Hard Work Hardly Works: Difference between revisions

Part of what makes fiction so entertaining is reading about how the protagonist is ''special'' and ''different'', how they are the [[Rags to Royalty|true heir]], the [[Chosen One]] who has [[The Gift]], wielder of the [[Cosmic Keystone]], or simply ''that'' [[Badass]]. They may train to get their skills and powers, but part of their hero package is a certain ''je ne sais quoi'' that grants them a better ability or talent at their [[Serious Business]] of choice. While it's true that genetics and heredity give us all different advantages when learning knowledge or skills, for the hero it goes far beyond that.

 

 

 

Despite the unfair-seeming nature of this trope, instances do exist wherein the lower gain can be [[Justified Trope|justified]]: such as when [[The Rival]] does work harder than [[The Hero]], but due to their own stubbornness he or she refuses to note any flaws within their work or allow themselves proper rest. The end result is program that is certainly ''harder'', but nowhere near as effective as one done "properly".

 

A specific and cynical [[Broken Aesop]], occasionally due to [[Mega Manning]], or [[The Worf Effect]]. Results in [[Can't Catch Up]] and [[Instant Expert]], and the hard-working character becoming [[The Resenter]]. Quite an opposite of [[Charles Atlas Superpower]] and [[Weak but Skilled]]. See also [[Technician Versus Performer]], [[Incompletely Trained]]. Often accompanied by a [[Training Montage]].

 

== Anime and Manga ==

** {{spoiler|This bears some elaboration. Aizen is hundreds of years old, but does not appear to be a hard worker; he's had [[Story Breaker Power]] for over a century with no explanation forthcoming as to how he got so strong in the first place. However, through use of a [[Reality Warper]], Aizen exponentially increases his powers several times, evolving into an entirely new sort of being. Ichigo not only matches this process by meditating for three months, he is several orders of magnitude stronger than Aizen when they fight.}}

*** {{spoiler|Which is why he had to lose that power in order to keep the story going, because if enemies are EVEN stronger than that state than the rest of the cast would be superfluous.}}

* Ren of ''[[Shaman King]]'' suffers from this. His entire life has basically been one long [[Training From Hell]], and yet no matter how hard he pushes himself, Yoh always kicks his ass with what seems to be little to no effort, the whole while spouting off his own philosophy of not pushing himself too hard to do something he can't do (which would have been the thing required to defeat Ren in that particular battle) until for no apparent reason he is suddenly granted the ability to do that critical thing (or more commonly, the strategy that every experienced Shaman watching thought was total suicide turns out to work).

** It's worth remembering that prior to the story's beginning Yoh was given [[Training From Hell]] by his grandfather and later his fiance, but said training didn't give him any [[I Am Not Left Handed|hidden power for him to conceal]] or help him get over his slacker tendencies. Hell, he's practically the ''messiah'' of slackers!

** The draw control actually only comes into play in the very last duel of the series, after his hidden memories have been awakened. And even then, only in the anime, not the original manga.

** As for Kaiba, relied on the power of his Blue Eyes White Dragons, which he drew within turns of each other, to dominate the duel before Atemu/Yugi drew the final piece of Exodia, so he wasn't relying on hard work or even skill either, but rather on [[The Magic Poker Equation]]. Not to mention having [[Bigger Stick|more powerful cards]] than practically any other player on the planet.

** Van and Bit are both justified by having the [[Sapient Steed|Organoid helping out from the inside]]. Van in particular starts out relying almost entirely on Zeke, and receives proper training later on. Bit [[Obfuscating Stupidity|might be smarter than he looks]].

*** Bit also states at the start of the series he had wanted to be a pilot so it's possible he had trained beforehand. He's certainly good at coming up with a plan.

** Jack Rakan might be an aversion. Unlike Negi, who was very powerful but didn't seem to put any effort into gaining that power, Jack Rakan spent almost whole his life fighting, he almost died many times but as time passed he became more and more powerful all thanks to decades of hard work. Even Negi refers to Rakan as "The Ultimate Hard-worker"

** In a possible subversion, Rakan is generally still acknowledged to be a lot stronger. The general opinion of the matter is that Negi's greatest strength lies in how proficient he is in making new techniques. At one point it's mentioned that people would just love to stick him behind a desk somewhere and make new spells.

* The titular character of ''[[Ranma One Half|Ranma 1/2]]'' possesses a [[Charles Atlas Superpower]] that, sometimes, allows him this particular luxury. Although he has to train long and hard to attain [[Rapid Fire Fisticuffs|blinding speed]] (the ''Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken'' and ''Parlay du Fois Gras'' training methods,) or learn a particularly [[Finishing Move|devastating technique]] (the ''Hiryuu Shouten Ha'' and ''Mouko Takabisha'',) "long and hard" for him means "a few days of experimentation," regardless of the decades it might have taken the techniques' original creators. Particularly noticeable in the case of the [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique|Umisenken]], which he learned from watching it once, and practiced and ''mastered'' literally overnight, then used it to defeat the opponent who had trained in the opposite style Yamasenken his entire life.

** It does help that the "Musabetsu Kakutō Saotome Ryū" (The Saotome School Of [[Combat Pragmatist|Combat Pragmatism]]) is actually absurdly simple - accent on ''absurd''. Its sole method of training is [[Training From Hell]] - [[Taught By Experience|By Experience]]. As in, survive stupid suicidal acts '''repeatedly'''. For example, Genma taught him how to fall from buildings without killing himself by throwing him off cliffs. He survived over a decade of this. [[The Spartan Way|Starting at age two.]] Result: The martial arts equivalent of [[The Pretender]]. If there's something he doesn't know how to do with his body already, he can come up with a suicidal training aid and fill the gap in a day or so.

* Practically spelled out in ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' when Natsu faces the Vanish Brothers. They say that the time spent training his [[Playing With Fire|fire magic]] should make him a [[Squishy Wizard]] and they should surpassed him in speed and strength from all their years of physical training. Nope! Not only does he have magic that they don't [[Kung Fu Wizard|he's both faster and stronger]] despite being years younger.

** Not entirely. At least part of why he beat them is that they tried to [[Attack Reflector|turn his own fire magic back on him]], but because of his training he's immune to [[Energy Absorption|all]] [[Feed It With Fire|fire]]. Plus, y'know, the fact that he was trained in magic by a [[Raised By Wolves|DRAGON]].

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[His Dark Materials]]'': Lyra learns how to use the alethiometer in less than a month. It's supposed to take decades. On the other hand, she's not the only one.

** Justified, somewhat, in that it's explained that Lyra was granted the use of the alethiometer {{spoiler|for a short time only, and that when she's completed her role, the ability leaves her. However, she can regain the ability through years of study just like anyone else.}}

* Averted in ''[[Scrubs]]'', which indicates on several occasions that hard work is the most important part of being a good doctor. For example, Dr. Cox tells J.D. that Elliot has overtaken him as a doctor because he spends too much time goofing off with Turk.

* Averted in ''[[Heroes (TV)|Heroes]]''. Of all the main characters, only the main antagonist Sylar is shown rapidly mastering his abilities (his original power, Intuitive Aptitude, is a literal applied version of [[The Gift]]). All the actual Heroes have to spend several episodes (the space of a couple months) figuring out [[How Do I Shot Web]] or trying to avoid a [[Superpower Meltdown]].

* In ''[[Lie to Me (TV)|Lie to Me]],'' Dr Lightman has spent years of his life memorizing and learning the various reactions and facial tics he uses in the show to be a human lie detector. Ria Torres, a former airport security guard, intuitively recognizes all of these with no formal training.

** Also subverted. Lightman repeatedly notes that while Torres intuitively recognizes facial cues, she doesn't necessarily understand the context. So [[The Gift]] works, but [[Awesome By Analysis|practice]] is better.

*** Also, [[The Gift]] isn't much of a gift. Torres picked up the ability to intuitively recognize facial cues because her father was a vicious prick ''and'' an alcoholic; she learned how to recognize microexpressions because if she ''didn't'' know when the bastard was in one of his mood and had to be avoided and/or placated, she got the shit beaten out of her. Talk about [[Power At a Price]]... of a fucked-up childhood.

** Technically, this means that it's averted, as he was put through [[Training From Hell]] in order to be able to figure these things out. The hard work comes in training to be able to learn these things in a matter of days.

** Also on a number of occasions at the end of the episode Jarod explains that he actually cannot do something because he actually is not what he pretends to be at the moment. He is very good at faking the general behaviour of the professionals he is pretending to be but he does not have the detailed knowledge that those professions really require. Thus he tries to accomplish his task and leave before he is discovered or blunders enough to cause harm to innocents.

 

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

** [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in that the boss is a moron.

** It is sometimes shown that Wally is a brilliant worker when he wants to be, but this is practically never, because he's realized something that Alice hasn't: effort doesn't pay off in a company that steals all your achievements without granting you slightest recognition, and the management doesn't recognise the difference between a lazy slob and a devout employee.

*** 4) Protoman is a program. He can't really "train", as he doesn't have anything to develop.

*** 5) The only thing Protoman could conceivably fight for ten hours are viruses. Moving away from the fact that repeatedly battling extremely predictable enemies isn't really going to help in an actual Net Battle, how does this make him different from Megaman, who also spends a lot of time [[Random Encounters|virus busting]]?

** ''[[Final Fantasy XI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XI]]'' both subverts and averts this. Storylines sometimes laud the fact you defeat powerful foes compared to other hardened warriors... though they never mention the ''other'' five people you had to group with to do it. Then you go to Besieged or a Campaign battle and see the generals do 1000+ damage every 15 or so seconds and take hits like you never, ever, will. In fact, the only reason you're normally involved in the story is because [[Scooby Doo|you keep putting your nose where it doesn't belong]], [[You Meddling Kids]]!

*** To be fair, those guards in [[RPG|RPGs]] never had to worry about fighting against [[Cosmic Horror]] or [[Person of Mass Destruction]] that can easily destroy the world so they didn't have to train as hard. Now the heroes on the other hand...

** In ''[[Final Fantasy III (Video Game)|Final Fantasy III]]'' is perhaps one of the most egregious examples. All the characters are orphans, and only one has any battle experience. They all can learn any job very easily, especially if you use the job level glitch in the DS version. From a story standpoint though, they defeat the ultimate evil in what we are led to believe is a few days. Of course, the actual amount of time it takes to beat him is subject to how long you stay at [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe|ye olde]] [[Trauma Inn|trauma inn]].

** This is a bit subverted in that Zasalmel isn't the traditional type of immortal, he lives a normal life, dies, then is reborn with his memories intact. While he remembers how to fight, he needs to retrain his new body. [[Fridge Logic|You'd expect]] those lifetimes of experience to at least give him a boost, though.

** Like the ''[[Street Fighter]]'' example, this is a case of [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]]. Zasamel was able to beat Killik and Xianghua simultaneously without too much effort.