Forgot About His Powers: Difference between revisions
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* Flinx of [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' series gets hit with this a lot in the novels after ''Flinx in Flux''. Having been established as: (a) streetwise, (b) adept at survival, (c) having [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|a ton of money]], (d) being able to defeat just about any enemy with a combination of his [[Emotion Bomb]] and [[Superpower Meltdown]] powers; at least half of the scrapes he gets himself into are caused by a combination of him deliberately walking unprepared into lethal environments or conveniently forgetting about one or more of his [[Psychic Powers]] in order to allow a different character to get a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment. There's also at least one scene in ''Trouble Magnet'' where he ''does'' rely on his [[Emotion Bomb]] power to get himself out of a scrape, only to have it not work on him thanks to [[Power Incontinence]]... a fact he really ought to have taken into account considering how frequently it happens to him.
* In the ''Mallorean'', Belgarath does this. He, Belgarion, and Zakath have to fight a dragon, which is immune to direct sorcery. He makes Garion and Zaketh immune to fire to face the dragon, and has no doubts that this will work, demonstrating that indirect sorcery can be used. Despite this and 7000 years of experience, the idea of translocating large rocks above the dragon's head, or something similar, never occurs to him.
** That scene is actually one of the very very few ''justified'' uses of this trope in a series which normally overuses it - during the sequence in question everyone is operationg operating under assumed identities, so neither Garath nor Garion can publicly "out" themselves as a sorcerer. So two sorcerers who generally don't do subtle are suddenly forced to operate with a 'subtle and invisible only' restriction, and are thus scrambling to improvise.
** Easily half of the entire content of ''any'' book written by [[David Eddings]] exists only because the protagonists don't make simple and forward use of the god-like (and we mean sometimes very ''literally'' godlike) powers they have. There is sometimes a flimsy reason given for this (and not used anymore when the plot dictates) but most of the time they just don't use a simple possibility they have - and rather go for an incredibly contrived method that somehow seems like a genius idea.
* In ''[[Artemis Fowl]]: The Lost Colony'', Minerva walks up to the [[Not Quite Dead|Not Quite Unconscious]] villain to taunt him and [[Idiot Ball|kick his shin]] in the middle of a firefight, costing Butler four precious seconds and allowing the henchmen to strap a bomb to Holly. That's what being the [[Designated Victim]] can [[Chickification|do to you]].
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** When Louis falls improbably in love with Merrick, it never occurs to David that something supernatural is going on, even though he's an expert in magic and he knows she's a witch.
* Used in a subtle and clever way in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' novel ''Small Favor''. Harry has a small arsenal of magical tools on him (staff, shield bracelet, force rings, blasting rod, and various other odds-and-ends), and he has a wide range of spells he can draw from (bursts of flame, blasts of force, lighting bolts, wind, etc). Therefore, unless the reader is paying very close attention, they'll miss something important: Throughout the novel, Harry uses most of his gear and most of his spells, but {{spoiler|he doesn't use either fire magic or his blasting rod beyond the initial brawl in the first chapter}}. It isn't until later on that the reason becomes apparent: {{spoiler|Mab, queen of the Winter Court, took his blasting rod and put a lock in Harry's mind that kept him from using fire magic, so that the fire-based Summer Court couldn't track him down and kill him.}}
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