Basic Trope: A character who has amazing talents, but somehow ends up worse than his less skilled contemporaries.
- Straight: Ace is a mathematical and scientific genius who won a university scholarship at 8-years-old and graduated at the top of his class. As an adult, he now works as a downtrodden salaryman who is constantly abused by his Pointy-Haired Boss, while his former classmates have all found better success in their various careers.
- Exaggerated: Ace is a multi-talented genius who can instantly become a world-class expert in almost every subject he gets involved in, whether it be academics, art or sports. However, he is unable to find or keep a job as an adult, and ends up begging in the street.
- Downplayed: Both Ace and his straight-C classmate, Brandon, apply for a job at the same company. Despite having better credentials, Ace is given the lower position.
- Justified:
- Ace's particular talent has little practical use, or only appeals to a very niche audience, and he lacks the money, connection and/or social skills to find a sponsor that will allow him to make a living out of his skills. The only job he managed to land was one he's not particularly good at, damaging his chances of progressing in his line of work.
- Despite his competence, Ace is rude, lazy, and arrogant, and frequently goes out of his way to disobey instructions, which he considers "stupid", in order to show-off his brilliance. As a result, no one is willing to work with him, let alone hire him, leaving him jobless and destitute.
- Ace is a Brilliant, but Lazy Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond who never bothers to develop his skills beyond what is required by his community. When he enters the working world, he is unable to compete with the similarly talented individuals who are better educated/trained than he is.
- Inverted: Bob is an F-- student who is constantly picked last at sports, and has no standout talents. After graduating from school, he builds several start-up companies that all became very successful. He ends up a multi-millionaire, while his smarter peers are still struggling to pay their student loan debts.
- Subverted: A serious problem hits the city and Ace manages to solve it with his brilliance. He is hailed a local hero, and this allows him to quit his abusive job and find one that suits his abilities better.
- Double Subverted: Ace's achievement is forgotten within a week, and his new job is just as bad as the old one.
- Parodied: Everyone keeps reminiscing about what a genius Ace was in his younger days... then a flashback shows he was already a burnout in preschool.
- Zig Zagged: Ace and Brandon works at the same company, but Ace is given a lower position despite his more impressive CV. After working for several years, Ace gets several promotions, which puts him above Brandon—until he accidentally humiliates his boss by pointing out a mistake she made in front of several important clients, getting him fired. However, he manages to find a better-paying job at a larger company, until the CEO of that company gets arrested for fraudulent business practices, and causing the whole group to go bankrupt and tarnishing the reputation of all of its employees, leaving Ace without any good career prospects.
- Averted: Teen Genius Ace makes big bucks as a world-famous inventor.
- Enforced: The writers want to teach An Aesop that one shouldn't expect to coast through life just because they are talented. Discipline, hard work, and developing relationships with others are just as necessary—if not more important—than innate abilities to succeed.
- Lampshaded: "Here I am struggling to make ends meet, while that Brainless Bob is a CEO to several companies. I wonder what went wrong...?"
- Invoked: Ace's jealous peers deliberately sabotage his work so that he wouldn't outshine them.
- Exploited: Ace's superiors exploit his talent by giving him more work than he's actually paid to do. His lack of other job prospects means that he can't do anything to retaliate.
- Defied: Ace hits several roadblocks in his personal life that ordinary people couldn't overcome, but he uses them as motivation instead and ends up pulling ahead of his peers.
- Discussed: "Is Ace still working as a Burger Fool? With his grades, one would think he'd find a better job."
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Ace has been told his whole life that he has the potential for great things, and the fact that he hasn't managed to achieve anything substantial causes him to feel immense shame for failing to meet his friends and family's expectations. He slips into depression, and falls into a downward spiral of failure, dismotivation and self-loathing.
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played For Laughs: Ace is an Insufferable Genius Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist who constantly needs to be put in place by his Beleaguered Boss (usually via slapstick) as a source of comedy.
- Played For Drama: Ace is lured into a Nebulous Evil Organisation who feeds on his desire for recognition to use his skills for their nefarious purposes. Ace gets a My God, What Have I Done? moment once he realizes what he's walking into, but refuses to return to the society that had taken him for granted. He ends up committing suicide.
Back to Genius Burnout.
