History MundaneUtility / Literature

* ''Literature/BookOfTheDead2021'': The "Sleep" spell is normally meant for enemies, but it's also quite handy for an outlaw necromancer who needs to keep odd hours, allowing him to go to bed at whatever time best suits him.

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': The One Ring, the object that holds most of the Dark Lord Sauron's power, binding him to Middle Earth as long as it exists, the One Ring designed to rule all the other rings of power, and what does Bilbo use it for after ''Literature/TheHobbit''? To avoid meeting unpleasant relatives and to play a prank at his birthday party. {{Justified}} and [[ExploitedTrope Exploited]]: the Ring canonically grants power "according to the wielder's stature," so the hobbits ''can't'' tap most of its deeper and more intimidating powers; but the fact that they think so small, desiring to be left alone in peace above all else, makes them more resistant to the Ring's corruption than most. Gollum's vision of being the all-powerful Ring-Bearer is to be served fresh fish every day.

* ''[[https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/62087/saintess-summons-skeletons-a-holy-necromancy-litrpg/ Saintess Summons Skeletons]]'': Sofia's [Angel Bolt] is a ten second ChargedAttack so powerful that she can't use it in an enclosed space, for fear of killing herself and/or bringing the whole building down. Every shot burns her armour and then her body with its mere presence. She can also use it to boil drinking water and grill meat.

** Sorcery has nearly limitless application, which all of the sorcerers take advantage of to some extent: the high end would probably be Belgarath (who prefers to take shortcuts in things like physical labor), and the low would probably be [[spoiler:Durnik]], who prefers working by hand if time isn't an issue. {{Discussed|Trope}} when Polgara points out that she can do chores like sewing by magic, but doesn't "because I like to sew, dear".

** Trapped in World War I, he becomes a SuperSoldier killing as many German soldiers as he can for the French Foreign Legion. He decides to become a useful Super Soldier by InstantWinCondition: hijacking a plane, infiltrating Germany and killing the German Emperor and his generals to force a DecapitatedArmy. Unfortunately, SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs and the war ends on its own accord.

** On a similar note, Susan, Death's granddaughter, has inherited The Grim Reaper's many talents, among them the ability to exist outside of time. She uses this talent to grade papers (largely due to her suffering a heavy case of IJustWantToBeNormal). Her classes take quite interesting, Disc-travelling unscheduled field trips during her lessons. However, her CompellingVoice, while able to help her skip on teaching when her grandfather needs her, cannot be used to get her a raise from the headmistress. She was also very good at certain sports such as lacrosse and hockey. Just seeing Susan moving with [[SinisterScythe a long angled stick]] and a calculating expression makes goalies reconsider their life choices.

** In a world in which technology to make clockwork is rare, how does one keep track time? Trap tiny demons in watches of course! They aren't dangerous, but the clocks aren't very reliable, which makes mechanical ones far better.

** According to [[http://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/comments/2kcr6g/dresdens_day_off/ Word of Jim]], Molly once tried to make a potion to dye her hair different colours on command.

** In ''[[Literature/PreludeToDune Dune: House Harkonnen]]'', Duke Leto uses a jeweled dagger that was given to him by the Emperor...to cut a paradan melon.

* Katie Welker of ''Literature/TheGirlWithTheSilverEyes'' uses her [[MindOverMatter telekinesis]] to do things like push her glasses up on her nose and turn out the lights in her room without leaving her bed.

** The House-elves. A race of powerful magical beings with near absolute loyalty as their ''Hat'', whose magic isn't bound by the same rules or limitations as human wizardry, and what do most wizards and witches use them for? ''Chores''. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] by the [[FantasticRacism condescending attitude]] most wizards and witches have concerning House Elves. A few wizards do make clever use of their House elves though: [[spoiler: Crouch Sr. entrusted Winky with the ''very'' important task of keeping his son hidden (and fired her for nearly letting him escape), Regulus Black told Kreacher to destroy Voldemort's locket Horcrux, though even Kreacher's powers weren't enough to break it, and Harry put Kreacher's talents to good use for espionage in ''Half-blood Prince'' and for capturing a thief in ''Deathly Hallows'']].
** [[ChekhovsGun The Time Turner]]. For nearly the whole year Hermione uses it to go back an hour or so to do more classes, extending her days to about 28 hours each with 13 classes a week on almost no sleep. Put to better use at the end, when Harry and Hermione go back in time to [[spoiler: save the lives of Harry's godfather and an innocent Hippogriff]]. Still, the time turners are used exactly once in the series despite being one of the most obviously powerful artifacts in the series. Although they do have limitations in that they can't go back very far and they [[YouAlreadyChangedThePast create stable time loops,]] meaning that whatever you go back to change will result in the same future you've already seen.
** The invisibility cloak. It makes you (and up to two of your short friends, apparently) invisible. Primary use? Pranks, and sneaking around Hogwarts. James used it to get free food. [[spoiler: When it is described as one of the supposedly mythical Deathly Hallows, Hermione is actually shocked speechless.]] In fairness, Harry does generally use it when more important problems come up as well.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' when a character comments on the absurdity of creating a knife that can cut through from one world to another and using it "to steal candy."
* One of the perennial complaints of Marvin the Depressed Robot from ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' is that he has a brain the size of a planet, yet is assigned only simple household tasks that wouldn't challenge a lobotomized goldfish's intellect.

* Inverted in ''Literature/KillDecision''. A derivative of ''Music/{{Vocaloid}}'' - and yes, the copyright is expressly namedropped, as is the used to do "virtual pop stars in Japan" thing - is used [[spoiler:by the villains to fake a video of the colonel ordering Odin's team to stand down.]]
* The boys in ''Literature/{{Krabat}}'' may and do use magic for their daily work and even just for pranks.

* In the ''{{Literature/Lensman}}'' series, the ability to render objects inertialess is not just used for FTL travel, but also to replace elevators. Step out into a yawning shaft, drop "free" for fifty or a hundred floors in a fraction of a second, and walk out at the desired level without a hair being mussed. The one drawback is that skirts are out as female office wear.
* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': The One Ring, the object that holds most of the dark lord Sauron's power, binding him to Middle Earth as long as it exists, the One Ring designed to rule all the other rings of power, and what does Bilbo use it for after ''Literature/TheHobbit''? To avoid meeting unpleasant relatives and to play a prank at his birthday party. {{Justified}} and [[ExploitedTrope Exploited]]: the Ring canonically grants power "according to the wielder's stature," so the hobbits ''can't'' tap most of its deeper and more intimidating powers; but the fact that they think so small, desiring to be left alone in peace above all else, makes them more resistant to the Ring's corruption than most.
** Gollum's vision of being the all-powerful Ring-Bearer is to be served fresh fish every day.

* ''[[https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/62087/saintess-summons-skeletons-a-holy-necromancy-litrpg/ Saintess Summons Skeletons]]'': Sofia's [Angel Bolt] is a ten second ChargedAttack so powerful that she can't use it in an enclosed space, for fear of killing herself and/or bringing the whole building down. Every shot burns her armour and then her body with its mere presence. She can also use it to boil drinking water.

* In ''LightNovel/DeathMarchToTheParallelWorldRhapsody'', Satou (ab)uses holy swords as cooking knives and to mine materials from a dungeon to create his own treasure room.