How Do I Shot Web?: Difference between revisions

** 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).

** 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 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.

 

== Fanfiction ==

* ''[[Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality (Fanfic)|Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality]]'': Harry spends several chapters conducting scientific experiments to figure out how Hogwarts works. In fact, he concocts a big series of experiments to have Hermione perform... {{spoiler|And then quickly has to scrap the lot once the first one shows his fundamental assumption was completely wrong.}}

* When, in ''[[Shinji and Warhammer 40 K (Fanfic)|Shinji and Warhammer 40 K]]'', Shinji develops ungodly powerful psychic abilties {{spoiler|to thwart Sahaquiel}} it not only completely destroys his ability to pilot Principio Eternus but makes him highly dangerous to everyone and everything. He then spends a chapter or (in a story where the chapters are long enough to be entire seperate stories themselves) being taught to limit them to a more manageable level by some monks. As proof that [[Tropes Are Tools]], this arc is often criticised for being a classic [[Wacky Wayside Tribe]].

* [[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.

** 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 (Literature)|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.

* The [[Pokémon]] Ditto has only one power-- 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 (Video Game)|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.

* The backstory to the NESTS saga character Nameless in ''[[The King of Fighters]]'' reveals that he had a number of problems controlling his pyrokinetic abilities. Most of his time after testing was spent in the infirmary recovering from severe burns, and on his first real assignment he killed somebody just by tapping them on the shoulder.

* Shirou of ''[[Fate Stay Night]]'' not only doesn't know how to shot web, he doesn't even know it's web he's supposed to be shotting!! Ahem. At first, he thinks he's supposed to be using strengthening magic, which he sucks at. Eventually, he figures out that he is much better at projection (magic that involves creating temporary replicas of real objects) and, although it's immensely taxing, picks up on that and becomes very good at it. {{spoiler|During Unlimited Blade Works [[Future Badass|Archer]] reveals to Shirou that it's not projection he's good at, it's visualizing the exact nature of an object and creating it from his mind alone, which Archer eventually developed into a [[Fisher King|Reality Marble]] that turns him into a pure [[Badass]]. At the end of that route, this allows Shirou to tap directly into his full potential. In Heaven's Feel, Shirou gains a more instinctual knowledge of his true powers through a [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique]] and being coached by Ilya, but the aforementioned technique causes brain damage and eventually kills him because that's the [[It Got Worse]] route. (Though he [[Unexplained Recovery|recovers somehow]] in the True End.)}} Oh, and in all cases Shirou still has a hard time projecting things accurately, which means they break easily.

* In ''[[Vagrant Story]]'', {{spoiler|Grissom}} takes a few moments to notice he [[Came Back Wrong]] and now has cool undead powers:

{{quote| "...Please, a moment. My body is not... cooperating."}}

** [[World of Warcraft]] also has this apply to the ability to pay to change your talents, or buy an alternate set of talents. As such, players may be quite good at using their current talent tree, but may neeed some adjustment while switching to others, as a Warrior might be quite good at the DPS Arms tree, but not as good with Fury (which is also DPS), let alone tanking with Protection without quite a bit of practice.

* In ''[[Breath of Fire III]]'', Ryu is born as a baby dragon, and his first few shapeshifts between human and dragon forms (which occur outside of actual combat) are [[Involuntary Shapeshifting|completely uncontrolled]]. Although the player gains the ability to transform at will during battle, it is not until [[Time Skip|later]], when he reaches adulthood, that he has full control over his transformations.

** 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]] 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.

{{quote| '''Will''': (''after their first practice'') ...I think we've destroyed enough of Heatherfield for today.}}

* A recurring problem for Ben in ''[[Ben 10 (Animation)|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 (Animation)|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''.

** 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.

*** 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.]]

[[Category:Magic and Powers]]

[[Category:How Do I Shot Web]]