New Powers as the Plot Demands: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"Couldn't you have done that earlier?"''

 

{{quote|''"Anytime a hero is somehow outpowered and/or outclassed by the villain, he will invariably release powers/new moves he never knew he could accomplish... but his old teacher did!"''

* ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' anime develops itself into this. At first, many skills the team learn come from books and manuals, but by the third season, characters repeatly pull out new things whenever the plot demands them. In the movie, the protagonists learn to use super power abilities without any explaination just so they can beat the Ogre, who's argubly stronger than the series' world cup teams.

 

* ''[[Superman]]''. This is quite possibly the largest criticism laid at his feet: he started out faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and invulnerable to anything less than a bomb. Since then he's learned to fly, to blow like a hurricane, to survive nuclear explosions (though just barely), chill things with a puff of breath, shoot lasers from his eyes, and use [[X-Ray Vision]]. And that's just the powers that have lasted: during the [[Silver Age]], he gained a new power nearly every month (Super Ventriloquism was bad - being able to travel through time as easily as he could fly was worse). The super-breath, at least, is a logical extension of someone with the kind of lungs he must have... although, even so, he really shouldn't be able to do more than emit a single shock-wave of air; he may have a super-strong diaphragm but his lungs aren't any bigger than human lungs.

*** Actually, super-breath is probably the least hard to explain away; wind instrument players master a technique called "circular breathing" to produce a continuous tone through their instrument without running out of breath. If Kenny G can produce a continuous note for 45 minutes, Superman should be able to blow hard for a minute or so.

** Gives you a bit of fridge logic as to why declaring 'the power to have every power I haven't thought of' wouldn't eliminate the power and render her powerless since she can't have any power you've thought of and her root power is told to you.

* Inverted in an arc of ''[[Exiles]]'' in which the team arrives on an [[Alternate Universe|Earth where the Skrulls have ruled since the 19th century]], and several of them are thrown into a gladiator arena to fight other superpowered beings. Mimic, a mutant with the power to copy and hold onto the abilities of up to five other mutants, strikingly showcases "all four" of his various powers as he fights his way to higher tiers of the arena, until he finally comes up against "The Champion", that universe's version of [[Captain America (comics)|Captain America]]. The Skrulls are expecting an epic fight, when Mimic ends it in ten seconds by letting loose optic blasts he copied from the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'s Cyclops. The reader knows he has this power (if he's been paying attention), but the audience is shocked.

** For the record, he actually ''does'' have a chunk of kryptonite. Superman gave it to Batman so he could use it to stop him if he ever went insane and became a threat.

*** The writers have also shown that Batman, down in the Batcave, has a set of dossiers on every single hero and villain on the planet, with detailed plans on how to take down each and every one of them if he ever needed to. This even includes the really, really stupid villains for whom the plan ought to be "oh just kick his ass already."

*** The Bat-Van-Cutter from ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|The Dark Knight.]]''

* Captain Everything from ''[[Normalman]]'' was the most powerful being on the planet Levram simply because he could defy all laws of physics, exhibiting a new power at every plot twist. Of course, this is just one of the ways in which he's a parody of Superman.

*** ... which might also be a parody of the ''Superman'' comic writers' tendency toward [[Forgotten Phlebotinum]].

* [[Resurrection Man]]'s powers are ''literally'' dictated by the plot; anytime he dies, he'll come back immediately possessing some power that would have allowed him to survive what killed him. Drop him off a cliff, now he can fly, shoot him, now he's bulletproof, etc.

** New Spider-Man foe The Freak has the same ability.

* Seth, the ridiculously powerful metahuman sent to kill and otherwise maim the members of ''[[The Authority]]'', might as well be a walking [[Green Lantern Ring]]. Having been designed to take down the most powerful superhero team in the world, he is given just about every superpower that his creators can imagine, at one point stating that he has powers "that [his enemies] don't even have names for".

* [[The Mighty Thor]] was explicitly intended to be the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Universe, and in the early days this seemed to mean "modeled after the [[Silver Age]] [[Superman]]." He whipped out abilities like time travel and even super-ventriloquism on occasion (making his lame-ass early villains even less challenging) before his powers became more clearly defined (and his villains got much more dangerous).

* The eponymous [[Empowered]] has on at least three occasions demonstrated powers she had no idea her suit possessed: Clinging, surviving in space, and very possibly flight. She's not aware of the third.

* NICOLE of the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' Archie comic series (and to a lesser extent, the ''[[Sonic Sat AM|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' animated series), a small handheld device with utilities ranging from a translator, laser device, a protective forcefield and a scanner that can devise info and history from almost any object or area. In later issues NICOLE was evolved into the powerstation for New Mobotropolis from which [[God Mode Sue|she can transport or materialize almost any entity to the heroes' convenience]], though at least by this point her multiple powers are becoming less of a surprise.

* Spoofed in ''[[Tomorrow Stories]]'' with Splash Brannigan. "He followed them into the painting! I didn't know four dimensional ink could do that!" "Well duh! It can probably do whatever story purposes require."

* ''Herbie The Fat Fury'' got various superpowers from eating lollipops. These powers could be literally anything, from invulnerability and super-strength to hypnotism, talking to animals, time travel, and knocking out uncooperative indian chiefs.

* The Molecule Man, a [[Fantastic Four]] villain, can control molecules, so he can do just about anything, but he's not the brightest bulb in the shed and not completely evil, so he's often beaten before he can really use his imagination.

 

== [[Fan Works]] ==

* ''[[The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest]]'' has an interesting non-[[Ass Pull]] version. The main characters get new powers depending on what world they're in.

 

* Lampshaded and played for laughs in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]?'', Roger Rabbit meta-explains his ability to escape his handcuffs easily, when he left them to help stabilize the table as Eddie Valiant was trying to saw them off.

{{quote|'''Eddie Valiant:''' You mean you could've taken your hand out of that cuff ''at any time''?!

'''Roger Rabbit:''' NO! Not at any time -- only when it was ''[[Rule of Funny|funny]]''. }}

* The Heisei ''[[Gamera]]'' series deconstructed this trope completely. Gamera reveals in the second film to have a "[[Wave Motion Gun|Mana Cannon]]" that obliterates the enemy of that film. It is learned in the final film that using that attack drained the Earth of its health, and [[Gaia's Vengeance|releasing a hoard of Gyaos upon the planet]]. It is also learned that Gamera [[Friend to All Children|bonded with humans]] in order to gain the [[Green Lantern Ring|ability to mutate and get new powers]] such as the Mana Cannon and Flame Absorbing powers—but the Mana Cannon cost him that connection to humanity as well! This causes him to ignore Property Damage as he hunts the Gyaos.

** [[Godzilla]] could be similar at times. The most famous examples would have to be his gravity-defying drop kick, and his sudden ability to ''fly'' at the end of one movie by curling up his body and firing his atomic breath backward so he shoots through the air like a rocket. Additionally, Godzilla randomly decided he had magnetic powers in the climactic battle of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.

* Considering all of the above examples, it comes as a surprise that 1984's ''[[Supergirl (film)|Supergirl]]'' completely averts this trope. Supergirl has all the powers she's supposed to have, but no "extras" are added.

* Horribly abused in ''Midnight Movie''. Try to escape through a window or door? The killer makes them impenetrable. Try to call for help? He disrupts phones. Try to get the attention of someone on the outside? He makes it so no one can see or hear you. All that, combined with him being [[Made of Iron]], being able to teleport, and being able to find people wherever they hide due to literally sensing fear and you've got one of the most unfair [[Slasher Film]] villains in history.

 

== Literature ==

* Happens to nearly every plot-relevant magician in Raymond E. Feist's ''[[Riftwar]]'' series at some point or other. The meta main character, Pug, seems to experience as much of his development by being forced into new powers by circumstance as by study and learning. Nakor also exhibits this frequently later in the series, though it's implied that he has known his new 'tricks' for a long time and simply did not choose to use them for whatever reason.

* [[Anita Blake]] is the best example of this ever, having morphed from a simple animator/necromancer in the book series to... frankly, this editor lost track of them all a long time ago. But in pretty much every big confrontation, she gets a new Power of the Month.

** The only seemingly-inexplicable examples were Hellfire and Soulfire, but those turned out to be justified.

 

* This happened a couple times on the 1950's [[Superman]] TV series. Discussion above in the Comics section.

*** On a completely unrelated note, "Detachable Soul" would be a [[Good Name for A Rock Band]].

** Klingons get some of this once they cease being [[Exclusively Evil]]. For instance, in the ''Next Generation'' episode "Ethics", a shaky camera accident breaks Worf's spine, paralyzing him. During the experimental operation to replace his spine, something goes wrong, and he goes braindead. For a moment, it looks like disaster; then his other neural system kicks in.

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'''s season 3 episode "Lovers Walk," Willow and Xander have been kidnapped by Spike. Oz manages to locate them with his highly refined werewolf sense of smell... While in his human form, which had never been shown to possess any supernatural abilities prior to this.

* In the Spanish series ''Los Protegidos'' the villains get new superpowered kids as the plot demands.

 

== Puppet Shows ==

{{quote|'''Jen:''' Wings? I don't have wings.

'''Kira:''' Of course not. You're a boy. }}

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'' includes the Goblin Vow merit, which basically combines this with [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique]], allowing the person to make impromptu deals with various abstract things to gain new (temporary) powers in exchange for either doing something, or refraining from something. Breaking the deal is [[Disproportionate Retribution|ill-advised]].

* This is one of the tropes that ''Badass'' is built on. Buying new powers just requires a flimsy exposition sequence between action scenes (a journey of self discovery about being a dinosaur the whole time, a training montage of you learning kung fu, whatever). Or if you've got "Little do you know I am actually a ROBOT!", you can buy new powers in the middle of fight scenes just by declaring that you were secretly a robot (or a ninja, or a mad scientist, or a shark, or whatever) the whole time.

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' has this in the Chameleon prestige class and the Factotum. The Chameleon, at second level, has a bonus feat he can change daily to whatever he has the requirements for. The Factotum has a pool of Inspiration Points, which he can use for a buttload of stuff, such as arcane spells, sneak attack, ignoring spell resistance, as needed.

 

 

== Toys ==

* May come up in [[Persona 3]] depending on your dialogue choices. {{spoiler|Assuming the protagonist wasn't just hitting buttons randomly (which you can fess up to), or using her women's intuition (which you can ALSO confess to), how DID he/she know which switch controlled the breaks to the train car? Lampshaded in the manga, which revealed the Male MC had a hidden love for trains.}}

* Literally in ''[[Psychonauts]]''. Barring three which aren't plot-important, that you get by levelling up, the game basically hands you a new power at the exact time you reach an obstacle that can only be overcome with that particular power. After the first couple of times, they don't even bother giving you some kind of training course to justify it; they just hand you the merit badge and let you get on with it.

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Axe Cop]]'', having sprung from the imagination of a young child during playtime with his much older brother, tends to have characters randomly gaining powers left and right. Sometimes its explained, and sometimes it's "the secret technique no one knows" or something one of the characters "always had". The adult drawing the strip and crafting it into structure plays such moments for all the laughs they're worth. This truly meets its apex when Axe Cop gains the ability to fly ''by asking his creator to make give it to him.''

* In ''[[Sonichu]]'', [[Author Avatar]] Christian Chandler displays this trope in increasingly absurd ways, up to and including spontaneously bringing his [[Distaff Counterpart|twin sister]] to life through the combination of a [[It Makes Sense in Context|a torch made from Pixelblocks and an ancient Cherokee ritual]].

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Italian Spiderman]]'' has this in spades. He can teleport, outrun motorbikes, make chickens lay eggs (or cigarette packets), control spiders, summon penguins, fly, and his mustache can be detached and used as an exploding projectile.

* [[Robert Brockway]] of ''[[Cracked.com]]'' points out how pieces of [[Phlebotinum]] in a [[Science Fiction]] story gain New Powers as the Plot Demands, making technology [[Clarke's Third Law|hard for the viewer to tell from magic]]. This is one of the [http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-realizations-that-will-ruin-science-fiction-you/ 4 Realizations That Will Ruin Science Fiction for You].

 

== Western Animation ==

** Katara healing with Waterbending isn't so much her inventing a new power as self-teaching herself one that already exists in-setting; the Northern Water Tribe's waterbenders have been using Waterbending to heal for generations.

** In the case of metalbending, another character mentions that metal "is just purified earth" (that is, metalbending is only impossible because it hasn't yet been tried by a bender of sufficient skill and power). Toph isn't actually there for that speech, but they do try to illustrate that she's realizing roughly the same thing of her own accord.

* A frequent element used in ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' where the main hero will often get new powers that'll ultimately help him in the end, one of the most blatant being his [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique|ghostly wail]] and [[Elemental Powers|ice ability]].

** Although the hero does tend to continue using the same main set of abilities, and only uses the extra ones on special occasions.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]

[[Category:Magical Girl Tropes]]

[[Category:Magic and Powers]]

[[Category:Power]]