Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Difference between revisions

 

Infamously used when [[Min-Maxing]] roleplaying characters, whether it makes any sense or not.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* Sosuke Sagara from ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]''. Most of the time, he approaches everyday life as if he were in a combat environment. He has landmines buried on school grounds. He responded to a secret admirer leaving him a package by ''blowing it up'' from a safe distance as per EOD protocol. And when he was buying food from a popular vendor, Chidori advised him to be "aggressive"...as such, he fired a pistol into the air and made his order as if he were robbing a bank.

 

== Film ==

* John Connor in ''[[Terminator]]'' 2; intermittently in other works in the franchise. His mother groomed him to lead the anti-robot insurgency.

* ''[[Hanna]]'' was raised to know how to fight in an instant, but never learned basic social skills or how the real world works. This becomes a problem when she is separated from her dad and enters the real world.

 

== Literature ==

* In the first [[Sherlock Holmes]] story, ''A Study in Scarlet'', it's said that Holmes has next to no practical knowledge that isn't related to detective work. He professes surprise when Watson tells him that the earth revolves around the sun (and states his intention to forget about it as best he can, so as not to fill up his mind with irrelevant information- comparing it to a 'brain attic', and information with furniture). This part of his character was quickly dropped by the author, as by ''A Scandal in Bohemia'', Sherlock has quite a great deal of political knowledge (in contradiction to Watson's claim in ''Scarlet'' that Holmes' has a "feeble" grasp of politics), Holmes often peppers his speech with literature references, and, in any case, Holmes' ultimate career as a bee-keeper would suggest he's picked up the practical gardening knowledge that Watson claims he lacks.

** Lampshaded in the [[Sherlock|new BBC adaptation]], where his rant about the uselessness of astronomy comes back to bite him in the arse, but he just happens to visit a planetarium in pursuit of a suspect, just in time to hear part of a presentation that contains the astronomical information he needs to solve the next of Moriarty's riddles.

** Rincewind as well: he's a [[Fragile Speedster]], smart, but with few practical skills. This is largely because wizards aren't supposed to ''have'' any practical skills; they leave those to the [[Un-Equal Rites|witches]].

* Hilariously alluded to in [[Orson Scott Card]]'s ''[[Ender's Game|Shadow of the Giant]]'' at a gathering of Ender's old jeesh of military supergeniuses.

{{quote|"It was an analogy," said [[Retired Badass|Rackham]]. "[[Child Soldier|If you hadn't spent your entire childhood playing war games]], you'd actually know something. You're all so uneducated."}}

* Similar to tabletop RPG s, one of the earlier [[Smackdown vs. Raw]] games (back when it was still called Smackdown!) allowed your created characters to sacrifice attribute points for quirks that gave you a slight advantage in combat. On the other hand you could also pick negative traits to give you additional attribute points. This allowed the wrestler to receive ungodly strength or endurance in exchange for being hampered by multiple ''crippled limbs''. Happily elective quadriplegia had almost [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|no affect whatsoever]], effectively granting you a massive power boost for free.

 

* The early strips of ''[[Goblins]]'' have [[Munchkin|Minmax The Unstoppable Warrior]] a low level fighter with stupidly high combat related stats and abilities, but completely lacking in other abilities. He has sacrificed everything for maximum combat ability. An [[Alternate Universe]] version even sacrificed his ability to speak for more bonuses.

** The current list of Minmax's sacrificed skills includes starting fires, literacy, the ability to rhyme on purpose, the ability to wink, and even the skill to ''dress himself''.

* This is Pete's rationalization for his ludicrous [[Min-Maxing]] of R2-D2 in ''[[Darths and Droids]]''. He lacks the ability to even speak to other characters (in-character anyway), but consequently his mechanical and hacking skills are through the roof.

 

== Web Original ==

* Phase of the [[Whateley Universe]]. Filthy rich. Trained from birth to be the ultimate financial wizard, so he could one day be one of the rulers of the Goodkind empire. Unfortunately, that means he doesn't know how to do things like use a can opener or do laundry. That would be fine, given how much money his family has, but then he gets kicked out of the family and disinherited...

** The relative pittance his family eventually basically bought him off with to avoid future trouble still makes him one of the richest kids at Whateley, and the same 'financial wizard' training is helping him build on that even with him spending money left and right to simply ''buy'' even fairly exotic equipment at fair prices or hire competent help as needed. That said, the struggle between his refined palate and common cafeteria food (to say nothing of his shock at the first time he ever saw the inside of a common ''supermarket'') remains fun to watch.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]

[[Category:Power At a Price]]

[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]