Basic Trope: Using your talents or unique abilities to get ahead only leads to disaster.
- Straight: Mike uses his Telepathy to land a high-powered job as a stockbroker by reading the interviewer's mind. He quickly learns some things in the human psyche are best left undiscovered.
- Exaggerated: After using his power to become the richest, most successful man in the world, Mike realizes his life is empty.
- Downplayed: Apart from the occasional "nudge" to get some jerk to stop parking in his spot at work, Mike keeps the use of his powers for selfish reasons to a minimum, and suffers little as a result.
- Justified: Mike's power is the real deal, and in the wrong hands would be lethal. He has to work strenuously every day to make sure he's up to the job of handling them.
- Inverted: Mike doesn't use his power at all if he can avoid it. To him, they're a curse more than a blessing. As a result of this, he does very well with his life.
- Subverted: When pressed, Mike uses his power to hurt Bob by giving him a mild concussion. Since nobody saw him lay a hand on Bob, he's considered blameless and manages to get away with it without any repercussions. It helps that the incident is a one-off and that Mike considered the action a necessary evil at best.
- Double Subverted: Only later does Mike learn that Bob was undergoing important Character Development and was doing something that would have improved life for many human and nonhuman animals if it went through. He feels terrible about it.
- Parodied: Mike only abuses his power to figure out where his girlfriend Alice wants to eat for dinner.
- Zig-Zagged: Mike comes close to crossing several moral lines in the use of his powers, checking himself each time, until an opportunity comes along that he simply can't resist. Once done, he finds it simple to keep using his powers to enhance his life...
- Averted: Mike doesn't have powers, and wouldn't use them to rig the lottery if he did.
- Enforced: Mike has been given an ability beyond nearly everyone else in the world, and abusing it for petty crime would be a waste.
- Lampshaded: A lot of new moral dilemmas present themselves once Mike swears off misusing his powers.
- Invoked: After granting Mike temporary powers, Master Khan tells Mike that he can use them for any reason he chooses just to see what his new student will do with them full-time.
- Exploited: As a hero, Mike makes a big show of being forthright in the use of his powers to reap the passive rewards of being a "good guy".
- Defied: Knowing full well his power is ripe for abuse, Mike keeps his abilities strictly under wraps, and employs them only in life-threatening situations.
- Discussed: "Kinda hard to be good when the bad guys don't seem to have the same problems."
- Conversed: "What's the harm in throwing a few well-deserved punches in the right directions now and then?"
- Implied: Mike shuts down Gina's indignant suggestion that he use his powers for the greater good, since he knows from experience how it can come back to bite you.
- Deconstructed: At first Mike uses his powers with the strictest limitations. But soon, he begins to use them to help others, starting with his friends. A small step, but this less-than-discriminate use of his power eventually erodes his judgment to the point where he can't remember why he bothered trying to set limits for himself in the first place, opening the door for much darker prospects down the road...
- Reconstructed: Mike understands his demons, having fought them his whole life, and goes out of his way to keep from using his powers selfishly.
- Played for Laughs:
- Mike reads people's minds and makes hilarious faces of disgust when he learns what they're thinking.
- Mike doesn't watch where he's going while reading people's minds and incurs Amusing Injuries.
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