Forgot About His Powers: Difference between revisions

When a character has the [[Idiot Ball]] slipped into their pocket while they weren't looking, causing them to forget to properly use their abilities, intelligence, or powers to stop a bad guy or get out of a situation, even though they may have used the ability in similar situations before (often many times). This happens often with [[Superhero|superheroes]] and within the filler episode of [[Shonen Demographic]] anime.

 

 

[[Amnesia Danger]] is a variant of this trope, when it's justified using [[Easy Amnesia|convenient amnesia]]. The heroic version of [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?]], except while at least villains don't have to answer to their actions, heroes should be obligated to stop evil-doers or disasters as quickly and efficiently as possible.

 

See [[Fridge Logic]] for when it occurs to the viewers a little later what the character could've/should've easily done. See [[Remembered I Could Fly]] when it occurs to the character [[Just in Time]] what he should've done long before.

 

As mentioned, this is a sister trope to [[Idiot Ball]], the distinction being that [[Idiot Ball]] is when a character does something stupid to further the [[Plot]], while with [[Forgot About His Powers]] the plot depends on a character ''failing'' to take an action they would normally take or that would make the most sense to solve the current crisis.

** Also lampshaded in "Nectar of the Odds": Timmy unsuccessfully tries to make his lemonade taste better using cheese, taco sauce, peas, and chocolate laxatives. While Timmy goes to the bathroom (after trying the laxatives), Wanda wonders why he doesn't just ''wish'' for sweeter lemonade.

** In Timmy's defense, every single attempt he ever made at simply wishing the plot of the week to be magically resolved was always blocked by some arcane and obscure magic rule that would forbid magic from undoing his previous stupid wish. "Not Using Magic to Break True Love" came up a lot in this regard. By this point, Timmy may simply be assuming that wishing things back to normal will bring up the freaking rulebook, so he's saving himself the aggravation and solving things the hard way from the start.

* In the first season of ''[[Justice League (Animation)|Justice League]]'', characters would regularly forget their powers. In the season finale, Brainiac is holding everyone in an iron grip with tentacles. They struggle for an unreasonable time before [[Martian Manhunter]] remembers that he can ''turn intangible at will''.

** The [[Martian Manhunter]] is the king of this trope. He has the ability to transform into whatever [[Super Strength|Super Strong]] forms he can imagine -- an ability he uses three times in the ''entire series''. He'll stare at incoming projectiles with a surprised look on his face instead of turning intangible, or super solid or transforming into a form that cannot be so easily hit.

** '''All''' of ''Superfriends'' was made of this trope. It was parodied openly in a sketch on ''[[The State]]'', Superman orders the other heroes to basically cleanup duty and then says "I'll stop the missiles... ''all by myself!''" And then grabs his crotch with a smug look on his face.

* In ''[[Teen Titans (Animation)|Teen Titans]]'', Raven is easily the most overpowered of the five, which is made glaringly obvious in season 4 (though one could [[Fan Wank]] this as her emotional state boosting her powers for the duration, given what was happening). As such, PIS is the only way to keep the entire team necessary. Raven often conveniently forgets that she can fly, teleport, and become intangible in situations where those powers would be highly useful. She also rarely uses her telekinesis to restrain opponents or hurl them away from the scene of a battle, rather than just tossing debris at them. She's done it before, to both allies and enemies, so it's not an issue of being unable. There's only one episode where she concentrates and simply ''cuts'' the baddie's armour with her power. ''One''.

** She states she has to "put a bit of herself" in everything she moves or uses her powers on while her powers are active. It's possible it's harder to do this on living things, especially hostile living things in the middle of a battle, then it is to do it to inanimate objects.

* No matter how many missions the characters in ''[[Code Lyoko (Animation)|Code Lyoko]]'' go on, they always seem to forget that, first and foremost, while on Lyoko one cannot die from lasers and swords, they can only be devirtualized. They will also forget their most important abilities at the worst times. For example, Aelita could use her Creativity power to create terrain barriers around herself, but even in dangerous situations where she has enough time, she quite often forgets that she can do this. She is the most obvious offender, but the others are often guilty as well.

[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Forgot About His Powers]]