Basic Trope: A device or method that is used once but never mentioned or used again even when it should be.
- Straight: In episode fourteen, Alice is stung by some kind of fantasy bee. It would have been deadly but Bob, The Medic, makes a healing potion that cures her. When Charlie is stung by the same kind of bee in episode twenty-seven, Bob says, "There's nothing I can do."
- Exaggerated: Bob is mentioned "always" to have that particular healing potion on hand, but he's never even heard of it when Charlie is stung.
- Downplayed: The potion is never mentioned again, but never needed.
- Justified:
- Bob has amnesia.
- The bee stung Charlie much more seriously than it did Alice.
- The healing potion can't be made or obtained at this stage.
- It was actually Bob's Evil Twin.
- It Only Works Once.
- Inverted: When Alice gets stung by the bee, Bob claims there's nothing he can do, but he suddenly has the cure when Charlie gets stung.
- Subverted: That was Bob's Evil Twin. The real Bob appears with the cure.
- Double Subverted: Neither the real Bob nor the real cure appeared. For some reason, Bob lacks the cure.
- Parodied: Alice treats Bob as a wise healer, but everyone else keeps pointing out that whether he has the cure for things is unreliable.
- Averted:
- After Bob first gets or makes the healing potion, it's reused in all similar subsequent situations.
- Bob never gets or makes the healing potion.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob alternates between using that healing potion and treating it like it doesn't exist.
- Enforced: The writer is not a very good one and just wants to throw in a Character Death in slavish adherence to the Rule of Drama.
- Lampshaded: "Couldn't Bob heal me? Why can't he heal Charlie?"
- Invoked: The Big Bad gives Bob amnesia so that he would forget his cures.
- Exploited: The villains are confident that Bob can't cure the same ailment twice.
- Defied: Bob writes the recipe for the healing potion down and keeps his documents in the same place.
- Discussed: "Is Bob really as good a medic as he's cracked up to be? He seemed to forget some of his techniques."
- Conversed: "Boo! The writers killed off Charlie and not Alice despite them having the same thing wrong with them! Bob should have [cured Charlie/killed Alice]!"
- Implied: Charlie is never seen again after the bee stings him. It is unstated whether he lived or died.
- Deconstructed: The Five-Man Band get a new medic after the incident.
- Reconstructed: Bob is the only good medic available.
- Played for Laughs: Bob being a Forgetful Jones about useful things is a Running Gag.
- Played for Drama: Charlie dies a very angsty death from the sting despite Bob's having been able to cure Alice with the healing potion. Alice gets Survivor Guilt.
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