Basic Trope: A character masters a skill he or she previously struggled with under pressure (usually life-or-death pressure).
- Straight: Bob can't rope anything during practice, but he makes a difficult shot when Alice is stuck out on thin ice.
- Exaggerated: Bob is completely hopeless at roping (to the point that the safest place to be standing is next to whatever he's trying to rope) until Alice, Charlie, Dracone, Eva, and Tropey the Wonder Dog get stuck out on thin ice, whereupon he performs so well it wins him a championship award.
- Downplayed: Bob sometimes manages to rope his target during practice, but he gets much better during a crisis.
- Justified:
- By the time Alice had gotten stuck on thin ice, Bob had practiced roping enough to become good at it.
- It was just a lucky shot.
- Bob knew Alice was in danger and was able to zero in on where he wanted the rope to go.
- It's later revealed that Freda the fairy used magic to make him able to rope Alice (because fairies can only save people's lives indirectly).
- Inverted: Bob is a champion roper during practice but goes to pieces during a crisis.
- Subverted: Bob cannot rope anything during practice. Then Alice gets stuck out on thin ice, the heroic music starts up, and...Bob misses his shot again.
- Double Subverted: ...But then he makes a second try and succeeds like a pro.
- Parodied: The only time Bob can do anything right is during a crisis.
- Zig Zagged: Bob manages to rope Alice when she's on thin ice, Alice never perfects her karate training, not even in a crisis, Charlie perfects his fencing skill a bit before the crisis, Dracone never has a crisis to deal with but he perfects his dancing skill anyway, Eva never learns a skill, and Tropey the Wonder Dog perfects his agility training in what he thought was a crisis but it wasn't.
- Averted:
- No crises happen.
- Nobody perfects a skill at a crisis.
- Nobody learns anything new.
- Enforced: The author thinks it's cooler for Bob to succeed at the last minute than to know how to perform the skill perfectly from the beginning.
- Lampshaded:Alice: Let's see, I'm out here on the ice, the sun is getting hotter every minute, and my only hope is Bob...I hope he can throw a rope better now than he does in practice.
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Alice pretends to be in danger to teach Bob how to rope.
- Defied: When a crisis happens, Alice instantly looks for any solution that doesn't involves using a rope.
- Discussed: "He was useless at roping, but then he saved me by roping me! I mean, seriously! I'm not lying!"
- Conversed: "Why do characters need to be in danger to have other characters learn?"
- Deconstructed: Bob gets used to being able to pull off a skill when he needs it, so he stops practicing. Then one day he fails because he never even tried to practice the skill in a non-crisis situation and Alice dies.
Back to Crisis Makes Perfect.
