Informed Ability: Difference between revisions
→Literature: Replaced redirects
(→Literature: Replaced redirects) |
|||
| (17 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown) | |||
Line 3:
|'''[[George Eliot]]''', ''[[Silly Novels by Lady Novelists]]''}}
A subtrope of [[Informed Attribute]]: A character's skill and abilities are frequently mentioned by the cast, but are nonexistent in practice. Though the motivations for allowing this are similar to the motivations for allowing
▲Though the motivations for allowing this are similar to the motivations for allowing [[Informed Attribute]]s in general, there is much less of an excuse for it. Believably getting it across that, say, someone is compassionate is ''difficult stuff''; it's the mark of a good author to pull that kind of thing off. Skills and abilities are a much simpler deal: Is someone a master locksmith? Have them pick a lock now and then. Are they combat experts? Have them take the fight to their opponents whenever they can and gain the upper hand.
What often deters writers from going through with the above plan is the fact that, well, [[Most Writers Are Writers]]. They're writing a character who's supposed to be a musician, but they don't know the particulars of meters or chords. They have a character who is a military expert, but they don't know how long an infantry division can fight until it needs to be resupplied. They have a character who's a genius, but they haven't a clue what kind of problem only a genius would be able to work through, or how. If they actually attempt to show the ability in action they take a very real risk of the portrayal falling completely flat.
Line 28 ⟶ 26:
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'':
** In the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' anime, Fubuki is said to be one of the top duelists of the school, and is even lauded as the best duelist they have left after Kaiser graduates.
**
** Yuma
*** [[Subverted Trope| Until, that is]], he defeats [[Arc Villain]] Elphias (a [[Physical God]] with [[Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers|unlimited use]] of the [[Scrappy Mechanic|Shining Draw power]]) without Astral's help.
** In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! R]]'', Cedar Mill is supposedly the best of the Card Professors; one can only assume this is true, as almost nothing is seen of his duel with Yugi,
* ''[[Bleach]]'':
** Retsu Unohana sends minor Soul Reapers running for the hills at her presence, has well-established Soul Reaper badasses Shunsui Kyoraku and Jushiro Ukitake fearing her wrath, and even is established in the series' guidebook as the third-most powerful Soul Reaper captain in Soul Society - and has yet to actually be shown in a fight. While this is mostly due to her friendly, motherly demeanor and her role as Soul Society's head [[White Magician Girl]] the few times that could potentially show off her power are dashed due to the plot.
** 9th Espada, Aaroniero Arruruerie claims to have copied the abilities of ''over 36000 Hollows.'' Before he's killed, we see him use at most three of them.
** Taken to an extreme with Chojiro Sasakibe.
* Shinra from ''[[They Are My Noble Masters]]'' is supposed to be a world-famous, talented conductor. Yet all we see her do is waving her staff around in a very unprofessional manner and answering stupid questions from her musicians. The music that results from her conducting is also not really noteworthy.
* Yukito from ''[[AIR]]'' supposedly managed to support himself for years by performing tricks with his magic doll, but in the TV series and manga he hardly makes a single yen with his act. He fares a bit better in [[The Movie]], though.
Line 53 ⟶ 52:
** Hanzou, leader of the Village Hidden in the Rain, also suffers from this. The audience is told of his almost unstoppable power and skills but we never actually see him in combat. This is then mixed with [[The Worf Effect]] when {{spoiler|Hanzou's assassination is used to hype up Pain's own power, emphasized even more by the fact that Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru all lost to Hanzou during the war. Both of these tropes are eventually averted for Pain when he proceeds to kill Jiraiya and blow up Konoha proving that the rumors of his abilities are no exaggeration.}}
** ''Naruto himself'' became a victim of this trope throughout the first half of Shippuden. Practically every mention of him was accompanied by a comment over how strong he is and how much he has improved, yet the only improvement he ever really showed was a bigger rasengan, and the constant need to get bailed out of any dangerous situation by his teammates. Thankfully, [[Took a Level in Badass|he got better as the series went on]].
** The newest victim of this trope is the
** Sasuke has actually flirted with this trope from time to time, While he's without a doubt [[The Ace|very skilled]], when you actually take a closer look at his Win/Lose ratio Sasuke doesn't put up the best performances. A good majority of Sasuke's victories have been a result of [[Worf Had the Flu]]; {{spoiler|Naruto specifically held back at the end during their battle at the Valley of the End, he ambushed Orochimaru when he was on a sick bed, Itachi was nearly blind, and Danzo specifically held back to deal with Madara.}}
** Hayate Gekko, the Chunin Examiner was heavily implied to be pretty tough judging by the fact that he's got the job he does. However, he gets offed while listening in on two villains, one of which, the Sand Ninja Jonin was his killer.
Line 70 ⟶ 69:
* The Royal Knights from ''[[Digimon Savers|Digimon Data Squad]]''. Not a one of them is remotely tough, always getting taken down within an episode. Even worse, it's continually talked about how powerful they are. In fact, when they join the good guys, they don't even really help, they just kind of take a back seat.
* Mitsuko Kongo from ''[[A Certain Scientific Railgun]]''. She's a Level 4 and worthy rival to teleporter Kuroko Shirai, and boasts about her powers to anyone who will listen (including those she's about to fight). Despite this, the first few times she appears in onscreen battles, she loses before even having a chance to use her ability.
** It's subverted when you actually do get to see her fight and she {{spoiler|launches an armored truck at two helicopters and then goes about fighting [[Powered Armor]] soldiers [[Back-to-Back Badasses|with Kuroko]]. [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|Turns out she can apply a constant force to any surface she touches.]]}} And then at the end of the second season, {{spoiler|she launches a two-seater mecha into space}}.
* [[The Ojou|Touka]] in ''[[Saki (manga)|Saki]]'' is supposedly a great Mahjong player. However, every match she's in, she manages to lose horribly. Offscreen she does fine though.
* Konata from ''[[Lucky Star]]'' is said to be a good martial artist, but aside from that [[Street Fighter]] parody, we have yet to see her fight for real.
Line 79 ⟶ 78:
* Character sketches describes Literature Girl from ''[[Daily Lives of High School Boys]]'' as an otherwise sociable, popular girl in Sanada West High... When not [[Wrong Genre Savvy|trying to]] [[Longing for Fictionland|re-enact]] her [[Romance Novel]]'s [[Meet Cute]] by lounging next to Hidenori—which is nearly the only case when she appears.
* Rando from "[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]" is said to have 99 Techniques, but we only see him use seven.
* Sarah Dupont in ''[[Kaleido Star]]'' is such a good singer that she's been offered a recording contract as a top star of the label. We never get to hear her sing.
== Comic Books ==
Line 125:
* In ''[[Star Wars]]'':
** Obi-Wan notes, "Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise," yet throughout the rest of the series, stormtroopers [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy|hardly ever hit what they're aiming at.]]
*** Although throughout the series, stormtroopers remain consistently good at killing anything not a main character or otherwise protected by Plot Armor... which admittedly rules out 90% of everything we see screen time actually devoted to having them shoot at it. And in the prequel trilogy they're even ''better'' marksmen, giving even experienced Jedi Masters a hard time in sufficient
** General Grievous is said to be a fearsome combatant that has personally killed dozens of Jedi, and such an effective and brutal tactician that he replaces Count Dooku as the greatest threat to the Republic during the Clone Wars, yet in the prequel film, he spends most of his screen time running away and getting his butt kicked. This is somewhat explained in ''[[Star Wars: Clone Wars]]''. Both seasons demonstrate Grievous as a serious threat, even when confronted by multiple Jedi at once. At the end of the second season, however, his chest gets force-crushed, explaining his hunchbacked, hacking wimpiness in the film. His strategic brilliance remains undemonstrated, though most strategy in ''Star Wars'' seems to look like [[Zerg Rush]]es anyway.
*** To be fair in ''[[Revenge
* In ''[[The Great Race]]'', while in Boracho, TX, Professor Fate
* The main character of ''[[I Know Who Killed Me]]'' is supposed to be a great writer and piano player. ''Supposed'' to be.
* The Riddler's "Box" invention from ''[[Batman Forever]]'' allegedly makes him smarter, until by the climax he's a supergenius. Actually, all he does as the film progresses is keep acting like [[Jim Carrey]], only more so. In fact, he seemed like a fairly competent scientist in the beginning. The smarter he gets, the dumber he seems to act, though this is somewhat explained by fact that the box also drives him insane.
* According to his profile on the official ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'' website, Master Crane is the "mother hen" of the group and prefers to avoid conflict, neither of which was actually shown in the film. However, this was hinted in the first movie when Crane carried all his injured teammates away from a losing battle, even though most of them are heavier than him as deadweights, to ensure their safety.
* Rocco in ''[[The Boondock Saints]]'' is nicknamed "The Funny Man" by his fellow mobsters. He only tells one joke in the whole movie, and only when ordered by a patronizing Mob boss. He seems to have earned the nickname from mobsters who like to laugh ''at'' him.
* In ''[[Stranger Than Fiction]]'', [[Emma Thompson]]'s character is supposed to be a great writer, yet the few examples of her writing we're given aren't exactly stunning prose.
Line 140:
* Goes both ways in ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]'' ([[The Movie]]):
** Workers in the opera house are seen stuffing cotton into their ears while Carlotta is singing. Her singing is actually legit, and only employs some contrived scoops to make her sound bad. This is a case of [[Informed Flaw]]. Maybe they just really hate her for being the [[Evil Diva]].
** The singing ability of the Phantom himself is described by Christine as transcendentally beautiful and a reason to believe he is the Angel of Music. In the film, [[Gerard Butler]]'s singing ability is debatable, but few would describe it as transcendent.
** Basically the main reason why people adore Christine is for her lovely opera singing voice, and [[Emmy Rossum]] doesn't even almost fit the description. She keeps scooping, she can't enunciate while singing higher notes and they even had to change the end of "Think of Me" because she couldn't sing the operatic bit. And still the characters go around talking about how you're bound to love her when you hear her wonderful opera voice...
** This is also true of the 1989 version of ''Phantom'', while not a musical version, Christine does sing a fair amount on screen and even to an untrained ear, it's
*** Where's [[Marni Nixon]] when you really need her?
* Deckard in ''[[Blade Runner]]'' is, or was, supposed to be one of the best Bladerunners in the business; however, he spends most of the film getting beaten black and blue by the NEXUS 6 replicants. He ends up {{spoiler|shooting one in the back while she was fleeing, has to be saved by his love interest when at the mercy of another, barely manages to shoot the other female replicant while getting his head kicked in, and simply lucks out when the final replicant drops dead.}} This is somewhat justified when you consider that the job seems to be a mix of INS agent and high-tech polygraph operator. Deckard does prove himself to be a good detective and is able to truthfully identify the most advanced replicants on the market. Also, Deckard has never been up against NEXUS 6 replicants before, which are top of the line and led by [[Super Soldier]] Roy Batty. The only other Bladerunner we see in action fares much worse than Deckard.
* [[Anne Bancroft]] plays a great ballerina past her prime in ''[[The Turning Point]].'' Herbert Ross, the director, wisely keeps Bancroft's "dancing" to a few shots (e.g., brief barre work), but even so, Bancroft fails to either look or move like a dancer, nearing retirement or otherwise.
* In ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]]'', Tuco nicknames [[Clint Eastwood]]'s [[Man With No Name]] "Blondie", and interrogates other characters as to his whereabouts by asking for a 'tall blond man'. Angel Eyes goes so far as to gush over Blondie's beautiful blond hair, calling him a 'blond-haired angel'. His hair is light brown. This is particularly bizarre because the part was almost certainly written for Eastwood. The reason is a failed [[Woolseyism]] - the original Italian script had Tuco nickname the [[Man With No Name]] "Biondo", which ''technically'' means "blond" but can be used to mean someone with fair colouring. The novelization, more closely based on the Italian script, refers to the character as 'Whitey'.
* Played with in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'', to the point of several characters lampshading it. Jack Sparrow is touted to be the best pirate ever, yet he is mutinied after being captain for a year, in the first movie is captured twice and saved twice (first by Will, then Elizabeth), gets knocked out from behind twice, and his [[Plan]] almost fails. In the second movie another one fails after Norrington discovers his [[Bait and Switch]] and pulls a switch of his own, setting into place the events of the third movie, where everything finally seems to go his way. The characters themselves can't seem to figure out if he's a bumbling quirk or an unlucky [[Magnificent Bastard]] whose [[plan]]s/[[Indy Ploy]]s keep getting [[Spanner in the Works|spanned]]. (One character at least calls him the worst pirate he's ever heard of.)
** Jack himself has a retort to anyone who challenges his claim: "But you have heard of me." Pirates have a short life
* It's hard to imagine that [[Fred Astaire]]'s dancing could be an Informed Ability. But in ''[[Shall We Dance]],'' Astaire's character is supposed to be a successful ''ballet'' dancer. A convincing ballet dancer, Astaire is not.
* In ''[[Finding Forrester]]'', the writing of both Forrester and Jamal is said to be brilliant, but given that it's a movie, not a book, there wasn't really any time to show the audience this. This is obviously because [[Take That|if the screenwriters themselves were capable of creating brilliant work, they wouldn't be writing ''
* In ''[[Jurassic Park|The Lost World]]'' [[Designated Hero|heroine]] Sarah is said to be an expert field biologist. In the film, she can't help but pet a wild stegosaur cub, then snaps pictures from about three feet away like a tourist (she then rants at [[Only Sane Man|Ian]]
* The eponymous members of the bad movie ''[[The Genius Club]]''. They are gathered together, explicitly because they have abnormally high
* The premise of the ''[[Alvin and the Chipmunks]]'' movies is that the chipmunks are talented singers, or at least insanely popular. This is confusing to anyone who finds their squeaky voices annoying and not something you would ''choose'' to listen to in a million years. Nevertheless, they ''did'' have some pop hits in the real world.
* According to [[All There in the Manual|supplementary materials]] for ''[[Blade]]'', the pureblood vampires have all kinds of abilities like sorcery, the ability to turn into fireballs, etc. None of them are ever seen in the actual film, even when it would have been pretty helpful in stopping Frost from killing them. Frost himself became La Magra yet never displayed either the aforementioned powers [[All Your Powers Combined|he took from the purebloods]] or the [[One-Winged Angel]] form of La Magra (they filmed it but test audiences balked at seeing Stephen Dorff turn into a giant blood fog).
Line 197:
*** Also, in regard to the {{spoiler|[[Soul Jar]]}}, they are a branch of magic so obscure (and deliberately kept so; among the few magic books that even mention them, they don't go beyond mentioning the name) that he had to go to great lengths to even find out what they are. He probably saw the protections he placed around them as secondary, since odds were small anyone even knew they ''existed''. Dumbledore himself had to go to great lengths to even confirm his theory that Voldemort had created them.
**** Unless Voldemort believed that Dumbledore had never bothered to speak to Professor Slughorn—who he originally got the knowledge of Horcrux creation from in the first place—at any time in the past fifty years<ref>Which would be an entirely absurd assumption given that Slughorn was a co-worker of Dumbledore's for decades.</ref> he had no reason for assuming that his opponents were ignorant of the existence of horcruxes. Sure, that knowledge wasn't in ''general'' circulation, but Voldemort's problem ain't what the general public might know, its what Dumbledore might know.
** Dumbledore is reported to hold the position of, essentially, the Head of the Supreme Court of magical Britain. Yet he never uses his authority to resolve any of the occurring cases when innocent people are being accused by the incredibly flawed wizarding judicial system. This is, however, possibly a subversion. In ''[[
*** However, Dumbledore then proves an adroit enough politician and lawyer that even ''after'' being kicked out of office he can still entirely derail Harry's railroaded underage magic trial, in fifteen minutes flat, with one surprise witness and no prepared script. In light of that performance the mind boggles at what he could have done from the bench... if he'd ever exerted himself.
* In ''[[Maximum Ride]]'', Fang is supposed to be silent and expressionless. He's described as a "brick wall" multiple times. However, he is no less talkative than the other characters, and expresses emotion normally most of the time. In the few cases he doesn't, the narrator doesn't fail to point it out.
Line 206:
** Bella is also incapable of remembering even the smallest piece of information. For example, when Jacob tells her in ''New Moon'' that the vampires are dangerous and she should stay away from them, Bella goes into instant denial that vampires exist. She somehow fails to remember that ''Jacob'' was the one who told her the Quileute legend of "the Cold Ones" in the previous book.
** Bella is said to be more mature than people her own age several times by several different people. Her mother even says that she was born middle-aged. This is the same girl who cries at the drop of a hat, is so hormonally-driven that she practically jumps her boyfriend more than once (and after he's already told her that he wants to wait), wanders off alone in a place she doesn't know well when it's getting dark, is so attached to her boyfriend-of-less-than-a-year that she completely shuts down when he leaves her, routinely lies to her parents even when she doesn't have a good reason, spends an ungodly amount of time complaining about ''everything'', plans a long car trip with a boy she barely knows who has treated her like crap since the day she met him (and lies to her father about it so if Edward tried anything he wouldn't know), ''stomps her foot like a two-year-old'' when arguing with Jacob, etc.
** Edward is described as being the epitome of a loving boyfriend, but his actions make him seem more [[
** To an extent, the Volturi. The characters go on about how ruthless they are and that they have no tolerance for lawbreakers. However, every time the Cullens do something that breaks the law, the Volturi always go very easy on them.
** Jessica and her group, with the exception of Angela, are described quite differently than what they are. Bella says they're shallow, annoying, clingy, and rude. Not once can Jessica or Lauren, the biggest offenders, can be seen as this, unless you count ''Midnight Sun'', in which the personalities don't suit their previous counterparts.
Line 271:
* Violet on ''[[Saved by the Bell]]'' is a really amazing singer, so much so that the Glee Club ''[[Rule of Funny|never mentioned before or since]]'' manages to finish in third in a singing contest by having her sing solo. But the audience can hear that her amazing singing amounts to being able to carry a tune.
** Violet was chosen because they went through all the girls and Violet was the only decent singer so she was chosen as the soloist.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''
** It is mentioned to be able to sense vampires with her Slayer instincts. She never, ever does. It was likely just just an element of the [[Myth Arc]] that was dropped early on. Possibly justified, as she was shown to be not all that interested in the mystical applications of her powers, just the violence against the monsters threatening the people she loves. After season five, when she ''tries'' to have Giles train her in this, however, she has no excuse.
** In "What's My Line", the Order of Taraka are supposed to be an ancient order of assassins consisting of both humans and demons, who ''never'' fail to collect a bounty; the key to their strategy is having multiple assassins with differing strategies work alone while pursuing a single mark, replacing each with a different member should one of them be killed, keeping the element of surprise until the mark is finally killed. But... In the final scene they not only attempt to work together (one of them moronically killing another by accident) they seem no better than average mooks. One of them - [[The Worm That Walks| a demon who can turn into a swarm of maggots]] - actually falls for one of [[The Oldest Tricks in The Book]], with Xander and Cordelia goading him into chasing them in order to lure him into a puddle of industrial strength glue, where the individual maggots are trapped and they can smoosh him.
* In ''[[Angel]]'' with the character of Drogyn. A mystical, thousand-year-old immortal warrior who Angel says could kill Spike. He proceeds to never do anything but get his ass handed to him over and over, and then die. This is probably because because he was created last minute as a replacement for Giles when Anthony Stewart Head couldn't make it for filming. The only time he got into anything resembling a fight on-screen was with [[The Juggernaut|Hamilton]]. He did get badly wounded in an off-screen battle with a mook, but that mook did apparently outclass Spike.
* One ''[[CSI]]'' episode had murders taking place at a comedy club, whose native-son star attracted huge crowds even though he was a [[Jerkass]]. The few moments of him actually performing were... disappointing.
Line 344 ⟶ 345:
* ''[[Being Human (UK)]]'': George is described several times as a genius and claims to have an IQ in the 150s. We never see him exhibit any high level of intelligence or knowledge. The smartest thing we see him do is teach basic English to ESL students. He mentions his ability to speak a number of languages, but never does so on camera. He admits to not knowing any Hebrew and can't remember all six words of the ''Shema'' prayer.
* All the ADA's who came after Alex Cabot on [[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]] had to endure a bit of time in the [[Replacement Scrappy]] box because of how popular she was with fans, but Kim Greylek's contribution to the show was pretty much nothing but Informed Ability, to the point that she ''introduced herself'' as "The Crusader" and although we never saw it, she was also a highly aggressive and competent lawyer from big important D.C. and taking cases in little ol' Manhattan to further her political aspirations (that we're told she has). Fans of the show didn't tolerate her very well, and she didn't even last a whole season.
* In ''[[Power Rangers Beast Morphers]]'', Evox uses a device called the Reanimator to restore Goldar ([[The Dragon]] to both Rita and Zedd in [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]) to life, augmenting the device with special gemstones, turning him into Goldar Maximus, supposedly causing Goldar to [[Came Back Strong|Come Back Strong]]. But did he? Well, he certainly managed to curb stomp both the Dino Charge Rangers and the Grid Battleforce Rangers. But then he finds himself face to face with the Legendary Dino Rangers (what the original Rangers are called in this time period) and winds up obliterated by the combined efforts of the three teams, his career as Evox's enforcer lasting two episodes (as opposed to the 175 episodes where he worked for Rita and Zedd), and the horribly botched plan resulting in the deaths of ''three'' of Evox's henchmen, Snide, Robo-Roxy, and Robo-Blaze. You could possibly point out that he was outnumbered fourteen to one, but one could also point out that Goldar used to be smart enough to retreat when the odds were against him. Best explanation is, while his physical power was indeed greatly enhanced, so was his notorious temper, causing him to become careless and easier to defeat.
== Newspaper Comics ==
Line 381 ⟶ 383:
** [[Fridge Logic]]: The characters and adventures in the books are all based on an actual campaign the writers played. The stats therefore are probably the results of random rolls, and the way they're presented in the books is probably more consistent with how the Players played their PCs, rather than their actual stats.
*** [[Word of God]], according to an afterword in one book, is that Raistlin's poor health came about because the guy playing the character spoke in a rasping voice when he was speaking as Raistlin.
** Lore-wise in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', the Rod of Seven Parts, the [[Ur Example]] of the [[Dismantled MacGuffin]] in fantasy settings. Described as the "ultimate weapon of Law" it was indeed called the ''Rod of Law'' before it was sundered in the battle where the Queen of Chaos was vanquished. One would think such a device would want to become whole and ''remain'' whole, but any time the seven pieces are brought together, something is bound to happen that will cause it to break again and scatter its component parts to the far reaches of the multiverse. Possibly the original battle caused it to be tainted by Chaos, but then, it's hard to understand artifacts in genera;
* In ''[[Planescape]]'' (and other settings involving Limbo) the slaadi are supposed to be living embodiments of Chaos. Thing is, as a race, they have little individuality at all, having only five subspecies, all of which look like big, humanoid frogs, and all of them are predators driven solely by survival and hunger. (Compared to say, demons, another Chaotic planar species, which has ''dozens'' of known subspecies and a wide variety of bodily forms, shapes, and personalities.) Even devils and modrons (both Lawful planar races) show more variety in form and function and less conformity than the slaadi do.
* Some ''[[Ravenloft]]'' Modules by their very nature cause [[The Hunter|Rudolph Van Richten]] to fall under this trope, considering a good number of the Quests involves the man getting tricked by any number of evil entities far more often than the 'Land's Premier Expert on Undead and Other Evil Horrors' really should be. It takes a skilled GM to not turn Van Richten into an unintentional [[Miles Gloriosus]].
Line 399 ⟶ 402:
** They were ''finally'' shown doing plumbing in ''[[Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]''. Granted, {{spoiler|they were forced to do it as part of a [[Plan]] by Cackletta to unlock the Beanstar from its cage}}
** The basis of the original ''[[Mario Bros.]].'' game indicates that they were engaged in plumbing when the monsters are shown coming out of the pipes that they have to get rid of.
** ''[[The Super Mario Bros Movie]]'' shows they are indeed plumbers, but not very good at it. Both are portrayed as [[Naive Newcomer]]s and get better at it by the end.
* Gordon Freeman from ''[[Half-Life]]'' is a theoretical physicist... yet the most technically advanced things he does in the series is push a cart, flip switches, and plug in equipment. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Barney Calhoun in the
** He also supposedly can talk, but you would never [[Silent Protagonist|guess that from playing the games]].
** He apparently picked up some mechanical knowledge at least, picking up any weapon and figuring out the controls quickly, even alien ones like the overwatch pulse rifle, successfully subverting [[Unusable Enemy Equipment]].
Line 463 ⟶ 467:
** Last but certainly not least. In the Twilight Highland quests, you witness an epic display of his monumental incompetence from the get-go: In his usual impatience, he orders his goblin engineers to build a fleet of zeppelins to protect his supply carriers from the Black Dragonflight with little time or resource to actually complete them. When the ships are deployed, they can't even stay in flight, and one of them actually crashes. And then Garrosh spots an Alliance navy fleet and immediately orders his attacking ship to make a beeline for them, which would leave all the remaining supply and transport ship completely undefended, a Goblin Captain even questions who'd be stupid enough to do this, but gets punched by one of Garrosh's loyalists for protesting - who remarks that a "Winner" would do so. The Horde fleet attacks and defeats the alliance, however this leaves the carriers completely helpless, as expected the Twilight Dragonflight shows up shortly after and takes out just about every single carrier. Leaving Garrosh, the player, and a few survivors to be washed on shore after.
*** Even better, when you talk to one of the other survivors, apparently Garrosh, in an attempt to save face, claims ''[[Blatant Lies|the alliance attacked them unprovoked.]]''
** A good example would also be Sylvanas Windrunner. Seeing how she is implied to be super threatening and intelligent despite her tendency of keeping potential traitors close to her
** The 7th Legion, basically Stormwind's ultimate, elite soldiers. When fighting them, Undercity basically says that they're in serious trouble, that every major battle the Alliance has ever fought has had the 7th Legion behind the scenes secretly winning it for them, they even wiped out two Forsaken camps full of elites. When you fight them, the majority of them are level 13 and 14 non-elites, and their "terrifying" leader, Pietro Zaren is a level 15 non-elite who is only slightly harder to kill than the rest of them. While the 7th Legion was in Northrend, and ''were'' tough there, none of their stronger soldiers are present in Gilneas at all. They're also [[Too Dumb to Live]], as they wiped out two entire Forsaken outposts, except for the leader of one of them. Considering the type of work they were doing, leaving a witness who could tell what happened basically negates your work—as the witness tells the player what happened and sends the player to wipe them ''all'' out.
** We're informed, in the tie-in novel ''[[The Shattering Prelude to Cataclysm]]'', that Aggra is an exemplary shaman in her own right. As far as she's actually written, however? She's Thrall's [[Shallow Love Interest]] {{spoiler|and [[Babies Ever After|eventual]] [[Birth-Death Juxtaposition|babymama]]}}, but little else.
Line 532 ⟶ 536:
* Also played for laughs in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode, "Lisa's Wedding" where we meet Lisa's first love (or at least, first fiancée), in which Hibbert comments of Maggie, "She's quite a hellion but she does have an incredible voice." The closest thing she ever got to saying anything on screen was when Marge interrupted her when she spoke with her mouth full. (Or for that matter, immediately after Hibbert's quote, where said fiancée cuts her off when she's asked to sing.)
** "Will that girl ever shut up?"
** This also occurs in "Holidays of Future Passed", where Maggie [https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/File:The_Simpsons_32.JPG has become famous as lead singer of her own band], but in this particular episode, she cannot talk due to bizarre complications of her pregnancy (her vocal cord has become attached to the umbilical cord, and talking could injure the baby) and as a result, has no lines in the story.
* ''[[Winx Club]]'', 4Kids dub: In one of the S1 episodes, Musa talks to two background students Ortensia and Priscilla about having to work together to save Alfea, letting drop that Ortensia has the best counterspell skills and that no one can fly as fast as Priscilla. Which would be nice for the final battle, except that, well, they're ''background'' characters. (In the original version, she's only discusses how everyone has a part, without any abilities being mentioned.)
** If we're mentioning Musa, might as well also let drop that in another S1 ep has Flora mention before an exam that Musa gets the best grades out of the Winx.<ref>(Her exact words differ slightly... Original: "Give us a break, we all know you're a straight A student." 4K: "I'm sure you'll be fine. You've got the best grades out of all of us.")</ref> It's a break from the usual expectation of having the tech whiz be the straight A student, but not only do the writers never use this fact, at least one scene actually seems to be inconsistent with it [http://spiderbraids.livejournal.com/5588.html (read main post, then
* ''[[South Park]]'':
** One or two episodes have kids mention Stan's mom having [[Hot Mom|large breasts]]. The way she's animated, she actually looks ''completely'' flat-chested most of the time.
| |||