History Main / RemovedAchillesHeel

---> '''[[spoiler:Vandal Savage]]:''' I was told that your kind were vulnerable to radion weapons.\\

* Played with in the Confessor's story in ''ComicBook/AstroCity''. [[spoiler:After the Confessor is outed as a vampire, his sidekick Altar Boy takes up the role. Since the villains of the city don't know that, from their perspective, the Confessor has just suddenly ''lost'' all the usual vampire weaknesses. The new Confessor rolls with it because it scares the ''hell'' out of his enemies.]]

[[folder:Anime And Manga]]
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''
** The Angels have a Core that, if destroyed, means the Angel's destruction as well. The eleventh Angel Ireul is a HiveMind made of nanoscale entities, meaning that they don't have a core, at least not that the heroes can detect and destroy as usual. Iruel ''also'' has an AdaptiveAbility that allows it to learn and become immune to anything that they use against it.
** The eponymous Evangelions usually become sitting ducks when their energy runs out unless they go berserk, [[spoiler:as their armor's safeguards activate and immobilize them]]. However, [[spoiler:Eva-01/Yui Ikari eliminates her weakness by eating Zeruel's core, absorbing the Angel's power source for her own uses]].

* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', the only surefire ways to kill a Demon is to either [[OffWithHisHead behead them]] with Nichirin swords, [[WeakenedByTheLight expose them to sunlight]], or by using poisons mixed with [[SupernaturalRepellent Wisteria flowers]]. [[spoiler: Muzan Kibutsuji, the manga's BigBad, as well as the top three-ranked Demons, Kokushibo, Doma and Akaza are immune to beheading due to sheer BodyHorror the former employs, and the other Demons having a higher will to resist dying]]; in the case of Daki, she's able to survive decapitation [[spoiler: due to being connect to her brother Gyutaro, while Nezuko eventually develops an immunity to sunlight]]. Several high-ranking demons are resistant to Wisteria poison. Depending on the dose and potency of the poison in question, they can either be temporarily paralyzed or weakened, or ignore the poison outright. [[spoiler:When Muzan revives and possesses Tanjiro in a last-ditch attempt to save himself, he's also immune to the sun.]]

* In the world of ''Anime/OnePiece'', there's a universal rule that says that, if you eat more than one Devil Fruit, you die. [[spoiler: Blackbeard]] has seemingly broken the rule, though --aside from Marco stating it has to do with his unique body structure-- no one but him knows how he achieved it.
** During the battle against Admiral Ryokugyu, who holds the power of a flora-manipulating Logia, he's attacked with fire, under the logic that a forest-man should be weak to flames. He promptly reveals that he made a technique specifically to make himself unflammable. [[spoiler: It takes Momonosuke's Blast Breath, a breath of concentrated heat strong enough to wipe out a stone castle, to burn through his body.]]
* Walpurgisnacht from ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', the only witch that [[spoiler: could exist outside a barrier and therefore wreak havoc on the real world]].
* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries''
** An episode features a trainer that made her [[ColdIron Steel-type Skarmory]] fight exclusively against [[PlayingWithFire Fire Pokémon]] until [[ScissorsCutsRock it overcame its weakness against Fire]].
** An episode features a trainer who had his [[DishingOutDirt Ground-type Sandshrew]] repeatedly dive into a pool to help it overcome its weakness against [[MakingASplash water]].
** A trainer came up with a way to let her [[BlowYouAway Flying Pokémon]] ground [[ShockAndAwe electricity]] without getting seriously hurt.
** Early on in the second series, Ash taught Pikachu to use the Steel-type move Iron Tail, giving it an edge against Rock- and Ground-types that were immune to its electric attacks.
* In ''Anime/PhantomQuestCorp'', [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire Bosco]] eventually became immune to sunlight through controlled exposure to high-powered UV lamps. Which was done as part of [[IJustWantToBeNormal his attempt to give up being a vampire]], [[spoiler:because he'd [[LoveRedeems fallen in love with Makiko]]]].

* The Gundam Aerial in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamTheWitchFromMercury'' is the only Gundam that [[DeadlyUpgrade does not place an immense, potentially lethal strain on its pilot]] when operating at combat levels. Additionally, Gundams in the world of the series can have their strengths deactivated by the Antidote system--Aerial can circumvent this by pushing its Permet Score to the point that Antidote simply stops working on it. This might be theoretically possible for other Gundams, but it would be impossible to manage without killing the pilot. [[spoiler:This is because the Aerial offloads all the issues onto its AI: [[BrainUploading Ericht Samaya]], the only human who could completely resist the Gundam's curse.]]

* ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'': {{Inverted}} in "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho034SpareParts Spare Parts]]" when the Doctor time travels to Mondas at the time when the first Cybermen are only just being created. He tries to use gold dust against a Cyberman, but it just sort of stares at him because the aspect of Cybermen's cybernetics which causes their WeaksauceWeakness to gold doesn't yet exist in the first generation.

* Subverted by ComicBook/TheRiddler in the ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story that established that he's obsessively compelled to leave clues, otherwise he can't successfully commit a crime. The Riddler starts using forms of self-therapy to overcome his compulsion, and eventually manages to steal some jewelry without leaving any riddles. Meanwhile, Batman and Robin keep stumbling across strange people and events, which they end up connecting together to figure out Riddler's next crime. It's revealed when they catch him that Riddler hadn't overcome his compulsion--he started sleepwalking and left clues subconsciously. This realization actually led him to surrender to Batman, because he realized it meant he really was crazy.

** A specific case happens in Chapter 110 when [[spoiler:Edo Tensei!Hiashi meets his brother Hizashi. His natural course of action would be to try and use the Caged Bird Seal, which by then had already been removed from him and the rest of the Branch House Hyugas.]]
* In ''Fanfic/TheArithmancer'', Hermione receives a letter of thanks from a curse-breaker who encountered a basilisk that had been deafened and was thus immune to the crowing of a rooster. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Hermione's color-filtering goggles allowed the man to resist its deadly gaze and prevail.]]
* In the ''Fanfic/FacingTheFutureSeries'' story "[[Recap/FacingTheFutureSeriesEpisode14TwoForOne Two For One]]", it's shown that thanks to Skulker's armor being upgraded to the [=SkulkTech=] version by Technus, one of the benefits is that he's now immune to Tucker hacking into his operating system.

* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' vampires feel a strong, almost uncontrollable urge for blood, [[spoiler:the only exception being Bella after her Vampification in ''Literature/BreakingDawn'']]. The other characters speculate that this is because [[spoiler: unlike most new vampires, she had plenty of time before being turned to become mentally prepared for the temptation.]]

* Portions of the Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration novel "Imzadi" by Creator/PeterDavid take place decades after the events of the series. At the climax, Commodore Data fights [[spoiler:Admiral Riker]], and when his opponent reaches for the off-switch between his shoulder blades:
-->'''Data:''' I had it removed some time ago, sir. It was becoming a nuisance.

* ''Series/CobraKai'' has a more mundane but no less monstrous example: During a training session, Terry Silver claims that everyone has a weakness, all you have to do to win is [[TheChessmaster find and exploit it]]. At the end of Season 4, he admits that even he has a weakness, but he's found a way to eliminate it. [[spoiler: His loyalty to Kreese holds him back from pursuing his true ambitions, so once Kreese appears to be going soft (because of his own fondness for Johnny) he engineers a way to get Kreese sent off to prison.]]

* In ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'' it is brought up multiple times that the Spirit Monk's fighting style has a flaw. The flaw is such that it doesn't really hinder them since pretty nobody can take advantage of it in a meaningful way. The people who observe it praise the Spirit Monk's master for teaching them this way, assuming it's supposed to be a FakeWeakness to lure opponents into a false sense of security. [[spoiler:It's not. Master Li deliberately incorporated the flaw so that he could easily kill the Spirit Monk once they had outlived their usefulness. The flaw was designed such that only Master Li could take advantage of it.]] By the time the final battle begins, [[spoiler:Master Li]] correctly assumes that the Spirit Monk has corrected the flaw in their technique, meaning he can't easily kill them anymore.

* Franchise/{{Pokemon}}:

* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'': The evil ninja Frans Rayner initially has a pressure point -- when struck there, he is completely paralyzed for a short while. However, Rayner also has enough mental control over his body that, any time his pressure point is discovered, he can change its location. So, no paralyzing strike ever works against Rayner twice. Eventually, Rayner [[spoiler:completely eliminates his weak point. He suffers a mortal injury, and survives by becoming a cyborg -- in the process, he has the presence of mind to shift his pressure point into one of his fleshy bits that gets cut off.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', [[spoiler: ComicBook/{{Superboy}} can be put into a trance by ComicBook/LexLuthor with the phrase "red sun", due to him being cloned by Lex. The first time this happens to him, he wakes up several hours after attempting to attack Lex]]. The second time he tries to [[spoiler:attack Lex]], the same thing happens; [[spoiler:until the rest of the team shows up and it's revealed that keyphrase was removed from his mind by Miss Martian]].

* In the world of ''Anime/OnePiece'', there's a universal rule that says that, if you eat more than one Devil Fruit, you die. [[spoiler: Blackbeard]] has seemingly broken the rule, though no one but him knows how he achieved it.
** During the battle against Admiral Ryokugyuu, who holds the power of a flora-manipulating Logia, he's attacked with fire, under the logic that a forest-man should be weak to flames. He promptly reveals that he made a technique specifically to make himself unflammable. [[spoiler: It takes Momonosuke's Blast Breath, a breath of concentrated heat strong enough to wipe out a stone castle, to burn through his body.]]

* Metroids, the recurring enemies that can suck up energy from any living thing in the ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' franchise, will always have a weakness to cold-based attacks. [[note]]The ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'' changes this up a bit by changing their weakness while handwaving it as those specific Metroids being a different kind rather than the classic versions. ''VideoGame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus'' has Metroids of different kinds that can't be killed by the Ice Beam, but you see the original Metroids at the end of the game that retain their classic ice weakness.[[/note]] In ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'', there's an area that is housing altered Metroids that have their cold weakness removed. [[spoiler:Adam stops Samus from going into that room and goes in there himself to blow up the sector in a HeroicSacrifice so that Samus can take down Ridley, a foe she has more experience with compared to Adam.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/ConanTheAdventurer'', the [[LizardMe Serpent Men]] are banished to the Netherworld where their master Set resides whenever they are touched with items made of [[ThunderboltIron Star Metal]]. In a BadFuture where Conan has been killed and Wrath-Amon was able to open the gateway to the Netherworld to free Set, the Serpent Men become virtually unstoppable as the gate being open meant they could no longer be banished.

* The Creator/TerryPratchett book ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'' has a family of vampires whose father has trained them all to be immune to sunlight and to not react to holy symbols or garlic, as one is just a collection of lines and curves and the other is merely a member of the Allium family. [[spoiler:This [[JustForPun bites back]] [[HoistByHisOwnPetard hard]] at the end of the book, though, when the family can't stop seeing holy symbols everywhere. After all, they're just straight lines and curves...]]