Deus Exit Machina: Difference between revisions
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Taking the [[Game Breaker|most powerful character]] and [[Put on a Bus|writing them out of the story or arc]], to preserve the drama and make things tougher for the main cast.
So you've got a villain running amok, and a designated plucky underdog hero who's been set up to save the day. Looks like time for some heroic derring-do, but
Well, [[Sidekick Glass Ceiling|obviously we can't have that]], and if the character in question is any kind of good guy it would strain belief to have them just sit out the fight for no reason. Sure, you could [[The Plot Reaper|kill them off]] or write them out of the story completely, but they don't have to leave ''forever'', just long enough for the hero to have to face the menace du jour on his or her own. The solution: take the bruiser and [[Put on a Bus|put them on a bus]] for a while. Maybe some other responsibility came up, maybe there's another villain rampaging around somewhere else, maybe they had the bad luck to break a leg and got stuck in the hospital. However it's done, the [[Deus Ex Machina]] is temporarily out of commission, and the weaker heroes have to win the fight on their own.
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An alternative approach is to have an ''[[Game Breaker|insanely]]'' overpowered character actually join the plucky underdog's team for the [[Climactic Battle Resurrection|big epic battle]]. He could easily [[Anticlimax|save the day with a snap of his fingers]]...and then that character is immediately knocked out or otherwise disabled so that the story can actually be interesting. (This can also have the side effect of [[The Worf Effect|making the villain that much more threatening]].)
On rare occasions, it may be a villain far higher up the [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]] who drops by for a [[Final Boss Preview]] to foreshadow the difficulty of future encounters before giving the weaker villain back his Worf Effect. Such a villain may be [[Too Powerful to Live]]. Don't [[Orcus on His Throne|expect to see him again]] outside [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon|his lair]]. If it's a [[Stealth Hi Bye]] then you have a simple case of [[Villain Teleportation]] by a [[Mobile Menace]]. Contrast [[Villain Exit Stage Left]], [[But Now I Must Go]].
Any given
An especially common way to deal with [[Reality Warper
Subtropes include [[Holding Back the Phlebotinum]] and [[Achilles in His Tent]]. See also [[Filler]], [[Padding]], [[Put on a Bus]], [[Trapped by Mountain Lions]], and [[Wacky Wayside Tribe]]. For more on this topic, see [[How to Stop the Deus Ex Machina]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* [[Poisonous Person|Fugo]] was written out of ''[[
* In the second ''[[Naruto]]'' movie, Gaara develops a sudden case of never-there-on-time and thus is constantly busy being late while everyone else fights their last, easily squishable battles.
** Naruto arrived late to the second fight against Hidan and Kakuzu because he was finishing his new technique.
** When {{spoiler|Pain attacks Konoha, Danzo}} tries to prevent Naruto from joining the battle so that he can keep the Nine-Tailed Fox out of the Akatsuki's hands. Although he kills the frog that was supposed to let Naruto know he was needed, its death alerts Mount Myoboku, and Naruto joins the fight, {{spoiler|but unfortunately, not before Konoha is leveled.}}
** In the Land of Waves Arc, Naruto oversleeps, then arrives late to the battle against Zabuza and Haku because he has to save Inari and Tsunami from Gato's thugs. He defeated the goons in about 5 seconds.
** Jiraiya was busy flirting with a woman while Itachi and Kisame appeared to capture Naruto. He returns just in time to scare away those two.
* {{spoiler|Claire Stanfield}} of ''[[Baccano!]]'' isn't quite written out of the light novels, so much as [[Word of God]] has stated he'll never get his own story arc or book since he'd just [[Ax Crazy|solo the entire cast]] in under thirty pages.
* In ''[[Slayers]]'', the ridiculously powerful Xellos always seems to disappear at the most inconvenient times...or, even worse, is deliberately unhelpful. This is initially justified by his apparently flighty and unreliable personality, and later even more justified by the revelation that {{spoiler|he is actually a very loyal and reliable agent...''to the other side''. Likewise he can only be as helpful as he wishes as long as he doesn't arouse suspicion.}}
** That and Xellos just really enjoys dicking people around.
* Goku, despite being the hero, often plays this role in ''[[Dragon Ball]]'', particularly the early seasons of ''Dragonball Z''. Since he'll almost inevitably win the battle once he joins in, circumstances always conspire to keep Goku on the sidelines just long enough for all the other heroes to get beaten up first. When Vegeta and Nappa arrive on Earth, he's still in the afterlife and is only revived once all the others have been thoroughly defeated. When everyone goes to Namek, his spaceship's the last to arrive, and soon after landing, he's critically injured and spends several more episodes floating in a regenerative tank. When Doctor Gero begins his rampage, Goku's too busy fighting off a heart illness to help. And so on...
** In fact, ''Dragon Ball Z'' distinguishes itself for having multiple tiers of the trope - a really long fight will probably start with [[Overshadowed by Awesome|Yamcha or Krillin]], then bring in [[The Worf Barrage]] of Tien/Piccolo/Trunks/Vegeta, and finally let Goku or Gohan show up to finish things...and at least one fight (versus Cell) takes this even further, for a grand total of eight fighters in sequence facing off against him in a row, without any other villains participating. Naturally there were very good, impressively coincidental reasons they couldn't all have attacked at once.
** ''Vegeta'' gets the "honor" of doing this on the second Broly movie. There's zero reason as to why he didn't rush in the instant he detected Broly's ki (And he ''should'' have detected it), and at this point in the timeline, Vegeta had [[Super Mode|Super Saiyan 2]], which could have trounced the pile of muscles easily (Or at least be actually helpful, as long he didn't [[Forgot About His Powers]] like Gohan who didn't go beyond regular Super Saiyan). Maybe [[Out-of-Character Moment|he crapped his pants when he detected Broly like in the first movie]]?.
** This trope is the entire reason why Vegetto de-fused once he entered Buu's guts. He outclassed him so much that the fight wouldn't have had ANY tension whatsoever if Vegetto finished it. Also, GT would've never happened.
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** Another example of this combined with [[Too Powerful to Live]]: {{spoiler|Jack Rakan, who was essentially invincible, is ultimately defeated due to Fate's newly revealed [[Reality Warper]] abilities. Granted, there's a good plot reason for Fate to have that power, but it seems to have been revealed solely to have an excuse to take out Rakan.}}
** A third example is Evangeline. A vampire and one of the strongest mages in the manga, she easily wipes the floor with Fate when the two encounter one another. However, due to the fact that she's stuck within Mahora Academy grounds, she can't help Negi and his friends when they need her. {{spoiler|When she finally gets a chance to join the final battle, it's over very, ''very'' quickly.}}
* In ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'', a new enemy called IceDevimon appears and "freezes" [[The Hero]]'s and [[The Lancer]]'s [[Transformation Trinket
* In ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', Yusuke sleeps through much of the preliminaries of the Dark Tournament, and only wakes up just before his fight with Chu. In the second round, Hiei and Genkai are tricked into agreeing to take a medical examination, then trapped in a force field for the duration of the round. Yusuke is unable to fight in the semifinals because he is in the extremely painful process of acquiring Genkai's power, and falls asleep after that.
* ''[[Hellsing]]'' does this to Alucard, having him {{spoiler|trapped on a boat whilst London is attacked.}}
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* [[Chivalrous Pervert|Miroku]] of ''[[Inuyasha]]'' has a powerful attack called the Wind Tunnel, which can suck anything into a void. This is ''anything'', so in his debut appearance when he is opposing the eponymous character, he issues a warning to villagers to put some distance from him, leading to his [[Defeat Means Friendship]]. In addition, if he sucks in anything poisonous, he gets poisoned, and [[Big Bad|Naraku]] has plenty of poisonous wasps to give as support. Also, overuse and [[Cursed with Awesome|even having the ability at all for too long]] will eventually [[Deadly Upgrade|lead to his death]].
** You can almost sense that the author regrets giving Miroku such a powerful ability in the first place. After a certain point in the series, EVERY battle includes a token scene where Miroku tries to use Wind Tunnel only to have Naraku's poison bees show up out of nowhere, preventing him from using it. This has the ironic side-effect of making him the most powerful character on paper, but the most useless in practice.
* In ''[[Muhyo and Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation]]'', Page sets up [[Training
* ''[[Rave Master]]'s'' Elie could have easily used her magic to wipe Demon Card off the map, blow Lucia into the next century (maybe even literally {{spoiler|given how she blew herself half a century forward}}) and cream Doryu and Ogre, which would have kept Hardner from ever attempting his fusion gambit. Naturally, she had to go and get amnesia so she wouldn't know how to do all this.
* [[Badass Grandpa|Makarov]] of ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' has his magic drained at the beginning of the Fairy Tail vs. Phantom conflict when distracted by hearing that they kidnapped Lucy, putting them at a severe disadvantage. {{spoiler|Of course, once he gets back it he just [[Curb Stomp Battle|takes down what's left of the enemy all at once]].}}
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Partway through ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'', {{spoiler|Ozymandias gives a bunch of people cancer and tricks nigh-omnipotent Dr. Manhattan into thinking he caused it, prompting him to take a vacation on Mars. Doc comes back for the finale, but doesn't arrive until after the villain's plan has been carried out.}}
* In the 1960s, when Adventure Comics featured the [[Legion of Super-Heroes (
* This is practically the ''raison d'etre'' for [[Marvel Comics]] superhero [[The Sentry]]. He's a throwback to heroes (well, okay, mostly just Superman) from the Silver Age, with all that entails; he has "the power of a million exploding suns" and is recognized as pretty much hands-down the strongest super in the world. And he could handle pretty much any threat that emerged with one hand tied behind his back...if it weren't for the agoraphobia and super-evil split personality that incapacitates him whenever he'd be most useful.
* During the early issues of ''[[The Defenders]]'' (Marvel Comics, we're going off the original series here), the writers had trouble coming up with halfway decent reasons why [[Doctor Strange]] couldn't just wave his hand and eliminate the problem in one page.
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** In ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]],'' the answer to [[The Sentry]] is one [[X-Man|Nate Grey]]. The alternate version of Cable, without the techno-organic infection it takes the constant occupation of the bulk of Cable's powers to repel, is a very powerful [[Mind Over Matter|telekinetic]] and [[Psychic Powers|telepath]]. He underwent [[Power Creep, Power Seep]], and returned after an absence even stronger, so for a while was ''as strong as Jean in full Phoenix mode, all the time, without any of the drawbacks.'' Lately, he burned out his powers opening a dimensional portal, and is down to just telekinesis (how strong remains to be seen.)
** Happened to the original [[Cable]], too. He got rid of the technovirus, ''levitated an entire island while battling the [[Silver Surfer]] at once,'' burned himself out doing so, and was left with limited powers. Now the technovirus is [[Not Quite Dead]] and even ''those'' powers are reduced by the need to once again play [[Sealed Evil in a Duel]].
* [[Goo-Goo Godlike|Franklin Richards]], the son of [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Reed and Sue.]] His powers make him one of the most powerful beings in existence... or would, if there wasn't always something holding him back. The various powersets he's had, and will have according to various future stories, are just what little of his omnipotence slips through the [[Power Limiter
* This is the reason why minor criminals in [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] ''[[Superman]]'' comics [[Kryptonite Is Everywhere|would often have Kryptonite]].
* In DC's [[Final Crisis]], the [[Legion of Doom|Secret Society]] sends Clayface to blow up the Daily Planet, badly injuring Lois. This, and a [[Time Travel]] subplot to stop [[Evil Counterpart|Superboy-Prime]] kept [[Superman]] from interfering with most of the crisis {{spoiler|until it's too late to save [[Batman]]'s life}}. The [[Brown Note|Anti-Life Equation]] keeps much of the other major heroes occupied (not to mention [[Brainwashed and Crazy]]) and leaves the saving of the world up to a few, mostly less-powerful heroes, including [[The Flash]]. {{spoiler|Well, [[Back
* From DC Comics: So there were American superheroes in the 1940s, right? But having superheroes involved in World War II would be a [[Game Breaker]] that would disrupt the idea of the DC universe's similarity to the real world. So the Justice Society and their fellow patriotic heroes took a major
** This wasn't canon at the time; the Spear of Destiny/Holy Grail was only brought up several decades later. At the time, they just had a lame explanation about Clark Kent failing the eye exam to join the army because he got excited and used his X-ray vision to read the eye chart in the next room. They just kinda hoped nobody would notice that Superman never took the time to head over to Germany, grab Hitler, and end the war in 1942. Another twist was that the Spear turns off any superpowers when they cross enemy lines.
** There was a Superman story published during [[World War II]] in which Superman told thousands of cheering GIs: "You fellows don't need my help!" This was of course to explain why Superman didn't end the war in five seconds. And of course, during the Golden Age, Superman's powers were much weaker than they were later on: it's possible that he wasn't even able to fly across the Atlantic.
* Yet another Superman example: There was a much-hyped JLA story arc by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Superman gets sidelined in the very first issue, and stays that way pretty much throughout the arc. Since it was Claremont, Superman was ([[Author Appeal|of course]]) sidelined through [[Mind Control]].
* In [[Super Dinosaur]] Tricerachops is laid up and The Exile is preoccupied during Maximus' Project X.
* In the Belgium comic book series Suske & Wiske (Spike & Suzy) , this frequently happens to Jerom because his superhuman strength would otherwise make the situations the characters encounter less of a challenge.
* Done multiple times in [[Marvel Comics]]. The [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]] are usually in space or another dimension while [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]] are on a mission. They really should coordinate this. [[Spider-Man]] has noted that 99 times out of 100, when he goes to ask another hero for help, they will ''never'' be there. [[Doctor Strange]]'s servant, Wong, replied that this was true, but so far, Spidey was good enough to not really need that help.
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== [[Film]] ==
* In ''[[The Matrix]] Reloaded'', a backdoor traps Neo hundreds of miles away while Trinity and Morpheus fight the [[Nigh Invulnerable]] Twins, then Agents for the duration of the long highway scene. In ''Revolutions'', Neo ends up trapped in a train station for most of the beginning.
* In ''[[Dogma]]'', God is unavailable, since he went golfing and was incapacitated while doing so. While this is going on, two angels banned from Heaven find a loophole that allows them to return to Heaven. Doing so would be against God's word and would destroy the universe. So,
* This happens several times in the second and third ''[[The Karate Kid]]'' movies. Mr. Miyagi is able to easily defeat any adversary, so of course for Daniel to have fights of his own, Mr. Miyagi must be away or kept out of the fight for some reason. Most notably is probably the final confrontation in the second movie when the main antagonist {{spoiler|drops the bridge into the water, leaving him isolated with Daniel and Kumiko while Mr. Miyagi is only able to watch the Fight To The Death that ensues.}}
* Luke Skywalker pulls this in ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'' while receiving a [[Training
** This also happens to R2-D2 before he can open the backdoor to the Death Star Bunker, leaving Han and Leia to deal with the problem.
* In true ''[[Transformers]]'' spirit, Optimus Prime is killed in ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]''. Things look pretty grim for the autobots, {{spoiler|until Prime is brought back to life}}.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* In the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' novels, Albus Dumbledore almost always seems to have a pressing duty that makes him leave Hogwarts just when Harry is about to get stuck fighting some highly dangerous bad guy:
** ''[[Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
*** However, it is implied at the end of that book {{spoiler|and more or less stated in}} ''[[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (
** ''Chamber of Secrets'': By the time Harry and Ron {{spoiler|discover the entrance to the Chamber}}, Dumbledore has been suspended by the school governors.
** ''Prisoner of Azkaban'': Played with, since it's Dumbledore himself who tells Harry and Hermione [[Time Travel|what to do]], because they were the only ones who could.
** ''Goblet of Fire'': The bad guys [[Genre Savvy|pluck Harry off Hogwarts' grounds]] and deposit him miles away.
** ''Order of the Phoenix'': Dumbledore is [[Tyrant Takes the Helm|replaced by]] [[Harry Potter
** ''Half-Blood Prince'': Exception, Dumbledore takes part in the climax {{spoiler|and is killed}}.
*** Which also works as this trope for the series as a whole, since {{spoiler|it was Voldemort's plan to [[Genre Savvy|get rid of Dumbledore first]], and then try and take over the world.}}
** It is eventually explained in book seven that {{spoiler|Harry needed to defeat Voldemort himself in the end, so Dumbledore had to let Harry build up enough skill over the years to do it. Unless he absolutely had to intervene, or if something happened he hadn't planned for, he let Harry do it, giving him just enough skills and information before hand to let him succeed.}}
* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', Gandalf combines this with standard [[Deus Ex Machina]] heroics when he leaves Helm's Deep to fend for itself against the Uruk-Hai siege so he can gather troops for a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment. Not really unexpected, given that he also left Thorin's party to check Dol Guldur in the middle of ''[[The Hobbit (novel)|The Hobbit]]''. Part of this is the [[All There in the Manual|implicit idea]] Gandalf is conflicted on how much to affect events, which would make him too much like Saruman.
** This happened in the first book too, when a Balrog dragged him into a chasm in Moria.
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** Also in ''[[Beyond the Black River]]'', where Conan heads off to make sure one group of civilians are safe, leaving Balthus to do the real heroism as he arranges for people to be evacuated and covers their escape {{with a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]}}, saving many.
* In the 7th ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' novel, Mikuru gets {{spoiler|kidnapped by some hostile organizations}}. What follows is a {{spoiler|carchase with Mori and Arakawa from the organization.}} Of course, Kyon ''could'' have just {{spoiler|called Yuki for help, since she's just about omnipotent.}} This is justified by a) there was not much time and Kyon was in serious panic and b) He doesn't like to rely on {{spoiler|Yuki}}, because he already owes her enough. The best thing is when Kyon actually ''thinks'' what would have happened if {{spoiler|Yuki was involved.}} To quote the man himself:
{{quote|
* Michael Carpenter in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' gets this a ''lot''. In every appearance he makes Michael gets sidelined for some reason or another. He gets his sword stolen by {{spoiler|Harry's faerie godmother}} in his first ''appearance'', gets arrested for several days in Missouri in his second, and gets stuck in Oregon in his third appearance. It doesn't help that the last two occurrences were ''off-screen''. He did get some badass fight scenes in ''Death Masks'' and ''Small Favor'' to make up for it though. It is also strongly implied that Michael is dramatically more powerful when God himself is giving him the task he's setting his blade to, turning him from a fairly strong hero with a big sword to a righteous force of pure, evil-smiting destruction.
** Displayed in ''Small Favor'' when he singlehandedly clears a train station of hundreds of Hob's. Only after Harry has cleared the myrk though, and Harry is also kind of occupied.
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* Luke does this in [[The Black Fleet Crisis]], first going off to try the life of a hermit, then going with a woman who claims to know his mother on a long and ultimately completely pointless journey, while his friends struggle with a serious war against genocidal opponents. The author took pains to ''really'' escalate Luke's abilities in this trilogy, too.
* In the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' novel ''Crown of Slaves'' [[Genius Bruiser|Anton Zilwicki]] takes a mission that puts him out-system for most of the book.
** It varies from this trope's usual execution in that his off-screen mission actually proves to be a significant plot point later; that was where he got the information that allowed Honor Harrington to expose the true background of Lady North Hollow as a wanted fugitive and career criminal, which led to her being successfully coerced to destroy Earl North Hollow's blackmail vault, which ended decades' worth of political corruption in Manticorean politics and decided the course of their next national election.
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
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** Giles does get to off {{spoiler|Ben/Glory}}, though.
** Willow, post magical power-up, was also removed this way at least once. Anya points this out at one point, noting that the "trap everyone in the house" spell they're under should be no big deal for a witch of Willow's power, but she's still going cold turkey.
** In one episode, Xander is forced to stop a group of zombies from blowing up the school, something that would be a minor annoyance to the more powerful
*** They're also blowing Xander off when he tries to warn them of the danger.
** Buffy runs away from her friends and mother after having to kill her lover. They manage to hold down the fort, though not nearly as well without Buffy. Some spend an entire summer wishing she was back or actively trying to find her.
** In Season Eight, during the first arc, evil witch Amy traps Buffy in a nightmare while she attacks the Scooby Gang's new castle HQ with an army of zombies. {{spoiler|They are saved by [[Deus Ex Machina|Willow]]. However, this was Amy's plan; she is able to capture Willow for her boyfriend, who wanted revenge on Dark Willow almost killing him, and also to lure Buffy into the grasp of the [[General Ripper]] hunting her. However, Amy's plan backfires when Buffy is able to use what in the dream Amy trapped her in to defeat Amy}}.
** Several times in season 3, Faith disappeared for an episode so that the presence of a second Slayer didn't make the Threat of the Week to easy to beat. Most notable is "[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S3
*** That one may have an in-universe explanation; {{spoiler|Giles}} was the one giving Buffy the stuff that took her powers away, and for the Cruciamentum to work, Buffy had to do it alone without another slayer to help her. [[Fridge Logic]] would suggest that it was {{spoiler|him}} who sent Faith away in the first place, probably on a wild-goose chase, and just didn't tell Buffy. It still counts as this trope, but the Council needed Faith out of the way just as much as the writers did.
* Rare [[Sixth Ranger
** Udonna from ''[[Power Rangers Mystic Force]]'': whenever the rangers have a problem that she should be able to solve in a matter of seconds, she is nowhere to be seen, let alone mentioned.
*** And of course, the original ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' had Tommy and his "swiss cheese brain" that would cause him to forget important things (like his morpher on at least one occasion) and be unavailable to fight the [[Monster of the Week]]. This had a [[Real Life]] explanation as well, since Tommy's Japanese counterpart pulled a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] and wasn't around nearly as much, a problem rectified by Toei producing brand-new suit footage for the second season.
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** And in the two part "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood", he spends all of the first episode and nearly all of the second as a powerless human, without even memories of his days as a Time Lord (sorta). It is later revealed that he did this on purpose, to give the family of aliens chasing him an opportunity to simply walk away safely. When he is forced to turn Time Lord again, he easily dishes out horrible punishments to all of the family.
*** So easily, in fact, that it happens off-screen. After he is restored and effortlessly blows up their spaceship, the epilogue is narrated by the bad guy, explaining the [[And I Must Scream|horrible fates]] visited upon his family.
** And in "Turn Left", he's not around on account of {{spoiler|being dead}}, because it takes place in an alternate [[Crapsack World]] where, because Donna never met him, he {{spoiler|died during his [[What the Hell, Hero?]] moment with the Racnoss}}.
** Inverted in "Midnight". The sidekick is removed from the picture, and as a result the Doctor {{spoiler|''fails'' to save the day}}.
** Occasionally happened in the original series when an actor went on vacation.
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** The first time, he time travels back to when their parents were still alive, and the effort alone nearly kills him.
** The second time, he branded an anti-angel sigil on his chest to send a bunch of angelic [[Mooks]] to God-knows-where. This had the nasty side effect of sending ''him'' to God-knows-where, as well as stripping him of his remaining powers.
== Mythology ==
* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: Done in the ''[[Jason and the Argonauts|Argonautica]]'' by Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century BCE), when the Argonauts accidentally leave [[Classical Mythology/Characters|Heracles]] behind in the land of Kios, while he looks for his lost ward/lover, Hylas. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in that same work, when Apollonius mentions that had Heracles stayed with the group, all of their challenges would have become trivial.
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** Especially noticeable in ''[[Mega Man X Command Mission]]'', where you literally lose him for nearly 1/3 of the game right after the very beginning, considering he's easily the most overpowered character in your party at that point in the game.
** Ditto X in ''[[Mega Man Zero]],'' and of course his absence has allowed all hell to break loose. It makes sense that his body isn't up trying to blow away enemies; what goes unexplained is why in the hell he never talks sense into [[Quirky Miniboss Squad|the Guardians]]. And in the Drama Tracks, he even does this - but not until the third game is well underway. Much trouble could have been avoided. Thanks for nothing!
* In ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Radiant Dawn'', there is a major war between the Laguz alliance (several countries populated by people who [[Animorphism|have animal forms]]) and Begnion (the most powerful empire on the game), embroiling most of the continent and exposing the Laguz to great risk, yet both the king of beasts ''and'' his second-in-line are not there. The army is going to be marching through a lot of rough terrain and they simply can't afford to have their king that far away from his country. If what happened in the Hawk Nation had happened in the Beast Nation, there's no way he could have gotten back there in time.
* In ''[[Star Wars: Dark Forces|Jedi Outcast]]'', Luke Skywalker fights the [[Big Bad]] to a draw, then is trapped after taking a sucker punch, delaying his procession to the final battleground for the [[Climactic Battle Resurrection]], leaving it up to hero Kyle Katarn to fight the bad guy one-on-one.
** Likewise, in ''Jedi Academy'', Kyle Katarn misses out on the final battle because he has to stay behind and save [[More Than Mind Control]] victim Rosh, leaving it up to newbie hero Jaden Korr to face Tavion/Marka Ragnos.
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* In the ''[[Touhou]]'' series, [[Reality Warper]] Yukari Yakumo is just plain ''[[The Gods Must Be Lazy|lazy]]''. On the few occasions in which she has actually woken up, she hasn't shown anything close to the power she showed as a [[Bonus Boss]]. In ''Imperishable Night'' and in the fighting games, she's just an [[Good Is Dumb|ordinary playable character]]; in ''Subterranean Animism'', she stays home and lets Reimu do all the actual work (because surface youkai aren't allowed underground).
** The main thing here is that dealing with incidents is the humans' job (especially Reimu's). That said, she does beat the hell out of Tenshi and stop her plans more or less single-handedly. And of the few really ''dangerous'' incidents the only one she didn't help resolve is the one she caused.
* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006
* In ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'', the lead character is {{spoiler|blasted into ash by Lavos in the confrontation at the [[Disc One Final Dungeon|Ocean Palace]]}}, very effectively knocking him out of commission. The rest of the party can then undertake a lengthy sidequest to get him back, but it's not mandatory.
** {{spoiler|The party (or at least Marle) [[Multiple Endings|will do the sidequest for you]] if you beat the game without Crono}}
* ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' has {{spoiler|[[And Now for Someone Completely Different|Joker's]] mini-mission}} The Normandy is out of commission for a few hours, and all of its systems are offline, including the [[Wave Motion Gun|huge cannons]] Shepard just installed and the [[Hyperspeed Escape|FTL]] systems. In short, the Normandy is absolutely helpless. So what does Shepard do? Leave the Normandy for his next mission. And take the [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|entire squad]] with them, leaving the crew to fight for themselves for a while. Well, the commander and every one of the best combatants in the galaxy that could quell a boarding action is gone. [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]]
{{quote|
'''Joker''': "Transmitting? To who?"
''(The {{spoiler|Collectors drop out of FTL directly above the Normandy. The Collectors board and begin to capture or kill the Normandy's crew}}.)''
'''Joker''': [[Oh Crap|Oh shit]]. }}
** It falls to Joker, the least able-bodied person on the Normandy, to {{spoiler|reactivate the systems and unshackle EDI.}}
* Saber in ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'' is essentially immune to all magic. The plot of most of the second route, UBW, is about dealing with Caster. Well, we can't have our main fight be completely immune to the bad guy's power, can we? So the contract between Shirou and Saber is cut, Caster captures her and tries to make her kill Shirou. However, she conveniently resists long enough for Caster to die to someone else entirely and then suddenly a new contract is made with Tohsaka!
* Raiden, dear lord, in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]''. You see, By that point, Raiden has gone from complete wimp to ''even stronger than the legendary Gray Fox''...and he spends most of the game disabled. It begins with his first fight against [[Good Thing You Can Heal|Vamp]], making him absent for one quarter of the game. Then, he's back... in time to make logic defying decisions that will leave him even more crippled (Raiden: "I'll cover your back" ...WHAT? I'm riding the ultimate machine of destruction. If anything, you need ''me'' to cover ''your'' back...) and slightly more ridiculous (Don't worry Snake, I'll save you from this giant submarine by making the reversal of what any sane man would do! I will hold back the giant thingie! GO ME!). As a result, Raiden is, by the climax, little more than a tragic version of ''[[Monty Python]]'''s [[Monty Python and
* Conversely, this is done to a point in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]''. Solid Snake, still in his prime, is "killed" when the tanker is ripped apart by Revolver Ocelot. This accident is considered an environmental disaster and Snake is vilified. This is the whole reason for the introduction of Raiden in the first place.
* Probably the most annoying quest (out of many) in ''[[Star Control]] 3'' involves saving the Chmrr {{spoiler|after the Daktaklakpak successfully commit genocide against them}}. The probable reason for including it? To sideline the Chmrr's super-powerful fleet until the war is pretty much already over.
* In ''[[Star Wars]]'': ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'' I and II, there are several instances where the player loses the use of a strong party member or has to play as someone other than the player character.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[DM of the Rings]]'' brilliantly parodies Gandalf's tendency to do this in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' (see Literature). After the entire night of fighting at Helm's Deep Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are all talking about how they will now ''finally'' get some respect from these people. Three guesses who suddenly shows up at the last minute after all the hardest work is over, and is being praised by ''everybody'' else.
{{quote|
'''(Gandalf shows up suddenly)'''
'''Everybody:''' Gandalf has come to deliver us! He's saved us! HAIL GANDALF!!!
'''Aragorn:''' That guy is ''really'' starting to get on my nerves. }}
* Howard Taylor of ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' has mentioned this as a problem for writing when {{spoiler|Petey}} has [[A God Am I|ascended to a higher state of being]] but stuck around with virtually omnipotent powers. However, he's introduced a [[Fridge Horror|horrifying]] limitation that cripples {{spoiler|Petey}}: while he could instantly teraport anything or anyone in the galaxy anywhere he wants at will, {{spoiler|he needs every watt of energy to save trillions of sentient life-forms in the Andromeda galaxy, and each time he meddles with the main characters represents a sacrifice of lives he could have saved.}}
** Lampshaded in the arc that introduced the limitation:
{{quote|
* Andy Weir, writer of ''[[Casey and Andy]]'', has referred to the same problem; since Satan is a regular member of the cast, and on the nominally good side, he needs the find some way to indispose her before any arcs can progress.
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** Subverted in "In Darkest Night, Part I", which very conspicuously pointed out that Supes was busy with an earthquake in India...only to have him show up halfway through the episode anyway. He mentions that he finished early because the earthquake was "only" a 4 on the Richter Scale.
*** It should be noted that a 4 is at the point when you can hear the China rattling in the cabinets, but there's very rarely any serious damage. Not something that requires Superman, seeing as over a dozen earthquakes around that magnitude happen a day.
** And in the episode "Patriot Act," the entire rest of the League is busy, so the five non-powered heroes who were available are sent to walk in a parade in Metropolis, later to be joined by two (also non-powered) reservists to deal with the newly superhuman General Eiling. They get absolutely thrashed, but did it in a pretty awesome way, especially with Shining Knight's [[Shut UP, Hannibal]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] in which he talks down the overly patriotic Eiling with his own American
** In the episode "Chaos at the Earth's Core", the miniature red sun of Skartaris weakens [[Supergirl]]'s powers almost to nothing.
* In the film ''[[Justice League: The New Frontier]]'', [[Superman]] is struck down by the big alien monster and everyone thinks he's
* In the series finale of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', [[Obi Wan]] Iroh refuses to fight Fire Lord Ozai
** In "The Desert" episode, Katara has to lead the group because Aang's too upset over Appa, [[Intoxication Ensues|Sokka is high]], and Toph can't see (she's blind and senses vibrations) because of the loose sand they're walking on.
** Appa himself: he lives and breaths this trope for the entire series. For the record, Appa is a ten-ton (that's twenty thousand-pound) flying creature with horns. Yet he's only in three battles throughout the whole series and only attacks people in one of them. Case and point: in "Jet" he is literally five yards behind the group as they're walking through a forest, but as soon as they stumble into a Fire Nation camp and get attacked, he's no where to be seen. The writers don't even give him an excuse, he's just gone.
*** [[Fridge Brilliance|Maybe Aang taught him to flee during battle so their only transportation doesn't get wounded?]]
* In ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]: the Series'', Genie is kept from [[Reality Warper|resolving the plot of every episode in two minutes]] through a combination of this trope, [[Holding Back the Phlebotinum|the rules]] of his [[Weird Trade Union]], and [[Forgot About His Powers]]. In maybe ''one'' episode, they actually meet a rare villain that is more powerful than him; he specifically notes that the creature is about as powerful as a palace full of genies.
** Practically the exact same thing can be said for Cosmo and Wanda in ''[[The Fairly
*** Well, more like just the rules of ''their'' [[Weird Trade Union]] and a combination of Cosmo being stupid and Wanda getting ignored.
** And [[Shazzan]].
* In the Season 3 finale of ''[[ReBoot]]'', the home world of the main characters is being destroyed by [[Big Bad|Megabyte]], who is attempting to escape the dying system. In an effort to save his friends and family, as well as countless others, Enzo squares off against Megabyte with nothing but his girlfriend's trident (he threw aside his gun). Sounds great and suspenseful...until you realize that Bob, the [[Flying Brick|Guardian-Keytool Combo Hero]] is chilling with [[Cloudcuckoolander|Hexadecimal]] in her lair (okay, not so much chilling, as her prisoner). {{spoiler|He manages to get back just in time to miss Megabyte's defeat.}} It's even punctuated by the standard "[[Lampshade Hanging|What'd I miss?]]"
* In ''[[WITCH (animation)|WITCH]]'', once Queen Elyon realizes her true powers and comes to the side of good, she should be able to make fights a lot easier, right? After all, she can warp reality and is probably more powerful than the five Guardians put together. However, during the first part of the second season, she's stuck taking care of the daily affairs of Meridian, and during the second half of the season, she's stuck inside the Seal of Nerissa.
* ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' had Skipper {{spoiler|Eaten By A Snakehead}} once to shift focus onto the rest of the [[Badass Crew]] dealing with his absence.
** And he was also poisoned on another occasion. {{spoiler|The whole thing was a setup for their [[Secret Test of Character]].}}
* When the 90's [[X-Men (animation)|X-Men]] cartoon adapted ''The Phoenix Saga,'' the writers had to get rid of Rogue for the first episode (Xavier mentioned that she was away on a mission), since her [[Power Copying]] and [[Flying Brick]] powers would have solved the atmospheric-reentry problem far too easily. This is lampshaded when she returns, where the first thing she says is that she should have been there since she could have handled it. In the comics, she didn't exist as a character yet, and so she wasn't around to absorb the rescued astronaut's piloting skills and calmly bring down the shuttle as the solar radiation harmlessly bounced off her invulnerable body, with the astronauts and other X-Men safely in the shielded area. No fuss, no muss, no unstable cosmic entity.
** [[Wolverine]] was subject to this in two occasions in the series ("Reunion (Part 2)", and "The Dark Phoenix Saga (Part 1): Dazzled"). In both cases, the X-Men were defeated in battle and imprisoned and had their powers nullified in some way (the nature of the savage lands in the former and through special handcuffs in the latter). For Wolverine, this would make the inevitable breakout easy due to his adamantium claws since even in todays comics his claws are unaffected by power nullifiers and could cut through anything including the prison bars for the former and the handcuffs in the latter. Hence why at the beginning of each fight Wolverine would be taken out quite early (thrown off a waterfall in "Reunion (Part 2)" and smashed 5 floors into a sewer by Harry Leland in "The Dark Phoenix Saga (Part 1): Dazzled".) Arguably, this helped his character as it gave him a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment.
* In the ''[[Adventure Time]]'' episode "It Came From the Nightosphere," Jake is entirely absent. {{spoiler|That is, until the end, when it is revealed that he was shrunken down and residing inside a pocket of Finn's shirt the whole time for some reason.}}
* In ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force|Ben 10 Alien Force]]'' {{spoiler|Alien X is basically god. They write him out by making him unable to use his powers without a quorum from Ben and two very opposed personalities.}}
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[[Category:Contrived Stupidity Tropes]]
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