Informed Ability/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Character has an ability which is never shown.

  • Straight: Enn is said to be a fast runner. It is never shown.
  • Exaggerated: Enn is supposed to be able to fly, shoot Eye Beams and be a good knitter. It is never shown.
  • Justified: Enn using his ability has a substantial cost or side-effect such as a vacuum metastability event. Obviously, if he'd use this ability, the universe, as we know it, would be destroyed.
    • Enn just plain doesn't need his ability for the story.
  • Inverted: Enn demonstrates proficient running skills yet is stated to be an average runner or a slow runner.
  • Subverted: Enn uses one of of his abilities after spending most of the plot not showing them.
  • Double Subverted: ...off-screen.
    • ...in a dream sequence.
    • At the end, Enn finally attempts to use one of his abilities, but he's interrupted by another person who tells not to use it.
  • Parodied: The purported ability is so ludicrous that there's no reason for it to come up.
    • The purported ability is one that is precisely stated to only work when no one's looking or is so subtle its impossible to visually verify its existence.
  • Deconstructed: Enn not using his wind powers to save someone falling results in him getting called out over it.
  • Reconstructed: However if Enn used it he would also cause nearby news, fire, and police copters to fall from the sky due to his inability to focus it over small areas.
  • Zig Zagged: This Nedroid comic.
  • Averted: Enn shows all his powers he's supposed to have at least once.
  • Enforced: Enn was originally more powerful in the novel but the adaption would be impossible to display without either eating up all of the budget for one scene or horrible Special Effects Failure so it's never used on screen.
  • Lampshaded: "This is Enn. He's a psychic. I think so anyway."
  • Invoked: Enn is replaced by Fred, knowing that he could get away with just wearing his costume given that Enn so seldom uses his powers or talents.
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: Ace accuses Enn of making up powers. He shows off all of them in an abandoned quarry to prove it to Ace.
  • Discussed: "Now imagine if you had an ability to bring people back to life but never use it?"
  • Conversed: ???
  • Played For Laughs: Events conspire to repeatedly prevent Enn from displaying his ability.
  • They Plotted A Perfectly Good Waste: Enn never uses the powers he claims to have because he is hiding the fact he was Brought Down to Normal.

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