Basic Trope: A character forgets that they have a power which could solve the current problem.
- Straight: When stuck in a locked room, Alice forgets she can teleport.
- Exaggerated: Alice only ever remembers her teleportation power when she needs to get some Mundane Utility out of it. Whenever the situation's serious, she never uses it or acknowledges that she has it.
- Downplayed:
- For a moment, Alice struggles to remember how to teleport.
- Alice realizes she can just use her powers to escape about halfway through planning her breakout.
- Alice treats her five minutes of invisibility as Too Awesome to Use, resulting in trying to escape prison without it because she wanted to save it for when she was on the run afterwards.
- Justified:
- Alice is dazed, drugged or exhausted.
- Alice is claustrophobic, and upon being locked up in a tiny room, she panics.
- Alice's teleportation skills are a fairly new thing and she's still not used to having them.
- Alice's teleportation power was granted to her recently without her knowledge. The audience knows she has it, but she has no idea.
- Alice has anterograde amnesia and cannot keep the memory of her teleportation power.
- Alice really just is that stupid.
- The "Alice" we see is an imposter. The real Alice is trapped in a situation where she can't use her powers.
- Alice has so many powers that she has lost track.
- Alice can't teleport her friends with her, and she will never leave them behind.
- Alice's teleportation power is of the Can't Take Anything with You variety and she's a Shrinking Violet very paranoid about becoming a Reluctant Fanservice Girl.
- Alternatively, Alice's teleportation power is dependent on Clothes Make the Superman and she isn't wearing the special outfit that makes it possible for her to teleport.
- Teleporting would be a Cover-Blowing Superpower that would reveal Alice as the civilian identity of a local superhero, and she must never reveal herself.
- Alice can teleport, but hasn't done so in years. No wonder she forgot.
- Teleporting is a very unpleasant process for Alice (e.g., it's painful for whatever reason), so she avoids using it when she can.
- Alice is trapped in an area where she is unable to use her powers (e.g., the room she's in is made out of a material she can't teleport out of).
- Inverted:
- Alice forgets that she was Brought Down to Normal.
- Alice learns how to teleport, and while she could walk before, she gets so fixated on teleporting that she forgets how to walk.
- Subverted:
- Alice seems to have forgotten that she can teleport, but it turns out she was just Obfuscating Stupidity, waiting for the bad guys to leave.
- Alice does remember to teleport, but the room itself is a Power Nullifier. Bob, who is stuck inside with her, never asked Alice about her abilities; rather, he asked if she could help them escape.
- Alice actually remembered her powers but doesn't use them for good reason. After being kidnapped she has no idea where she is; lacking orientation, she would risk Tele-Frag, and she isn't that desperate yet. This is only brought up after Bob is also captured and demands to know why she didn't leave already.
- Alice is participating in an aircraft's evacuation test; using her powers would void the results as the method of evacuation has to be repeatable by Muggles.
- Double Subverted:
- But when she has occasion to escape unnoticed, she realizes she forgot how to teleport.
- Upon escaping, Alice and Bob simply run through the Cardboard Prison complex to get outside when they could have teleported.
- Parodied:
- The door to the room is unlocked. Alice doesn't escape because she forgot that she can walk.
- Alice's superhero name is Teleporting Woman. Everyone, including herself, calls her that. And she still never remembers that she can teleport.
- Alice is inside a room filled with large red signs and posters telling her to teleport. She still doesn't know what to do.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Alice exclaims that she forgot how to teleport, but it's just Obfuscating Stupidity and she attempts so once she's unseen. Only she forgot how to teleport and in fact, she forgot that she was Brought Down to Normal and can't teleport at all.
- Sometimes Alice remembers that she can teleport, other times not.
- Averted:
- Alice uses her superpowers whenever it is appropriate to use them.
- Alice has no superpowers.
- Enforced:
- "Come on, people, we need drama! Let's stick Alice in a locked room!" "But she can tele—" "DRAMA!"
- The writers forgot about the powers as they were writing the script.
- Lampshaded: "Oh, come on! How could you forget about something like this?"
- Invoked: The villains use Laser-Guided Amnesia on Alice so that she won't escape when trapped.
- Exploited: The villains use the fact that Alice forgot about her teleportation skill to give her Applied Phlebotinum which takes this abilities away.
- Defied: Alice knows that she can be a Forgetful Jones sometimes, and so she had "I can teleport!" tattooed on both hands so that she won't forget about it.
- Discussed: Bob worries that Nervous Wreck Alice would forget about her powers in moment of stress.
- Conversed: "Alice is so stupid! She has freaking teleportation powers and still she can't figure out how to get out of this room!" "She could just be de-powered briefly, but the story hasn't told us so."
- Implied: Carol tells Bob that Alice (who they both know can teleport) once spent a few days trapped in the villains' lair, but doesn't explain why she didn't simply escape.
- Deconstructed: Alice stays trapped in the villains' lair and when Bob and Carol rescue her, they mock her for forgetting her powers, which leads to Alice never making the same mistake again…
- Reconstructed: …until a blow to the head at a crucial moment leaves her too dazed to remember about it.
- Played for Laughs: Emperor Evulz makes a plan that relies on Alice teleporting out of danger. However, when the trap is sprung, she completely forgets that she can teleport. He gets so exasperated that he actually starts giving her clues as to what she could do, but the suggestions fly over her head.
- Played for Drama: Alice's moment of forgetfulness leads to her death.
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