Averse Adept

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There is a character who is good at something. Maybe it's skill, maybe it's talent. Maybe it's both. They aren't just above average at it, they're good at it, possibly even exceptional.

Unfortunately, their prowess is only matched by how much they dislike exercising that prowess. Of course, the plot will probably put them in a situation that forces them to do it anyway.

(Averse Adept may be a bit of a misnomer. They don't have to be averse to the thing itself that they are good at or that they are skilled in it, they just have to hate doing it.)

Contrast Giftedly Bad. Folks Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life are prone to this trope, when their dreams don't align with their talent.

Examples of Averse Adept include:

Anime and Manga

• In Naruto, a story where most characters are trained in the lethal arts and more often than not are glorified Child Soldiers and Professional Killers, there are individuals like Haku and Itachi who don't like killing despite (or arguably because) they are exceptionally good at it.
• In Wizard's Soul - Koi no Seisen, Manaka doesn’t like playing Wizard’s Soul to win. Playing without putting effort into winning isn’t that bad though. The reason she hates trying to win is it vividly reminds her of how she got good at the game… trying to save her mother. The reason Manaka enters a tournament is because her dad ruined her family's financial situation when he fell for a scam and she thought winning money in a tournament would get them out of it.
• Miho Nishizumi in Girls und Panzer changes schools in order to get away from an school club activity that she's good at but no longer likes. However, in what looks like bad luck, her new school's Absurdly Powerful Student Council forces her to not only join the same club at the new school but also become the club's captain.
• The first few episodes of Trigun show that Vash the Stampede is good at defeating armies and handling villains. He also hates being a Person of Mass Destruction owing to the harm it causes, which is why he keeps traveling a lot.

Fan Works

• Akiko Yamaguchi has been a Magical Girl -- Star Reverie -- for half her life, and although she has fought back every enemy, her duty and her gifts have brought her nothing but pain and fear, to the point that when she realizes that the best she can do against her latest foe is fight a holding action, she crosses the Despair Event Horizon. Her attempted suicide kicks off the magical girl Mega Crossover story Battle Fantasia Project.

Literature

• Erin from The Wandering Inn has astonished people with her feats of violence including killing a goblin chieftain 1v1 and single handedly wiping out a nest of shield spiders. Erin actively dislikes killing. Killing things that are really stupid like flies is fine though.

Live-Action TV

• In Cheers, Norm has an excellent eye for interior decorating, but he doesn't like showing it - he thinks it's a "feminine" talent.

Video Games

Real Time Strategy

• In Valkyria Chronicles III several potentials are setup this way to reinforce what a dysfunctional bunch the penal brigade it stars is. It seems it's also targeted to nerf Scouts since they were overpowered in the first game.
  • Riela Marcellis, who has Survivor Guilt from repeatedly being the Sole Survivor due to her initially unexplained Healing Factor. This manifests as "Angel of Death" (the title she has been given for her supposedly cursed nature) which lowers her stats when taking inception fire. Her default and favored class is Scout, which naturally takes inception fire, and said healing factor gives her a chance to heal the wounds taken from it at the end of a turn. Midgame, it gets even worse and is replaced with Uncertain Future, which gives a random chance to lose all remaining action points after using half. This is really bad in general but especially so for a Scout since Scout's main ability is using their higher than average action points to go long distance, and you can't even plan for it. Only during the final four chapters is this replaced with an ability that boosts her stats when taking inception fire.
  • Amy Apple has the "Loneliness" potential, which lowers her Evasion (ability to avoid counter attack) when no allies are nearby. Amy's default and favored class is also Scout, which is all about running ahead of allies.
  • Valerie Aynsley has "Curiosity", which lowers Evasion upon spotting an enemy unit. Scouts have the highest vision radius and distance.

Visual Novels

• The Danganronpa series is no stranger to students who ultimately dislike their Ultimate talents.
  • Trigger Happy Havoc has Leon Kuwada, the Ultimate Baseball Star. During Free Time Events, he mentions that he hates baseball and would rather pursue a career in music.

Western Animation

• Aang has this attitude about being the Avatar and having the Avatar State in the first episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. When he goes into the Avatar State he can kick ass, but season two reveals that he has nightmares about the chaos he causes while out of control. He also tells Katara that he didn't reveal to her or Sokka at first that he was the Avatar who went missing a hundred years ago because he never wanted this role. (It's justified when his friends stopped playing with him when he was revealed to be the reincarnation of Roku, and the monks planned to separate him from his mentor and father figure Gyatso, believing that Gyatso would not be able to train Aang sufficiently.) Part of Aang's Character Development is balancing his will to become the savior the world needs with his desire to stay a kid.
• DuckTales shows that Gladstone may rely on his good luck, but he hates it when he keeps winning every game in the Macaw casino. He gets annoyed when a casino attendant tells him he won two cars. It's because the owner Liu Hai is a luck spirit, holding Gladstone hostage to feed on him.
• In Inside Job, the episode where Rand makes Brett run for senator against his brother shows that Brett is a great politician. The only problem? Brett's parents ordered him to drop out of the race or they'd disown him. So Brett tries to sabotage himself with the classic political scandals, only for dumb luck and his naturally nice personality to elevate his accomplishments. He talks with a hooker about how dangerous sex work is when planning to get caught in bed with her, and accidentally legalizes unionization efforts for sex work. An attempt to get photographed snorting cocaine with a Canadian drug lord causes him to kill the drug lord with a Sneeze of Doom, leading to Mounties congratulating him for a sting operation and he negotiates a water deal while high off his ass. Reagan herself is astonished that Brett can't be damage his public image if he tried, until he reveals a lifelong dream to become a puppeteer.
• Downplayed in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: the Cutie Mark Crusaders keep ignoring what they're good at (and could actually earn them their Cutie Marks and set the tone for their lives) in favour of trying out many other activities (which don't get them Cutie Marks). In a high amount of irony, the Crusaders end up getting their Cutie Marks because after trying every activity possible turns out that they are, collectively and individually, actually good at making other people reconcile with talents and Cutie Marks they didn't feel they identified with... and the first episode after getting their marks involves them questioning this very own talent.
• Gus from Recess is a master at dodgeball, a skill that earned him the nickname "El Diablo". From when he transfers to 3rd Street School he keeps this a secret from everyone, even his friends, as he fears the harm his talent can cause. When Spinelli holds his guitar hostage to make him spill why he no longer plays dodgeball, Gus explains that during a ferocious game, he accidentally hit a kid who wasn't playing; the kid ran off crying before Gus could apologize and spent every subsequent recess inside.
• Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy: Double D is very talented at playing the pedal steel guitar with such ease that he plays it with his feet while reading though he finds the instrument annoying.