Hard Work Hardly Works / Literature

• Zig-Zagged but present in 100 Cupboards with Henry, who is How Do I Shot Web? about some aspects of his newfound Green Man abilities, but picks up dreamwalking very fast - the older Monmouth explains that Henry is better than him because his imagination is strong enough that he can impose it over others' dreams. Noted though that Monmouth isn't particularly well-trained either, and most of his knowledge comes from stealing books to read on the sly.
• This is the Aesop of Atlas Shrugged. While Dagny Taggart works very hard to manage Taggart Transcontinental and many of the people that get accepted into Galt's Gulch have innate abilities who also work hard, while Eddie Willers, who works hard for Taggart Transcontinental, ends up breaking down in the middle of the desert trying and failing to fix the train because he lacks their innate abilities.
• Averted with Garion in The Belgariad. Anyone gifted with sorcery will still need years of training to truly master the art, and even near the end of the second series, he's still getting plenty of pointers from his elders. He is a lot more powerful than a sorcerer of his age should be, but that's largely thanks to the Orb and his acknowledged status as the Child of Light rather than any innate ability. It's also worth noting that in his final battle with Torak, sorcery has nothing to do with it — it is his willpower, and rejection of Torak, that grants him victory.
  • Of course, not every sorcerer is privy to the full details of his unique status, so there is some confusion when he pulls of feats he probably shouldn't be able to.
  • At the start of the next series he causes problems due to large power and little training a few times. He stops a battle of knights by creating a lightning storm and a few months later, an irate Belgarath calls him some fun names while informing him that the disciples (all old sorcerers) spent months fixing the world's weather. He also, with the help of the orb, blows up a gate in a city his army is attacking. As he is angry the orb gets enthusiastic and the gate with part of the wall disappear as the explosion is THAT big. Parts of the wall land kilometers out to sea as well.
• In A Brother's Price, Jerin is able to marry the princesses because his grandfather was special, but his lockpicking skills and ability to read thieves' cant are all due to hard work. This is a family tradition, coming from his grandmothers who were spies, but Jerin and his sisters are shown practicing it. On the other hand, Jerin's Sex God abilities do seem somewhat implausible given that he's a virgin at the start of the novel and only had the theoretical knowledge passed to him by his grandfather. On the other hand, such things are subjective and the competition isn't any better, either, as chastity is highly valued in husbands in this setting.
• In Jeramey Kraatz's The Cloak Society, the only way into the Cloak Society is by descent from the founders; only they have the superpowers Umbra grants. Gage's father died in a lab accident because of his unceasing efforts to avert this — to demonstrate such inventing genius that they would accept him — and Gage is following in his footsteps. On the other hand, when it comes to actual skill, this trope is thoroughly averted. Both superheroes and supervillains are rigorously drilled both in their powers and in Boxing Lessons for Superman.
• Daisy Jones & The Six: Daisy, despite having no formal vocal training and little technical knowledge of music, is a naturally gifted singer-songwriter whose talent surpasses people with years of training. Simone, her best friend who did have to work hard for her own music career, notes that as much as she envied Daisy for her talent, it was near impossible to hate her due to her charisma and personality.
• Averted in Dragon Bones: Ward's fighting skills are due to his aunt Stala, who worked hard for her experience, and taught her niece and nephews how to fight. When Ward regains the magical ability he was born with, but lost when he was a child, he can't do much with it, as he isn't trained in magic, and so can only do the most intuitive things.
• Harry Potter is Playing with a Trope.
  • Harry is a naturally gifted Seeker. He doesn't seem to be that far above average while playing any other position. During the O.W.L. tests, Harry is the student (that we know of) with the highest number of O.W.L.s after Hermione. And before that, when the moment to learn the Patronus Charm came, he learnt it in a day.
  • This is also extended to Hufflepuff House, whose defining trait is hard work. The number of major/notable characters from that house that are crucial to the plot can be counted on one hand .
  • Ron can be called the poster boy for the trope. He starts as a rather mediocre Quidditch Player, but quickly becomes one of the best players of the Team. And when he studies hard, he actually got a very large number of O.W.Ls
  • Neville is Played Straight. Neville is at the rock bottom of the pecking order. While he does improve during the DA lessons he does not really reach the level of the main Trio or even the other students of the DA. Neville is a case of Can't Catch Up.
• His Dark Materials: Lyra learns how to use the alethiometer in less than a month. It's supposed to take decades. On the other hand, she's not the only one. Justified, somewhat, in that it's explained that Lyra was granted the use of the alethiometer for a short time only, and that when she's completed her role, the ability leaves her. However, she can regain the ability through years of study just like anyone else. More to the point, the information she gains out of the alethiometer is angels talking to her. Another character in another world has been working on a computer program that does the same thing, essentially, and after a certain point the angels get impatient and simply spell it out for her.
• In The Licanius Trilogy, Davian has been trying his entire life to wield Essence. He's studied every book and practiced every technique, but he just isn't able to tap his Reserve and wield it. That's because Augurs use Essence by wielding it from the environment, not their Reserves, but he has no clue about this until someone tells him. From that point on, he's a natural.
• A Mage's Power averts this trope. Whenever Eric goes up against older and/or more experienced warriors, he is outgunned every time. The only way to victory in those cases is with guile.
  • Eric trains for hours every day before and after school for a couple of weeks and he gets humiliated by a veteran mercenary, whose experience ranks in a couple decades.
  • Anyone of the Black Cloak rogues could kill him on their own, so he pretends to be one of them and uses a quick spell combo to disable them when his ruse is discovered.
  • When he fights mages from the Royal Academy, ^note  Students of magical theory and other non-combat areas of study who have never been in a serious fight before he curbstomps all of them but one. When he fights Kallen Selios ^note  A veteran field agent for the ICDMM, which hunts monsters so they can study mana mutation , he is curbstomped himself.
  • In his climactic confrontation with Dengel, his only path to victory is exploiting the elder mage's ego and deceiving him. A direct confrontation would lead to a quick and permanent death.
• Averted very hard in Dmitri Yemets' Methodius Buslaev books. The reason that Guardians of Gloom and Guardians of Light are so skilled in battle is that they have thousands of years in training.
  • The best of the Guardians of Gloom, Ares, is a God of War because that he constantly trains and fights. And even then it's stated that he can be killed if his opponents are enough skilled or have enough numbers.
• In The Neverending Story Hynreck is a professional hero who spent his whole life being the best at everything he does, but he can't hold a candle against Bastian, who outmatches him with ease by virtue of holding AURYN and wielding Sikanda, a sword that can never be beaten.
• Klaus of Spy Classroom achieved his mastery of spycraft intuitively, while his pupils studied for years and aren't nearly as good. This is actually part of the problem in the first book: because he mastered his craft intuitively, he doesn't know how to explain it to anyone else, making him a terrible teacher.
• Tree of Aeons: When Lausanne first wants to train in combat and become a hero, Jura talks to TreeTree about how it only makes sense for people to train things they're naturally talented at, and Lausanne isn't gifted at combat, so he wants her to try something else. TreeTree doesn't have the heart to just crush her dreams, though, so he offers her what help he can. Results are mixed; with his many boosts to learning, the opportunities he gives her, and a lot of hard work, she becomes a prodigy by most people's standards — and yet she is left in the dust when she encounters the divinely blessed heroes, who can surpass her hard-won progress in days or weeks.
• Pataki, from Tibor Fischer's Under The Frog. "Pataki had just found out about his speed one day and found it there whenever he needed it. If Gyuri didn't run every day, he'd slow up and balloon; if he didn't play ball every day his edge would blunt but Pataki could wander onto the court after a month in a Parisian restaurant and still be able to whizz down infallibly and dunk the ball in the basket. There had to be a good reason for Pataki to stir and training wasn't one of them."
• The Wheel of Time: Egwene and Nynevae are described as being some of the most powerful channelers Moraine has ever seen. When they get to Tar Valon in the second book, Egwene is entered at the level of Novice, but Nynevae gets to skip Novice and proceed directly to Accepted, the middle rank. They leave the Aes Sedai for an extended portion of the second book, and when they return in the third, Egwene is raised to the level of Accepted.
  • Mat Cauthon inherits past memories of incredible martial and tactical ability. With barely any combat training, he defeats two excellent swordsmen at the same time, despite the fact that he's practically an invalid at the time. He goes on to become an extremely successful general.
    • Not hardly any training, he was trained in the use of the quarterstaff by his father, who was the best in their hometown. It also helped that the swordsmen were underestimating him...and that the Warder instructor noted "a farmer with a quarterstaff" was the only man to defeat the greatest swordsman in history, suggesting the clash of styles worked in Mat's favor.
    • He had to work hard to get good at the quarterstaff, but as for the army management...in his first large-scale battle (where he has any command) he takes a group of essentially new recruits and carves his way through an ambush laid by overwhelming numbers of the best warriors in the world. Justified in that many, many people had to work hard, and even die, to get Mat those skills, he just wasn't one of them.
  • Zigzagged with Rand. After struggling to learn the basics of channeling, Rand taps into the Ghost Memory of his prior incarnation, Lews Therin, who was The Ace in his time period, allowing Rand to spontaneously pull off complicated weaves with no practice. The catch is that Lews Therin starts to manifest as a voice in Rand’s head, and Lews is dangerously bonkers. So while Rand doesn’t have to put much work into being good at channeling, he has to put a lot of work into integrating Lews Therin into his own consciousness without driving himself mad.