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{{trope}}
[[File:spider_web_2_5spider web 2 5.jpg|link=Spinnerette|frame|[http://www.krakowstudios.com/spinnerette/2010/03/31/03312010/ Learning process]: 1 <br />[http://www.krakowstudios.com/spinnerette/2010/04/02/04022010/ Dignity]: 0 <ref> The web comes from a gland at the base of her spine, but it's a lot funnier to imagine [[Toilet Humor|otherwise.]]</ref> ]]
 
You got a [[New Super Power]] or two? Great! [[Final Fantasy IV|Can you use them?]] While the standard hero seems to [[Possession Implies Mastery|instinctively know]] his or her way around every possible ability he or she can obtain throughout the story, some people have to flail and struggle, with everybody laughing at them. Hey, there's all those [[Required Secondary Powers]] that you have to master that nobody tells you about!
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Nonetheless some are too stubborn to give them up, and may become a kind of [[Evil Counterpart]].
 
One would expect this to be a natural co-trope for a [[Puberty Superpower]], which makes it strange that until recently this was rarely the case -- mostcase—most teen heroes seemed to know how their powers worked instinctively.
 
The name comes from [[Something Awful|Something Awful's]] randomly renamed and [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|incredibly nonsensical]] "FYAD" subforum, where it originated as a quotable quote from somebody playing the ''[[Half-Life]]'' mod ''Natural Selection'' and trying to figure out the alien faction's special abilities (shooting webs). In his frustration, he posted [[Trope Namer|"how do i]] [[Memetic Mutation|shot web"]] repeatedly. It got quickly transposed to Spidey [[Rule of Funny|because it's funnier when he says it]]. It has since spread wide across the Internet, as such things are [[Memetic Mutation|wont to do]].
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* In ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'', the rambunctious Kamina steals the Gurren and, confident that he has access to new powers, attempts to combine with the Lagann as the head. It fails pathetically and hilariously. They eventually get it to work, though, through determination.
** Similarly, Simon has a few issues with Lagann's systems at first, especially the jet thruster. Quoth Yoko: "Ah, hello? We're sorta falling..."
* In ''[[Code Geass]]'' Lelouch instinctively knows the basic principle behind the Geass but not all of the specific rules. For example, when he first gains the Geass power, he knows it can be used to force a group of people to obey any command he gives, even taking their own lives, but when Viletta confronted him in her [[Humongous Mecha|Knightmare]], he found out the hard way that he needed direct eye contact for his power to work. Similarly, he does not realize that he cannot use the Geass more than once on the same person until he makes the mistake of trying to use it on Kallen twice. After this second mishap nearly gets him in a lot of trouble, rather than waiting to stumble upon every limitation, he uses logical, scientific methods to deduce all of the possible applications and restrictions of his new ability -- suchability—such as commanding a girl to make a mark on a wall every day to see how long the effect of his Geass takes to wear off. {{spoiler|Turns out, it ''doesn't'' wear off. Ever. [[Word of God]] says she went back to Britannia after Season 1 and her attempts to get back to Japan and mark the wall are interpreted as sleepwalking thanks to the time zone difference.}}
** The fifth episode shows just how [[Crazy Prepared]] he is by having him rattle off all the things he's learned via experimentation, such as its maximum effective range of 270 meters. The audio commentary lampshades this when the voice actors (including [[Jun Fukuyama|Lelouch's]]) muse on exactly ''how'' he discovered these things, suggesting (for the range example) that he used cell phones in walkie-talkie fashion.
*** "Can I Geass you now? ... Good."
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** The Yotsuba executives (or rather, just {{spoiler|Higuchi}}) also learn some of its rules this way, for instance, giving someone a death condition that is physically impossible will result in that person simply dying of a heart attack.
* In ''[[Gate Keepers]]'', Ukiya Shun is blessed by the Gate of Wind. It took him several episodes just to even know how to properly summon the power again (which he did in the first episode by accident), and an episode testing a new technique (which he later perfects).
* The ''[[Rosario + Vampire]]'' manga has Tsukune kidnapped by a shapeshifter, who copies his form and goes out to fight Tsukune's [[Unwanted Harem]]. Unfortunately, the fellow runs into quite a few [[How Do I Shot Web?]] moments as he tries (in vain) to kill them, not realizing that he's far, far weaker than they are in human form. When he wises up and copies Moka's [[Super-Powered Evil Side]], he's beaten for good when the power of the rosary manages to weaken him.
** Tsukune himself had a bit of trouble until he got some well-earned [[Training From Hell|training]] with Inner-Moka and Touhou Fuhai.
* Sort of happens to the protagonist of ''[[Prétear]]'', [[Magical Girl|Himeno Awayuki]] -- more—more of "How Do I Shot Wind". It is implied that she ''should'' know instinctively how her [[Elemental Powers|powers]] work, but the first time she is forced to fight a monster, she panics and can't figure out what to do. However, this wasn't enough to make her give up, and she actually demands to receive some training in order to learn to use her powers properly.
* Skuld gets this in ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'' when she tries to develop her water powers. It doesn't work out, and she puts herself in danger by trying to accelerate things, this danger being caused by her proclivity for [[Tim Taylor Technology]].
* At one point, Padudu of ''[[Magical Play]]'' (aka ''[[Magical Witchland]]'') saves two other characters from death via [[New Powers as the Plot Demands|suddenly being able to fly]]. When asked by Pippin why she hadn't done that in the pilot, when she fell on Pippin and cost her a tournament, Padudu says: "[[Forgot I Could Fly|Oh, that time, I forgot I could fly!]]"
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** In Sound Stage 3 of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS]]'', Teana, having had the fourth and final stage of her device limiter removed, has a new long-range mode for Cross Mirage, but decides to work on the skills she has since there won't be enough time to master it before the final battle.
* In an episode of ''[[Mobile Fighter G Gundam|G Gundam]]'', a disgruntled fanboy steals Domon's Gundam believing that he can pilot it better. However, things go awry when he doesn't know how to properly operate the Gundam, requiring Domon to come and save him.
** It isn't "proper operation" so much as "any sort of physical training" -- the—the suit-up process is shown to be quite painful, even to a trained martial artist like Domon, so the preteen boy nearly broke several bones before Domon hit the abort.
* Likewise for ''[[Gundam]]'', [[Mobile Suit Gundam|Amuro]] and [[After War Gundam X|Garrod]]'s and first sortie was "Use vulcans and scare off my enemies and tank the machine gun rounds" and then "use sword to fend off enemy mobile suits". It was only after the first battle did they got the knowledge to pilot the suit. For Garrod's first experience firing the [[Wave Motion Gun]], it gives Tifa a [[Heroic BSOD]]. Lucky for them that Amuro has [[Psychic Powers]] and Garrod is a genius at improvisation.
* Judau Ashta of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ|Gundam ZZ]]'' had even less luck, despite his own considerable [[Psychic Powers]]: his first experience flying a Gundam mainly involved him clumsily crashing into things and defeating his opponent by sheer luck. Likewise Elle, who could only figure out how to move the Gundam's arms her first time, let alone make it walk or fight.
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* [[Spider-Man]]'s ally and generally lovable loser the Fabulous Frog-Man. Stealing the fully automated frog-suit of his father, the villainous Leapfrog, Eugene Patilio wholeheartedly attempts to make a difference while being utterly clueless about how the suit works. This proves to be his greatest strength, however, as [[The Fool|his frequent misfired jumps tend to knock out waves of bad guys]] and make him look like a real hero who knows what he's doing. Pretty much the only person who knows that Eugene is a bumbler in person is Spidey himself.
* Liz Sherman from ''[[Hellboy (comics)|Hellboy]]'' can't control her fire powers at a young age, accidentally killing several people, including her parents. She joins the [[BPRD]] because they can teach her how to use her powers, or at the very least have ways to keep her from hurting people again.
* Poor [[Empowered]] gains her powers from an alien supersuit that is the very definition of "enigmatic". She found out the obvious ones ([[Super Strength]], vison enhancement, [[Kamehame Hadoken|hand beams]]), but the other powers were discovered by accident. {{spoiler|For example, her [[Wall Crawl|Wall Crawling]]ing was activated when she was thrown against a wall and she still hasn't actually "discovered" its flying abilities.}}
** In fairness, it's kind of hard to know instinctively that the super-suit ''enhances libido''. Yeah, exactly.
*** It's [[Fanon]] (and suggested by [[Mind Screw]] in-universe) that the costume gives fantastic cosmic powers limited only by the user self confidence. As Empowered has the self confidence of a used kleenex in a dirty cesspool, you can see how it works. So yes, she unconsciously granted herself the power of being easily aroused and multi orgasming. Kudos!
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** He doesn't even intentionally create his iconic hand beams; he just accidentally finds out that having his hand stabilizers go off at full power while not in flight fires a blast of energy.
** Ironically subverted by <s>[[The Big Lebowski|His Dudeness]]</s> {{spoiler|Obadiah Stane,}} the film's villain, who is able to match Iron Man blow for blow when he gets his own suit of armor, despite having never been shown to have any training of his own. However, {{spoiler|he relies heavily on a targeting computer; when Iron Man disables that, he quickly proves unable to hit him with missiles from about ten feet away. Nor does Stane know about the dangers of his armor freezing up if he flies too high, a problem Iron Man had already dealt with earlier in the film and that he now exploits when Stane makes the same mistake he did.}}
** Stark didn't have much trouble operating his original "escape" suit either, despite not having muchmuch—or -- or any -- practiceany—practice with it. Since Stane's suit is just a bigger and beefier copy of Stark's original plans, presumably there was something about the original design that made it fairly idiot-proof. That said, the entirety of the Mk.1 suit's armaments were a flamethrower, a manually-fired missile, fists and a manual start rocket boost. The flamethrower requires next-to-no aiming capacity and the missile ''missed''... thank goodness for [[Splash Damage]]. Meanwhile Stark couldn't stop himself from constantly adding upgrades and modifications that certainly would have made his own suit more complex and fiddly. (Not to mention [[Perpetual Beta]].)
* Even [[Wolverine]] isn't immune, spending the first few hours after he got his adamantium claws in ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men]] Origins'' accidentally cutting things up.
* Basically the main plot of ''[[The Meteor Man]]'', where much of the movie is spent on Jefferson Reed learning to use his new powers, including flight (despite being afraid of heights).
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== Literature ==
* Covenant in the ''[[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant]]'' spends a remarkable number of pages not having a real hang of his own [[Wild Magic]]. Most of it is pure instinct, even without his knowledge early on. It's not until the second trilogy that we see him directing it toward definite purposes, complete with a training regimen... he uses his wild magic to shave, precisely to teach himself control over it.
* Say what you will about the [[Doorstopper]] length of Robert Jordan's ''[[Wheel of Time]]'' series, but it does allow the channeling characters a realistic period of time to get a grasp on controlling and developing their powers. Notably, none of the characters become [[Instant Expert|Instant Experts]]s, but have a learning curve of three or four books before they gain consistent control. Nyneave takes a full ''seven'' books to overcome her block.
** Learning to use ''saidin'' without a teacher is so difficult that Rand finally has to [[Batman Gambit|trap a Forsaken]] to keep from getting himself killed. Later, Nynaeve and Elayne hold another one hostage in order to learn lost techniques that have stayed lost for a good three millennia.
* [[Dragaera|Vladimir Taltos]] has no freaking clue what he's doing with {{spoiler|his new [[Empathic Weapon]], Godslayer}} and has gotten himself in a lot of trouble with such screw-ups as accidentally destroying a sorceress's soul in the process of blocking something nasty she threw at him.
* [[Mary Sue|Richard]] from ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' never learns how to use the vast majority of his abilities... except, of course, the ones that are absolutely necessary to allow him to [[Deus Ex Machina|save the day]].
** Richard's magic appears to be keyed to strong emotion; a big deal was made of whether or not he could actually ''use'' his anger in the first book, as opposed to simply keeping it locked inside himself.
** Subverted in the case of swordplay -- whichswordplay—which is, let's face it, the first thing to master when trying to use any magic sword's [[Absurdly Sharp Blade|first and foremost super power]]. Getting magic swords that can cut anything is great -- forgreat—for knights and swordmasters. For anyone else, it's a health risk. Richard's a woodsman, the most experience he'd have with blades would be limited to a machette and a skinning knife. He'd have to learn swordplay like any other, right? {{spoiler|No. [[Sword of Plot Advancement|The Sword of Truth]] [[Instant Expert|can share the collective combat experience of all previous users with the Seeker]]; Richard of course learns this ''while'', and promptly uses it during, a fight with 30 -- that's ''thirty'' -- Baka Ban Mana blademasters -- they're guys who spend most of their lives training swordplay, each day, ''all'' day, dawn till dusk. [[Story-Breaker Power|Right]].}} He actually lampshades it right before that fight, thinking that against one man he ''is'' virtually unstoppable - but only because the sword cannot be parried, and so he can count on getting one strike through.
** There is a villainous case in book 4, where [[Big Bad|Jagang]] takes over the mind of a wizard. He ''can'' use simple telekinesis and throw fireballs, but never uses more advanced powers like [[Deflector Shields]] or tranfiguration.
* ''[[Matilda (novel)|Matilda]]'' spends a substantial amount of time trying to figure out the ins and outs of her <s>telekinesis</s> "push-stuff-around-with-her-eyes" power.
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* In a relatively unremarkable [[Freaky Friday Flip|body switch]] episode of ''[[Farscape]]'', Rygel (the tiny frog-like [[The Napoleon|Napoleon]]) is occupying John Crichton's body when he finds himself needing to urinate. John leads him through the steps, but when it comes to zipping up... well, it didn't go well.
** Let's not forget that John was in Aeryn's body while giving the instructions, for added hilarity.
* British superhero drama ''[[Misfits]]'' really goes to town with this trope. Of the five protagonists, only Simon (whose power is [[Invisibility]]) can exert any kind of deliberate control over his power, while the others remain baffled and exasperated by their ungovernable abilities. Both Kelly, who hates being [[Telepathy|telepathic]] and wishes she could just turn it off, and Alisha, whose [[Blessed with Suck|"power"]] of pheromone manipulation -- whichmanipulation—which causes anyone who touches her skin to experience such violent surges of lust that they will generally attempt to rape her -- canher—can do nothing to mitigate or restrain the effects of their powers. Curtis finds his power of time manipulation to be infuriatingly sporadic, and then there's Nathan, {{spoiler|whose power of Healing (and effective Immortality), works so incredibly slowly that it's possible for him to die, and only come back to life several days later -- to find himself buried alive, naturally.}} It is, however, a little early in the Series to deem them all ''truly'' [[Power Incontinence|power incontinent]].
* The Objects from ''[[The Lost Room]]'' have shades of this, when someone even knows what they do or how to activate them. This is doubly true for the abilities of Object combinations, which don't always have anything to do with combining the abilities of the individual Objects.
* The pilot of ''[[The Invisible Man (TV series)|The Invisible Man]]'' involved Darian being implanted with a gland that can turn him invisible, after which he has to be taught how to activate it, and then he experiments with it and learns to do things the scientists who developed the gland didn't even think were possible.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* The Roleplaying game ''[[Scion]]'' has the character channeling their divine power through Birthrights -- giftsBirthrights—gifts from their god-parents. If someone were to steal a Birthright, they could use all the real owners powers that it channels -- butchannels—but the chance of failure, and the penalties, are significant though, meaning most players who try this end up dying to this trope.
* It takes [[La Résistance]] around a year to figure out how to pilot an ANIMa without killing themselves in ''[[Bliss Stage]]''. It's still very unintuitive [[The Power of Love|even with proper Anchoring.]]
 
 
== Video Games ==
* The [[Pokémon]] Ditto has only one power-- Beingpower—Being able to copy those that belong to its opponent. (It's also immune to being paralyzed, but that's beside the point.) However, Ditto cannot copy the opponent's HP and all the moves it copies come with only 5 PP, showing its inability to master techniques on the spot.
* Rumia of ''[[Touhou]]'' can generate a field of darkness to protect herself from light, which hurts her, but she [[Required Secondary Powers|can't see through]] her ''own'' field of darkness; she can often be seen bumping into trees midflight. Apparently, ZUN thought it would be funny to make a character's powerful-sounding ability (control of darkness) actually be useless.
** Keine can hide and "eat" history, as well as create entirely new history in her hakutaku form, which would make her one of the most powerful characters in a setting already overflowing with [[Story-Breaker Power|Story Breaker Powers]] if she had any idea how to use it. The only time she even attempted, hiding the Human Village during the [[Title Drop|Imperishable Night]], the player characters found it easily anyway.
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* Agatha goes through a period of this early in ''[[Girl Genius]]'', but for "sparks," this is normal. In fact, she would have finished going through the Shot Web phase years ago if she hadn't been {{spoiler|handicapped by her uncle's locket for her own protection}}.
** Following {{spoiler|the locket's removal}}, Gil remarks that she didn't break through so much as ''ease'' through.
* The first several chapters of ''[http://www.kip-comics.com/index.php Knowledge is Power]'' deal with these kinds of difficulties -- suchdifficulties—such as [http://www.kip-comics.com/?strip_id=65 when the gravity-manipulator tried to use his powers to move a water heater]...
* Happens frequently in ''[[Homestuck]]'', as the kids try to figure out what powers they have and how to use them. John takes an especially long time to figure out his [[Blow You Away|Heir of Breath]] powers but is ridiculously good at them once he learns the tricks; he also takes a while to master his [[Inventory Management Puzzle|Sylladex]]. Dave, figures out his [[Time Travel|Knight of Time]] powers relatively quickly, though he still [[Can't Catch Up]] with John in terms of raw power; his abilities are apparently more complicated, however, as he has to figure out how to navigate the game's [[Timey-Wimey Ball|massively screwed-up timeline]]. Rose hasn't put too much effort into figuring out her Seer of Light powers yet, preferring to hone her magical abilities. Jade isn't even sure what being Witch of Space ''means'', beyond apparently having "breeding duties" [[Makes Sense in Context|involving frogs]] and something about stoking a forge.
** This trope is mostly averted when each of the kids reach God Tier. John, {{spoiler|Rose, and Aradia}} all display instant mastery. On the other hand, Jade, who inherited both God Tier and {{spoiler|First Guardian}} powers is still working her way through the latter abilities.
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== Web Original ==
* A common problem in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]''. Fey couldn't do magic at first, and kept accidentally firing off hobgoblins -- thehobgoblins—the psychedelic squirrel hobgoblins wrecked her whole school. Phase at first couldn't keep from changing density, couldn't control his strength when he was extra-dense, and couldn't keep from sinking into the floor when he was intangible. At first, Generator could only cast a single PK charge into an inanimate object for a short while. They've all gotten much better at it.
* Several campaigns in the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' were built around the premise that the characters had ''literally'' just got their powers, and had no idea at all how to use them. For the most part, these campaigns resembled the first season of ''[[Greatest American Hero]]''.
** Occasionally, this was used to justify an experienced hero learning to use a new power as well.
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* The ''[[X-Men: Evolution|X-Men Evolution]]'' animated series used this a lot in the first season introduction stories, most notably for for Kitty Pryde and Rogue, but it virtually disappeared after that.
** That's because they were being trained specifically to control their powers, and other characters (Cyclops, Jean, Nightcrawler) had been using their power for years but still had trouble getting it right from time to time.
* In the second season finale of ''[[WITCH (animation)|WITCH]]'', Cedric falls victim to this trope after {{spoiler|devouring the [[Big Bad|Big Bads]]s of seasons one and two, consequently gaining their powers, as well as}} gaining the powers of all five heroines. Despite having by far the most raw power of any villain in the series, he is unable to utilize his new skills to anywhere near their full potential. This, combined with [[Deadly Upgrade|new transformations for all five heroines]], led to Cedric's defeat in a little more than five minutes.
** [[Powers in the First Episode|In the very first episode]] the new Guardians have a powers practice that is the ''definition'' of how [[How Do I Shot Web?]]. None of their [[Elemental Powers]] are under control yet, flying is... iffy, even for the naturally inclined [[Blow You Away|Hay Lin]] and when the girls try to {{spoiler|save Caleb from Cedric}} Will attempts to do an [[All Your Powers Combined]] attack and hits everything ''but'' {{spoiler|Cedric}}. They do pull it together in the second episode and are seen practicing some more in later episodes.
{{quote|'''Will''': (''after their first practice'') ...I think we've destroyed enough of Heatherfield for today.}}
* A recurring problem for Ben in ''[[Ben 10]]'', especially prevalent when he gains a new alien form and has no idea what it does. The first time he turned into Cannonbolt, not only could he not figure out how rolling up into an armored ball was useful in combat, but he kept losing his balance and falling over backwards when he tried to stand. Reaches its ultimate conclusion in [[Ben 10: Alien Force|Ben 10 Alien Force]] with Alien X, which is seemingly [[God Mode Sue|omnipotent]], but since Ben only gets to be one of its three personalities and the other two are constantly at odds with each other (the ''only'' thing they agree on is that they want Ben to provide tiebreaking votes for all their thousands of years worth of disagreements before they get to what ''he'' wants to do), it's nearly impossible to get it to do ''anything''.
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** Valerie played it straight and averted it. With her first suit, it took her a while to get the hang of it and it was pretty clear in her first few hunting ventures that she was new at the whole ghost-hunting thing. But, when she got the upgraded suit from Technus, she knew how to use all the equipment and what/where all her weapons were, despite most of it being drastically different.
* In the ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' prequel "XANA Awakens", on his first materialization on Lyoko Odd discovers his power to fire Lazer Arrows quite by accident, almost hitting Ulrich with one.
** There is a repeat incident in episode "A Fine Mess", where [[Freaky Friday Flip|Odd and Yumi exchange bodies]] and Odd-in-Yumi has to explain to Yumi-in-Odd how to fire the weapon -- andweapon—and almost gets hit in the head for his effort. Meanwhile, Odd-in-Yumi requires quite a bit of practice before getting Yumi's [[Precision-Guided Boomerang]] fans down.
*** Amusingly, Yumi-in-Odd can't quite get the hang of the Overboard either, and ends up sitting on it like a go-kart. Of course, [[Fridge Logic|we're not supposed to ask why they didn't just switch vehicles.]]
*** [[Fridge Logic|Then again, they vehicles may be "bound" to their avatars, like in an MMORPG.]]
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