Hard Work Hardly Works / Western Animation

• In Aladdin: The Series, one of Mozenrath's main beefs with Aladdin was how easily Al had gotten his genie. Mozenrath had studied extensively for decades, even given up his own right hand for power, and here comes this guy with an all-powerful genie at his side, and the kid doesn't even seem to realize that it's unusual!
• Played straight and then averted in an old episode of Arthur, dealing with a school-wide Spelling Bee. In the initial round, Arthur gets through by sheer luck in that the only word he studied was "Aardvark", whereas a few other classmates studied furiously. Deciding to win through skill the next time, Arthur studies rigorously and does succeed in the end.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Katara feels this way when Aang masters Waterbending seemingly without trying when she's been self-training for years. This is lampshaded partly in the numerous references to past Avatars — Roku notes to a hesitant teacher that the Avatar has already mastered the elements a thousand times, which means learning them might be more like remembering something you forgot a long time ago. In addition, Katara was self-teaching, but Aang immediately benefited from everything she learned. When they both get some supervised training from a true Master, she learns much faster because he doesn't take it very seriously: Katara makes enough progress in days for said master (a Straw Misogynist who only changed his tune after a near-defeat and some Epiphany Therapy) to declare her a Master in turn. Lesson: being a Determined Prodigy is superior to being Brilliant, but Lazy. Zuko also laments to himself about things come so easily for Aang, just like for his sister, while he has to constantly struggle for anything he wants and loses so many times. In the end, however, this becomes Zuko's strength against Azula, as his determined nature allows him to bounce back from failure better than Azula does when Mai and Ty Lee do a Heel–Face Turn against her. It also gives him an advantage that was demonstrated as early as the third episode; he doesn't have the flashy or most powerful moves that more naturally skilled firebenders possess, but his superior mastery of the fundamentals can make up the difference.
  • Per Word of God, this is the point of bending in general. They wanted a magic system that you actually have to work at, rather than just being handed power. There are geniuses like Azula and Toph, but they still had to train. Even the Avatar, the local messiah, has to master each element individually every time they reincarnate. In fact, the Avatar State is basically just accessing the experience of hundreds of Avatars at once, stacking thousands of years of training to cheat the system and do things that no one with a mortal lifespan could ever manage.
  • In the sequel series, The Legend of Korra, this is played straight and subverted in different situations. Tenzin studies spirit lore for decades and it gets him exactly nowhere in regards to actual spirits, yet his eleven-year-old daughter has a natural connection to the spirit world and sufficient Airbending skill that she's nearly as good as her father. On the other hand, while Zaheer can sledgehammer almost any bender in a one-on-one fight despite having only been one for a few months, it turns out this is because even before Harmonic Convergence he was a talented martial artist and simply adapted his style to include airbending; he had also been reading the philosophy behind it for years beforehand by complete coincidence, and gets a lot of mileage from using extremely obscure abilities he learned of in this study. When he does come up against someone who has been studying the same bending style for decades, it's only the intervention of his allies that prevents Tenzin from destroying Zaheer.
• Charmcaster in Ben 10 spent years learning magic. Gwen, meanwhile, is naturally talented and can do it without any training. Justified since she is part Anodite, aliens who are literally made of magic.
• Subverted in The Boondocks episode "Ballin'", where Riley constantly watches basketball videos and mimicks the players until he can break through any defense with ease... but it's all for naught because he can't actually shoot the ball to save his life, a fact that didn't come up until his first game because he refused to go to practice.
• Averted in Generator Rex in Rex's battle VS the Consortium w/Meta Nanite powers. They may have power over things like gravity, time, electricity, fire, ice, and have similar abilities to Rex, but Rex has had his powers for longer and promptly owns them. At least until they join into a Humongous Mecha.
• The Loud House: The episode "Flying Solo" has Clyde want to sing the solo, believing that having a month of training and practice and wanting to sing the solo more than Lincoln makes him a better choice for the part. So, he tricks Lincoln into losing his voice when Lincoln gets the part instead. But it is only after Clyde tries to sing the solo, but keeps making mistakes during practice, when he realizes that he's actually physically unable to sing the solo correctly because all the training in the world can't change the quality of his voice. Unlike Lincoln, whose voice is actually right for the part.
• Zig-zagged in Metalocalypse: Toki is the world's second-best guitarist by virtue of natural talent alone, and it is outright stated that he doesn't practice. However, Toki is nowhere near as good as Skwisgaar, who is the world's best guitarist (as well as Dethklok's primary songwriter), but Skwisgaar maintains a near-insane practice regimen specifically to ensure that he will always be better than Toki.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Played with in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000." The Apple family competes with salesponies Flim and Flam to see who can make the most cider — the Apples with their personal and hoof-made method, or Flim and Flam with their fancy machine. Flim and Flam win by a large margin despite the rest of the Mane Six joining in and helping the Apples, but soon thereafter are run out of town because they turned off their quality control to gain a larger advantage, so the cider they try to sell is terrible.
  • It should be noted that Twilight zig-zags this trope; she spends her entire life studying magic to the exclusion of all else (except friendship) to become as powerful as she is, but Celestia took her on as a student because she already knew the significance of Twilight's Cutie Mark and set her on the path to fulfilling it. So basically Twilight worked pretty hard studying magic, but this was largely immaterial because she was only picked because she was the Chosen One who won the Superpower Lottery.
  • Also played with then subverted in "Hurricane Fluttershy". After finally deciding to help Rainbow Dash and the other Pegasus create a powerful tornado to make clouds, the viewers are shown a Training Montage where Fluttershy is training to fly at a certain speed to help create the tornado. However, when she's tested, Flutershy still ranks well below the needed amount of speed. Later, when it all on the line, Fluttershy proved the training really paid off, as she is able to fly faster than anyone and complete the tornado. Turns out Fluttershy was holding back because she remembered the torment other Pegasus did to her when she was younger and was afraid to fail.
  • In "The Cutie Map", Twilight copies Starlight Glimmer's shield spell after seeing it once. Starlight complains that it took her years to learn it.
  • This is later inverted in "The Cutie Remark", where Starlight Glimmer matches Twilight Sparkle, a pony who has saved Equestria multiple times and spent her entire life learning magic, in combat, and also manages to create a powerful, unprecedented time spell.
  • Unicorns as a whole exemplify this trope. Characters like Starlight Glimmer can have borderline god-tier powers even if they never practice or train in magic merely because they were Born Lucky or let their emotions get the better of them, while characters like Trixie and Sunburst can spent their entire lives training in magic but be lackluster at it simply because they weren't born with innate power and there's nothing they can do about it.
• Frank Grimes from The Simpsons, rather darkly Played for Laughs. He's a man who has had to struggle through his life to land a mid-level position in the Springfield Nuclear Plant and immediately comes to resent Homer for having a job despite his incompetence as well as a large family, house and a bunch of awards from his various misadventures. When he attempts to humiliate Homer by entering him in a children's science project, the fact that he's still congratulated drives him insane and leads to his death.
  • A dramatic example occurs in "Bart Gets an F", where Bart actually tries to study for a test, and still gets an F. Fortunately, his knowledge of an obscure historical fact impresses Mrs. Krabappel enough to give him a D-.
  • In "Mom and Pop Art", Homer's failed attempt at building an outdoor barbecue winds up becoming an renouned outside artist, which annoys Marge since she was painting long before him. She doesn't acknowledge that she hasn't done any painting in years or done anything to advance her supposed career since she painted that portrait of Mr. Burns, making her criticisms of how quickly Homer got popular a bit insincere.
• Spongebob Squarepants has been trying to obtain his boating license for years. Then Patrick, The Ditz, gets it on his first try, and unintentionally rubs in Spongebob's face for the rest of the episode, though Patrick is hardly the world's greatest driver.
  • Spongebob's inability to get his license was from his nerves getting to him, as shown in an early episode. Patrick's clear-headedness allowed him to help Spongebob in nearly getting it (but it was cheating.) In this episode, Patrick ate Spongebob's informational index cards and retained the knowledge, allowing him to get the license.
• Averted in the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, where Leonardo is unquestionably the best fighter of the four almost solely due to his training and discipline, while Michelangelo, who is acknowledged to have the potential to be even better, isn't because he doesn't have the discipline or the will to train.
• Dr. Orpheus of The Venture Bros. is, despite his Butt-Monkey status in his personal life, one of the closest things to a Deus ex Machina in the show. However it's shown this power came at a price; his incredible dedication to his mystical profession and training lead to his wife divorcing him and has been a cause of major strife in his life. So when one fourth season episode has him shown up by the Outrider, the guy his wife has now hooked up with — he's far more powerful, and hasn't made nearly as many sacrifices to get his skill — he has a crisis. This trope is then subverted by revealing the Outrider cheated, he's "cyborged" a mystic artifact into his brain...which ends up going horribly wrong. However, the episode also points out the other side of the coin — though the Outrider took shortcuts rather than constantly training, it freed him up to actually spend time with his wife and stepdaughter, something that Orpheus was never able to balance out with his mystical duties. Ultimately, Orpheus has to admit that the Outrider is much happier and better adjusted than he is.

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