Brought Down to Normal: Difference between revisions
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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]].
Contrast with [[Always Need What You Gave Up]], in which the loss is voluntary, its absence never
[[Bag of Spilling]] can be considered this trope when it applies to [[Video Game Characters]] between one game and its sequel.
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* 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).
* Happens to [[Magical Girl|Himeno Awayuki]] in the anime version of ''[[Prétear]]'', when her mixed feelings after learning the [[Backstory]] cause her to temporarily lose her ability to [[Fusion Dance|merge]] with the Leafe
* 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|Note that this is slightly different than the usual case of
*** {{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]].
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* 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]].
** Minako also got
*** 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.
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** 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.
* In the [[Elseworlds]] series ''[[JLA: Act of God]]'' a strange wave of energy hits Earth causing heroes and villains alike to lose their superpowers. Some disappear into the woodwork while others reinvent themselves as [[Badass Normal
* 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.
<!-- %%** [[YourMileageMayVary A mostly great plot]]. It would have been more consistent with their characters to have Wally be losing it and Kyle be okay. [[FridgeLogic How did Kyle deal with his need for a creative outlet a scant couple of years ago when he didn't have a ring?]] Answer: He drew (unless his Green Lantern half picked up all of his technical skill.) One guesses he just really got used to having the ring around in intervening years, it's hard to go back. -->
<!-- %%*** That was basically it, yes. After years with a GreenLanternRing, a pencil and paper seemed like a pale imitation. -->
* 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.
* The [[House of M|M-Day]], natch. Thanks to [[Scarlet Witch]] realizing what happened and how did everything lead up to Magneto's dominion and the finally attained mutant supremacy, she uses her powers for one last time to declare "No more mutants". Thus, Earth goes back to what it was before, Bringing Down To Normal 90% of the mutants of the world ([[Status Quo Is God|after all, looks like the X-Men are too popular to become]] [[Badass Normal
* 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.
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** 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.
* Marvel Comics loves this trope. Crowning Moment Of Awesome for [[Power Pack]] was when these otherwise ordinary pre-teens had to stop the very Snark who had stolen their
* 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.}};
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** 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.
* [[Deadpool]] recently lost his [[Healing Factor]] thanks to a serum Tombstone had engineered as part of his plot to get revenge on the Merc with a Mouth for the events of "Suicide Kings". This turned out to be a ''good'' thing for
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** 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.
* Former [[Knight Templar]] Cass/Sister Kassdy from [[Jack Chalker|Jack L. Chalker's]] ''[[Soul Rider]]'' series agreed to give up all of her flux powers as part of becoming [[The Atoner]]. Ironically, this actually results in her becoming even ''more'' badass since the mechanism involved also makes her totally ''immune'' to those powers, tuning her into every flux manipulator's worst nightmare: a ferocious [[Mama Bear]] who cannot be
* 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}}.
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* 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}}.
* In the early 1970s, a weekly Sunday School periodical distributed in Protestant churches published a pair of stories entitled "Mike the Magnet" and "Wally Walk-Through-Walls", whose minimal plots were almost identical and practically ''celebrated'' this trope: Child gets superpower, parents freak and take him to doctor, doctor uses dubious (and, realistically, ''poisonous'') folk remedy found in an ancient source as a "cure" for child's "condition", child loses superpower and must embrace the joy of being normal. Given the political leanings of many Protestant churches even then, the stories' [[Unfortunate Implications]]
== 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.
* "Helpless" from ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''
** 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.
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* 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.
* Gregory Deegan suffers a pretty brutal version of this in ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' in the "Built to Resist" arc. TIM, having recently escaped from a [[Cosmic Horror]] dimension and packing [[Lovecraftian Superpower
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' has an interesting subversion: Agatha starts out
* ''[[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.
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* Crops up occasionally in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]''.
** {{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.}}
* In ''[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'' episode "Powerless", [[Captain Atom]] is a [[Smug Super]] who gets
{{reflist}}
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