Brought Down to Normal: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

A character who has some kind of highly developed or superhuman ability loses it for an episode, has to experience life as an average Joe. The character often actually enjoys the experience of being "normal". Or he will hate it and [[Sudden Humility|understand how hard it is to have no superpowers to help you]]. By the end of the episode he gets his skill back, usually just in time to save the day with it.

The polar opposite of [[Flowers for Algernon Syndrome]]. Frequently comes with [[An Aesop]] about how it's actions, not powers, that make one a hero, or [[Power Loss Makes You Strong]].

 

 

[[Bag of Spilling]] can be considered this trope when it applies to [[Video Game Characters]] between one game and its sequel.

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* A brief story arc on ''[[Ranma ½]]'' sees Ranma going from unnaturally strong uberhunk to a pathetic weakling who literally couldn't hurt a toddler, thanks to a moxibustion "attack" by Happosai. His many enemies (minus [[The Rival|Ryoga]]) are happy to take advantage of this and beat the crap out of him as much as possible. Just as he's resigned himself to the situation, Ranma gets his strength back, and celebrates by giddily demolishing his house.

* After the first episode of ''[[Soukou no Strain]]'', Sara has lost her family prestige and her ability to control her Strain, [[Kill'Em All|among other things]]. She resigns herself to a new name and becomes a trainee grunt pilot and scapegoat for her superiors... until she gets Emily.

* In ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'', Belldandy has her "goddess license" (essentially, permission to use her magic abilities) suspended. This turns out to be more difficult than she expects because despite her immense ''magical'' power, her ''physical'' strength is on par with the normal human she appears to be (ie, not very much).

* Rukia Kuchiki from ''[[Bleach]]'' has a large portion of her power absorbed by Ichigo. {{spoiler|The real incident that makes her an example, however, is that she is then given a gigai by Urahara that is designed to decrease her spiritual energy even more.}}

** In Ichigo's s fight with his inner hollow after he gets stabbed by Kenpachi, Ichigo is forced to fend him off with a sealed Zanpakuto (and not even the larger zanpakuto he'd wielded in the Soul Society arc), and realizes that he must fight with his zanpakuto, rather than merely use its power. For most of the Bount Arc, Ichigo is unable to use Bankai because of a lack of spirit particles in the world of the living, until he encounters Kariya for the second time and, speaking with Zangetsu, realizes he shouldn't rely on bankai to win every difficult fight (then again, in the manga, he uses Bankai AND his hollow mask in every fight where the enemy is more powerful than a normal hollow).

*** The Bount Arc was filler, it isn't really canon.

** {{spoiler|Ichigo temporarily losing his powers}} in Chapter 421, at the same time as {{spoiler|Aizen being sealed away}}.

*** {{spoiler|It's also heavily implied Aizen lost all his powers when Ichigo defeated him, except for the regeneration that renders him unkillable, but at this point Aizen's too insane to notice, thinking his weapon disintegrating just meant he was about to achieve a state where he no longer needed one.}}

* Happens to Francoise Arnoul aka 003 once in ''[[Cyborg 009]]''. During an episode of the 2001 series she and the group are stuck in a high place with frequent sandstorms; this greatly decreases her enhanced senses, [[Heroic BSOD|much to her despair]].

* Blackbeard of ''[[One Piece]]'' has [[Anti-Magic|the power to inflict this to other characters]] for as long as he's touching them. So far this has happened on-screen to [[Playing with Fire|'Fire Fist' Ace]] and [[Rubber Man|Luffy]].

** He also uses this ability on {{spoiler|Whitebeard,}} resulting in a [[Curb Stomp Battle]]. {{spoiler|Delivered by Whitebeard.}}

* Half-demon ''[[Inuyasha]]'' loses his powers and becomes fully human once a month, under the new moon. He hates it with a passion, and with good reason, since he ends up severely injured and/or in mortal danger almost every time. Luckily for him, his demon strength and [[Healing Factor|super healing abilities]] always return just in time.

* In ''[[Kanokon]]'', Chizuru temporarily loses her powers (and her breasts) and has to cope without them. She never cares about her power being sealed, though. She just wants her breasts back.

* The title character of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' has her [[Transformation Trinket]] stolen in one episode to prevent her interference. Even as a powerless 15 year old girl, she still shows up to the battle and manages to reclaim her pendant.

** Before that, she had the [[Transformation Trinket]] ''broken'' by a [[Monster of the Week]]. She sorta got it "repaired" out of willpower and with the help of [[The Power of Love]].

*** This happened to ''all'' the Senshi in Super S, and the same happened to the Guardian Senshi after the battle with Metalia, they got better though, obviously.

* Lina Inverse of ''[[Slayers]]'' ends up with her ridiculously powerful magic sealed for a good chunk of one of the NEXT story arcs.

** He also permanently lost his powers back in ''[[Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?]]'', though this one was intentional, as he had broken his [[Thou Shall Not Kill]] code. As such, he also gave up on all superheroism and resigned himself to [[Cursed with Awesome|a normal life married to Lois Lane]]. {{spoiler|Their son has the full powers, of course.}}

* In another story, Superman discovered that he lost all of his powers every time he changed into his Clark Kent identity. He was faced with a choice of whether he wanted to live out his life as Superman or Clark. It was eventually revealed that an alien enemy had treated all of Clark Kent's clothes so they blocked the yellow sun radiation that gave Superman his powers.

* A plot in the ''[[JLA]]'' book saw six members of the League have their secret identities split off from their superhero selves. While Clark Kent, John Jones and Wally West saw it as a blessing, Bruce Wayne, Eel O'Brien and Kyle Rayner could barely hold it together.

* In the ''[[Justice Society of America]]'' storyline "Fatherland", every super-hero on Earth is robbed of their powers by super-villain Nazis and their darkness engine.

* Rayek from ''[[Elf Quest]]'' lost his magical powers for a while, after coming across [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|an important crossroad in his life (and messing up)]]. He hated it so badly it almost made him lose his mind too.

* [[The Mighty Thor|Thor]] was brought down to mere mortal status for a while, and lost all of his fabled strength and power. Turns out that a 6 foot 5 tree trunk of a man with a big nigh-indestructible hammer is still someone you might want to avoid; he just went and beat the snot out of street-level villains for a while.

* Red Devil/Eddie Bloomberg of the ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'' had his powers permanently taken by Brother Blood and was changed back into a human. This effectively got him out of his deal with [[Satan|Neron]], though he still stayed with the team and one time donned his old power suit.

** And before that was the "Beast Boys and Girls" storyline, when a villain releases a disease that causes a literal case of [[Contagious Powers]]. Kids across the city start [[Animorphism|turning into green animals]], while [[Voluntary Shapeshifter|Beast Boy]] is turned into a normal guy. He [[Reset Button|gets his powers back]] at the end of the storyline, getting a [[Tyrannosaurus Rex|TRex]]-tastic [[He's Back]] moment against the villain.

* Komodo in ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Avengers: The Initiative]]'' had her powers removed by SPIN technology after refusing to go along with HAMMER's sinister perversion of the Initiative. Note: without her powers Komodo doesn't have any legs. Thankfully, a "cure" of sorts was eventually fashioned and she's back in action.

** Then, in a recent story taking place in an [[Alternate Universe]], Knuckles (who had also become Enerjak) was stripped of his powers in the exact same way by his daughter.

** In issue 232, Ixis Naguas ends up restoring Bunnie's former flesh and blood limbs after crystalizing them an issue before, removing the abilities she had as a cyborg.

* In ''[[All Fall Down]]'', this happens to every superhero and super villain. Permanently. Many of them are locked in denial for a long time about staying that way.

* [[Evil Sorcerer]] [[Big Bad|Darkhell]] gave this treatment to his [[The Rival|former rival]] Skroa in the french comic book [[Les Legendaires|Les Légendaires]] by testing the Stone of Jovenia (an artifact supposed to give youth back) on him, turning him back from a demonical garuda-like sorcerer to a regular small bird with no powers (though he retained his intelligence and the abilitie to talk). Skroa was then able to manipulate both an amnesic Darkhell and the heroes into leading him to the cure, allowing him to go back to his adult form with full power... {{spoiler|only to loose them again in latter issues when the cure is taken away from him.}};

** protagonist Jadina was victim of this when Vangelis injected her a serum called "antimag", which had the proprertie to block magic. Since all of Jadina's powers were based on Magic, this left her, according to herself, "as weak as an unborn". This didn't prevent her from still being badass, however, as {{spoiler|not only she didn't mope about it (she did has an [[Heroic BSOD]], but it was because at this point things got so messed up she wasn't even sure to be the real Jadina anymore), but she was even still able to save her comrads from the All-mighty new villain Abyss, by ''kissing him'' so he would ingest the Antimag. By the end of the book, the Antimag's effect ceased and she got her powers back.}}

* This happens to [[A Nightmare on Elm Street|Freddy Krueger]] during ''[[Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash]]: The Nightmare Warriors''. After Freddy betrays the [[Bigger Bad|Dream Demons]] who gave him his power by not sharing the [[The Evil Dead|Necronomicon Ex Mortis]] with them, they turn him back into a normal human and send him back in time, making sure that this time he ''gets arrested for good'' and never turns into a nightmare god.

 

 

 

== Films -- Animated ==

* ''[[The Wild Thornberrys]]'' did it in [[The Movie|their movie]] with Eliza's loss of her power to [[Speaks Fluent Animal|talk to animals]].

 

** Also done at the end of the Tamuli when {{spoiler|Sparhawk renounces the title of Anakha and becomes a normal human as opposed to a god-killing being who exists outside of destiny.}}

* {{spoiler|Sparrowhawk}} in the later books of the ''[[Earthsea Trilogy]]'' saga by [[Ursula K. Le Guin]]. It is even theorized by another character later that the ability to always pop up exactly where he was needed was actually his greater power, which he retained.

* At the start of ''[[Night Watch (novel)|The Day Watch]]'', Alisa winds up completely depleting her magic in a conflict with the Night Watch, and has to spend time at a summer camp to replenish. She rather enjoys the challenge of seducing a man using only her appearance and words.

** {{spoiler|Who turns out to be a Light mage also suffering from this due to the same battle}}.

* In the fourth book of the ''[[Ranger's Apprentice]]'' series Will is still suffering the after effects of drug addiction and has lost his Ranger conditioning.)

* In [[Sergey Lukyanenko]]'s ''[[Labyrinth Of Reflections]]'', one of the main plot points are a group of people in [[Cyberspace|Deeptown]] called Divers, who can see programming holes and backdoors visually and are able to voluntarily break the illusion of full-body presence, whereas everyone else requires timers to kick them out or "exit menus" to allow their consciousness to go back to the [[Real Life|real world]]. The protagonist is a Diver who, by the end, gains certain [[The Matrix|Neo]]-like abilities (except the book came out before the movie) after an encounter with a strange being (whose nature is left unexplained). The sequel starts with a [[Time Skip]] and the protagonist explaining that there significant changes have taken place in the Deep within the last few years. The kick-out timers are now mandatory, eliminating the need for Divers to pull people out. They also somehow lose their ability to see "holes", leaving cyberspace security work to hackers. The protagonist himself no longer has his powers that allow him to literally fly around the Deep and do anything he wants. He also can't connect to the Deep without the use of a computer (although it's not clear if this he actually had this ability). {{spoiler|By the end of the second novel, he regains his powers by embracing them}}.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* The episodes '"Human Nature" and "Family of Blood" on ''[[Doctor Who]]'' feature the Doctor turned into a human via [[Applied Phlebotinum]]. He doesn't even remember being a Time Lord. [[Badass Normal|Martha]] points out, "God, you're useless as a human!" and has to save his butt a few times.

** While he's still a Time Lord in "The Lodger", he can't get to the TARDIS and is forced to live life normally (and in the right order.) Watching the Doctor cook and work in an office is adorably jarring.

** On ''[[Angel]]'', Angel becomes human for one episode by touching the blood of a particular demon. He feels his heartbeat for the first time in centuries and actually needs to eat. Buffy comes to town and they share a day as "normal" lovers. Except she is still a slayer who has to fight evil, and he can't help her. So Angel undoes it all by the end of the episode, and he is the only one to remember the entire thing.

* The episode of ''[[Lois and Clark]]'' that introduced kryptonite.

* A comedic pseudo-example is an episode of ''[[Seinfeld]]'' where George finds himself getting very bad at lying.

* Barney Miller, the "backup bionic guy" in ''[[The Six Million Dollar Man]]'', had his bionics "throttled back" to normal human level after his initial appearance.

* In ''[[Charmed]]'' there was an episode where Cole had to fully give in to his demon side in order to protect the girls which left him as a mindless beast for all of ten seconds before they used a spell to permanently remove his powers, leaving him mortal for a while and hating it. {{spoiler|He then went on to assume the throne of the underworld and become the Source of all Evil in the world but hey, there was a difficult transition period. Where he went from there is difficult to follow. Cole sort of embodies [[Powers as Programs]]}}.

** Leo also loses his Whitelighter powers mid-series, after choosing his family over his responsibility as Whitelighter. {{spoiler|Subverted in that, unlike Cole, he never regains his powers.}}

** The last thee Saban seasons (''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy|Lost Galaxy]]'', ''[[Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue|Lightspeed Rescue]]'', and ''[[Power Rangers Time Force|Time Force]]'') have the rangers willingly give up the call.

** The Disney era has it happen to every single team except [[Power Rangers SPD|one]] (7 in all) are forced to give up the call.

* The fate of every [[Super Sentai]] team, and at the beginning of the first episode of ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]'', after sacrificing their powers to defeat the invading Zangyack forces.

* Bosses in ''[[Undercover Boss]]'' go deep undercover, work in the front lines working minimum wage jobs and sleep in cheap hotels.

* Nanase [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2009-10-29 suffers one of these] in ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' when she uses too much mana in a fight. For some reason, being brought down to normal comes with spontaneous hair color change.

** Her hair changes to black because it is a side effect of burning out magically.

* ''[[Inverloch]]'' has the Severed elves, distinguishable by [[Eyes of Gold|golden eyes]] and [[White-Haired Pretty Girl|silver hair]], which are elves who are mortal and lacking magic.

* [[Genki Girl|Jade Harley]] of ''[[Homestuck]]'' started off with her Dream Self already awake, which gave her a ''huge'' advantage over the other three kid protagonists. She was ''so'' far ahead that quite a few people in the fandom considered her a [[Mary Sue]] character. That quickly changed however, when her Dream Self got killed and she lost the ability to see future events, along with all her cool stuff in her house. To make matters worse, since Jade was asleep for so much of the storyline, she was actually ''behind'' now when compared to the other protagonists' progress in Sburb. She was brought down to sub-normal.

}}

 

* ''[[Justice League (animation)|Justice League]]'' has the Man of Steel take a stint on a future earth with a red sun. He shows that he's apparently a [[Badass|very tough individual with a variety of skills]] even without his powers.

** In another episode, Supergirl is trapped in Skartaris, which likewise has a red sun, depowering her considerably. However, instead of moping around, she quickly confirms that her powers indeed don't work and adopts new ways of being awesome, namely, by being a [[Badass Normal]] [[Little Miss Badass]] [[Determinator]].

* There's one episode of ''[[Winx Club]]'' where, as punishment for sneaking out of the school and causing trouble, the principal strips the main characters of their powers ("Secret Guardian"), forcing them to stop a monster using brooms and soap ("Grounded").

** ''[[Winx Club]]'' also did a variation on this as [[Story Arc]] later in season 1, with Bloom losing her "Dragon Fire" powers to villain witches ("Senior Witches Go To Earth"). Several episodes later ("The Great Witch Invasion"), she is under a lake with her sister/secret guardian Daphne, and it's revealed that Bloom's powers never left her (even though all signs pointed otherwise, starting with the fact that she was stuck in her regular form all these episodes), but her [[Heroic BSOD]] blocked her from summoning them. Once she stops moping, she gets her powers back.

** There was also an episode were Mandy lost her nerve (as in a little [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of her attitude living her head) and it moves to Billy's head. This downgrades her from [[Heroic Sociopath]] to meek little girl and Billy up to a bully (though he's still stupid). She later decides she doesn't need the nerve and returns to her usual state while making the nerve vacate Billy's brain.

* In "Gwen 10", the [[What If]] episode of ''[[Ben 10]]'', Ben wakes up without the Omnitrix, but remembering the series so far. Upon realizing that it's the day he got the Omnitrix, he tries to get it back... And fails. He kinda mopes for the rest of the episode, but nothing else is shown of how it would have gone from there; it's a one-shot "What if?" style episode, complete with [[Shout-Out]] at the end.

{{quote|'''Alpha''': Go on, Zed. Destroy me. ''Do it!''

'''Zed''': No. You're a mere mortal now. You'll be punished like one. }}

* While a [[Goal-Oriented Evolution|hyper-evolved]] worm is by no means "normal", there was an episode of ''[[Earthworm Jim (animation)|Earthworm Jim]]'' where Jim's super-suit was replaced with one that only gave him strength comparable to an ordinary person. Or as Professor Monkey-For-A-Head found out the hard way, "an ordinary, really big person".

* Makes up the plot for an episode of ''[[Ace Lightning]]''.

{{quote|'''Gladstone:''' [[This Cannot Be!|I don't believe it!]] I've lost my luck! No food... no money... ''gasp'' I'll have to get a ''job'' like normal people!!}}

** During the episode, Raiden does show distress and unease at losing his powers, explaining that for him, being a [[Physical God]] ''is'' normal.

* The ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers]]'' episode "The Power Within". A slight subversion as it was demonstrated here that the Series 5 implants don't ''give'' the Rangers their abilities, just enhance what's already there. Niko could still sense the hunter on their trail and misdirect them, and Doc was still able to hack Nimrod's computer - it just wasn't as fast or as flashy as what they could do with a badge push. Of course, one scene could be read as the Series 5 implant ''curbing'' Shane's ability to use his abilities, but seeing as he is the last of a failed super soldier experiment, that could have been deliberate.

* One episode of ''[[Batman Beyond]]'' had a computer virus infect Terry's batman-suit-mini-[[Power Armor]] thing, forcing him to go it with just a utility belt and domino mask rather than flight, invisibility, super strength, etc. Turns out he picked up a few of the bat-skills from Bruce after all.

* ''[[Max Steel]]'' did this near the end of the first series. After an argument between Max and Rachel about Max relying on his powers over his training, he (naturally) loses them for the episode. However, he hates this fact and is all too willing to get his powers back.

{{quote|'''Rachel''': How are you feeling?

'''Max''': Human. I hate it. }}

* The ''[[Darkwing Duck (animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'' episode "Duck Blind" has Darkwing lose his sight after exposure to Megavolt's new magnetic superweapon. After a period of self-pity, he manages to overcome the initial loss by shutting down all lights in Megavolt's lair, bringing the fight to his advantage thanks to his now enhanced hearing. [[Status Quo Is God]] is followed by a second exposure to the superweapon restoring his sight.

{{quote|'''Baby Shredder''': Regular people!

'''Nega-Chin, Bull-E, & Dr. Crocktopus''': Without powers!

* In ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', Sonic's shoes are stolen, forcing the speedy hedgehog to ''[[Fate Worse Than Death|walk]]''. It also happens in ''[[Sonic Sat AM|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' due to a laser that tracks whenever Sonic runs.

** It should be noted that both times Sonic doesn't actually lose his speed. He's just put into a position where he can't use it. His sneakers are designed to protect his feet from the intense friction running at the speed of sound would create.

** {{spoiler|Discord can take away a pegasus' wings and unicorn horns at a whim, which he demonstrates on the mane cast in the season 2 opener.}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]

[[Category:Magical Girl Tropes]]

[[Category:Plots]]