History Main / UselessSuperpowers

-->-- [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee's]] review on ''VideoGame/{{Scribblenauts}}''

* Richard from ''Literature/TheSwordOfTruth'' is said to have more magical ability than anyone else living, but he has to be emotionally charged to do jack. Occasionally he'll destroy an entire regiment with nothing more than a thought, but otherwise can't light a candle without flint. Richard's powers are often noted to be inversely proportional to the number of pages left. Even with these limitations, there is enough of a StoryBreakerPower potential that Richard's gift has been blocked or restricted by taking a hostage on a regular basis.
* In L.E Modesitt's ''Literature/TheSagaOfRecluce'', mages have the power to reshape land, permanently alter weather, and wreak unholy destruction on those around them. However, the more powerful the magic, the greater the price. Using Order magic to cause death always results in a backlash against the mage, typically blindness. Improving the weather in one place can cause major and catastrophic climate shifts (in one book, changing one land from desert into productive land by moving weather systems creates a much larger desert elsewhere). Using Chaos magic prematurely ages the user, and turns one into walking entropy -- food spoils more quickly, clothing and furniture wear out much faster than normal, and machines break down constantly. Using either one to heal injury or kill disease can weaken the person it's used on. The Balance pretty much limits uses of magic to small, subtle things, or results in greatly shortened lifespans.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Anyone who has ever belonged to a social group where she or he is above and beyond the most skilled athlete, the physically strongest, by far the best educated, the most intelligent, the most well-off and with the most surplus income, etc knows exactly what it is like to be continually forbidden by friends to do anything to help them and what it is like to be the only person excluded from a group game of basketball or ''Trivial Pursuit'' because allowing someone so talented to play is declared "unfair to everyone else."
* Similarly, it is a very real thing in the United States for someone to be denied a job for being "overqualified."
** Well, "overqualified" people are more likely to ask for raises or object to mistreatment on the job, aren't they?
[[/folder]]

* In ''Series/{{Tracker}}'', there's an episode where Cole is hit with an energy weapon that screws up his polarities and renders him unable to use his Cirronian powers.

* At the start of ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'', [[FairyCompanion Keroberos]] is unable to use most of his powers because they are sealed away due to being stuck in his SleepModeSize until [[GottaCatchEmAll all the Clow Cards are captured]]. Unsurprisingly, he is quick to reassure Sakura that [[TransformationSequence once he can return to his normal form]], he will be very powerful and "cool", (and so he is!). But even after he is freed to be his MegaNeko self whenever he wishes in the second season, invariably [[WeaksauceWeakness one barrier, spell, or complication after another crops up that renders his powers fairly useless]] -- or they just don't have much of an effect. Of course, this is usually because in most cases, he's unknowingly trying [[OmniscientMoralityLicense to combat his own creator's powers]], but still.
* Miroku from ''Manga/InuYasha'' is cursed with a black hole in the palm of his hand. While it will one day consume him, and if he has children the curse will be passed on to them, it can also suck in anything into an inescapable abyss. So what keeps this from being a StoryBreakerPower? The BigBad's minions all have the ability to produce poisonous miasmas, which ''does'' affect Miroku if he sucks it inside his hand. It doesn't take long for him to go from a super-powerful PersonOfMassDestruction to mere CombatCommentator, although on several occasions when there truly is no other choice, Miroku will go ahead and use it and deal with being poisoned. The Wind Tunnel also grows as he uses it, and can grow more quickly if his hand is damaged.
* In the ''Franchise/DragonBall'' TV Special ''Anime/DragonBallZBardockTheFatherOfGoku'', Bardock is granted precognitive powers by the last of a race he was slaughtering. You'd think being able to see the future would be useful, but in this case, the power comes in the forms of random, uncontrolled visions of the future, which mostly consist of [[Manga/DragonBall his youngest son's life on Earth]] and [[CallForward Frieza wiping out Planet Vegeta and all of its people]]. Which was the point. The alien gave Bardock the visions as a form of vengeance, hoping to punish the Saiyan with dreams of [[YouCantFightFate a future that can't be stopped]]. The only consolation is the knowledge that his son will be the one to defeat Frieza. Lampshaded in ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'':

* In ''Manga/FullMetalAlchemist'', Roy Mustang's flame alchemy fits this trope. Mustang has the power to shoot flame from his hands as long as he's wearing his special ignition gloves, which is a massively powerful combat skill -- that he can only use on the rare occasions when it isn't raining or flooded, the enemy didn't steal or destroy his ignition gloves, and he isn't blinded. To his credit he ''is'' at least GenreSavvy enough to carry around a box of matches just in case his opponent thinks destroying or wetting his gloves will render him completely helpless: Edward himself learned this the hard way during a duel between the two.

* ''Franchise/JojosBizarreAdventure'': Happens on occasion with Stands. A Stand is one's fighting spirit incarnate... so if you don't have much fighting spirit, you end up with one useless stand.
** Boingo's Thoth is a comic book that predicts the future accurately... with the caveat that due to ProphecyTwist, it's mostly good for getting him and his brother into pratfalls.
** Toshikazu Hazamada has the stand Surface, which inhabits a mannequin. When the mannequin is destroyed, he's still technically a Stand User but said Stand can't do anything.
** Carne's stand activates on his death. While said stand is an ImplacableMan and a dangerous threat, it's still completely useless to Carne himself.
** Pocoloco's stand Hey Ya! gives him encouragement. That's it.

* [[ComicBook/FantasticFour Franklin Richards]], [[SuperpowerfulGenetics son of Susan Storm and Reed Richards]], has RealityWarper powers that essentially make him a capital-g God. Naturally this is a headache for any good writer to maintain narrative tension with, which is is a problem with Marvel's [[DependingOnTheWriter rotating staff]]. He was born with these powers, so he spent most of his history too young to control them, leading to a lot of drama where Reed took drastic action to regulate them like putting him into a coma, leaving Sue horrified at such measures. Sometimes his future selves would come around, who either fully mastered his abilities or only had access to an infinitesimal fraction of them which still often left him the strongest thing around. In general Franklin vacillates between his powers being a source of drama or [[DeusExMachina an escape hatch]] but never consistently enough for him to be a factor in most crises. Dan Slott's run dealt with this by depowering him after finally reaching his limit reconstructing the entire multiverse.

* Creator/LarryNiven attempted to avert this by ending his ''Literature/KnownSpace'' series after ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}'', because he had introduced too much {{Phlebotinum}}, like [[spoiler:the Teela Brown gene]], to continue writing without invoking increasingly circuitous barriers to the use of said Phlebotinum. Of course, then he went and [[{{Sequelitis}} made Ringworld Engineers, and Ringworld Throne, and]]...

* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': The Wild Card usually isn't this trope, since 'access to multiple Personas' is a very useful ability, hence why it's [[OneHeroHoldTheWeaksauce restricted to protagonists]].[[spoiler: Goro Akechi is a Wild Card who can do precisely ''jack squat'' with it, because extra personas come from Confidants and Goro, friendless as he is, has none. He's stuck with just Robin Hood and Loki (given by the BigBad specifically to use to cause trouble).]]

* In ''WebAnimation/CyanideAndHappiness'' we have Senor Cleanfist. He is able to clean anything but has to physically destroy the object in question to get rid of some grime.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/CaseyAndAndy'', Satan herself is Andy's girlfriend. The author had to come up with reasons she doesn't want to use superpowers to resolve story arcs immediately. Quite often, it ends up being "I'm evil and your suffering amuses me". Well, she ''is'' Satan...

* The pilot episode for ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has him find a time travel device- but, because of his inexperience, he accidentally locks it so he can only use its powers to [[MundaneUtility make comebacks]] [[ComebackTomorrow on time]].[[spoiler: Garnet does manage to find a use for it by insulting Steven before going out on a mission; after the mission goes horribly wrong, Steven can thus return to right before it happened and warn the Gems... ''if'' he can find a good enough comeback to trigger the device.]]

* The pilot episode for ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has him find a time travel device- but, because of his inexperience, he accidentally locks it so he can only use its powers to [[MundaneUtility make comebacks]] [[ComebackTomorrow on time]].

* In ''Theatre/FlyByNightMusical'', the Gypsy fortune teller is able to predict several events that will coincide Miriam meeting her soulmate, ''and'' she foresees [[spoiler:Miriam's death]] shortly after this, but can't use her powers to see to see where Miriam works.

* In the [[AnimatedAdaptation animated]] version of ''WesternAnimation/{{Beetlejuice}}'', the title character can do pretty much whatever he wants once Lydia calls him into the living world. However, he developed all of his powers solely for his "bio-exorcist" profession; they are ''only'' good for "[[UnusualEuphemism juicing]]" ([[TheTrickster pranking]]) people. This works out wonderfully when he has AcceptableTargets to humiliate. However, ''any'' and '''all''' attempts to use them for more constructive purposes backfire or have ridiculous drawbacks, or he [[LiteralGenie literally interprets a wish]] or [[YouJustHadToSayIt underestimates the penalties involved.]]
** Example: Lydia is busy baking cookies for the Girl Scouts Cookie Sale. Beetlejuice gets bored and instantly conjures some cookies from the Netherworld. Lydia doesn't trust them, but she's woefully undersupplied so she sells them. The last line of the recipe? "Do not dunk." When Beetlejuice finally decides to test what happens, the cookie [[InstantPeopleJustAddWater grows lifesized and goes on a rampage]]. So do all the other cookies he sold. Oops.

* This is much of the gag with ''LightNovel/KonoSuba'', due to the presence of Aqua, essentially a powerful water goddess incarnated as a magic-user. She possesses vast power, but even assuming she isn't paralyzed by her phenomenal stupidity, she has a great habit of running into enemies that can completely shut her down. For instance, anything not undead or demonic, and ''especially'' anything not undead or demonic that shares a water focus. Naturally, the very first thing she faced in battle was a giant frog, which nearly swallowed her whole. (The second was a different giant frog. She had a very unpleasant first day.)

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'', and its limitless [[SuperpowerLottery broken superpowers]], occasionally creates powers that simply never really get used.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Anyone who has ever belonged to a social group where she or he is above and beyond the most skilled athlete, the physically strongest, by far the best educated, the most intelligent, the most well-off and with the most surplus income, etc knows exactly what it is like to be continually forbidden by friends to do anything to help them and what it is like to be the only person excluded from a group game of basketball or volleyball because allowing someone so talented to play is declared "unfair to everyone else."

** This was made apparent to new character Paige; when she cast a 'Karma/reap what you sow' spell on a fellow employee, it backfired and gave her breasts so big she had to break [[GagBoobs spherical holes into the windshield]] just to get in her car.

** In ''Literature/{{Thud}}!'', after government inspector A.E. Pessimal is dragged along to observe the Watch quelling a riot, he asks Commander Vimes why they couldn't recruit the wizards to help stop a potential riot by magicking away the weapons. Vimes indicates that they ''could'', but crap would happen, like missing fingers... to say the least.

Common in series like ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'', where the characters are given almost unlimited powers at the beginning, and the writers have to come up with more and more [[WeaksauceWeakness arcane limitations]] [[DramaPreservingHandicap to create a new conflict each week]].