learned to play it in two hours, then never touched it again after proclaiming it "too easy to use."
- There is a concept called "The Natural Athlete," where the knowledge, skill, and physical ability of an individual allows them to succeed at nearly any sport whether or not they have spent time training for the needs of the game. Just having a natural gift for hand-eye coordination is invaluable in shooting a basketball, being a fast runner with quick feet is useful in football, etc.
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