Logical Weakness: Difference between revisions

Some authors hold that their character's powers shouldn't run exclusively on the [[Rule of Cool]], and decide to inject some (relative) [[Reality Ensues|realism]] into the situation, resulting in a hero whose weakness is a bit different from the rest of the Super crowd.

 

 

Whatever the case, this type of superpower-induced weakness can function as a [[Drama-Preserving Handicap]], or it can be [[Played for Laughs]]. It may also create [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] between different heroes.

* ''[[One Piece]]'' Devil Fruits can frequently fall into this. Examples include Luffy's rubber body, which makes him more or less immune to blunt force but renders him no less vulnerable to blades than he ever was. Sir Crocodile's ability to turn into sand can be hampered by becoming wet. God Eneru's lightning-based powers had no effect on rubber, thus allowing Luffy to harm him.

** A better example for Luffy would be that heat apparently makes him extra squishy.

* [[Angelic Layer|Hikaru]] is created to be super fast and agile. The problem is that because she is so light, she doesn't have very much strength. She's also unable to fight well on places like an ice field.

** In ''Brotherhood'', Pride's [[Living Shadow]] powers don't work in total darkness since he needs a light source to cast a shadow.

* ''[[Darker Than Black]]'' loves this. The guy with [[Shock and Awe|electricity powers]] needs something that conducts electricity if he wants to attack at a distance, the guy who can [[An Ice Person|freeze stuff]] needs water (or [[Human Popsicle|your arm]]) within reach to be able to do anything, and in the first episode of the second season, someone with [[Super Speed]] who tries to run in a rainstorm winds up riddled with holes due to [[Inertia Is a Harsh Mistress|elementary]] [[Too Fast to Stop|physics]].

* ''[[Medaka Box]]'' loves this trope. The best example is probably the array of weaknesses that Yukuhashi Mizou's abnormality, mind-scanning, has, thanks to it working really, really good. {{spoiler|Catching even the smallest thoughts, he can't decipher input from a person who does not think clearly and jumps from one thought to another fast enough for it to be of use; he cannot function in the crowds by himself, due to being overwhelmed by the stream of thoughts; he feels pain that the people within his reception range feel; and, finally, he cannot fight a good person who honestly had legitimate reasons to oppose him, without seeing how they think and starting to empathize with them.}}

* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' {{spoiler|Negi gets superspeed}} by turning into lightning. This is countered by Rakan pointing out that lightning gives off positive streamers at the destination meaning he knows where it's going to strike. And because his perception isn't speeded up as well he can't properly control himself.

* Keima, the main character of ''[[The World God Only Knows]]'' is a legendarily skilled player of Dating Sims in which one pursues girls. However, the opposite of this (girls pursuing ''him'') frequently leaves him at a loss.

* Accelerator from ''[[To Aru Majutsu no Index]]'' is practically invincible due to his power--changing any vector he wants. He can easily deflect bullets, kill someone by [[Cruel and Unusual Death|reversing their bloodflow]], turn air into plasma bombs, et cetera. However, much like Firestorm in the Comics section below, he has to actually mentally perform all the relevant calculations to do any of this. {{spoiler|Brain damage}} all but cripples his abilities.

** {{spoiler|As of New Testament, he cannot deflect [[Hollywood Voodoo]] because there are no vectors to redirect.}}

* In ''[[Runaways]]'' Victor is a cyborg and can't pass through metal detectors without setting them off.

* [[Plastic Man]], because of his rubber based powers, is been known for having a vulnerability with extreme temperature changes and (in some incarnations) being in contact with acetone.

** Of course, this doesn't stop him in any story that requires him to travel by plane. At least once this has been played for laughs, with Wolverine and another character walking out of an airport while she comments on how she's always wondered how he got through metal detectors and now she knows. The reader, of course, is not privy to this information.

** Once, he walked into the Pentagon, and showed a medical certificate stating he has metallic prosthesis due to war injuries. Not far from the truth.

** In the Ultimate Universe, he once got in by sticking a (fake) grenade into some guy's bag so airport security would freak out and he could sneak past the detectors in all the confusion... Ultimate Wolverine is a bit more of a Jerkass than regular Wolverine.

** He also once teamed up with Hydro-Man, until they realized that if they touched, they combined into a sort of sludge.

* Static can't use [[Shock and Awe|his powers]] in direct combat (electricity doesn't jump air gaps normally) in the comics as well as he can use them to make the area work for him. A bit of an odd example, his weakness actually forces him to think around his powers and often coming up with mundane solutions as often as ones that use his powers.

* Colossus of the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] can turn himself into organic steel completely, including all the internal workings of his body. Apparently he does not have blood in this form (and neither does it require it). One downside to this is that if something does manage to injure him through the [[Nigh Invulnerable]] status, turning back into the more frail and bleeding human form would be a Very Bad Idea. Fortunately he can still heal with time. In his metal form, the equivalent of setting broken bones requires heavy machinery.

* Firestorm's main power is transmuting matter. He can change practically anything into practically anything else, such as [[Alchemy|lead into gold]], or air into gold, or bullets into water, or water into plutonium. Not even considering his additional powers, this would make him nigh-godlike, except for a [[Logical Weakness]]: he has a normal human mind and no [[Super Senses]], so he needs to mentally keep track of the chemical composition of everything he transmutes. This means that he can transmute things freely into elements and very simple compounds (like water (H₂O) or salt (NaCl), and maybe even TNT (C₆H₂(NO₂)³CH₃) at most), but making things more complicated than that requires great concentration, if he can do it at all.

* One of the main limitations on magic in the [[Dresden Files]] (or, rather, the mortal magic, as werewolves and faeries seem to sidestep the issue) is that you really have to know what you're doing for something to work. You can't transform someone into a frog without knowing an awful lot about the anatomy of frogs... and if you don't want to destroy someone's mind in the process you have to really know neurosciences. So, essentially, it's impossible. Also banned because it's so dangerous.

** Not sidestep so much as displace; weres get help (through bargain, artifact or rituals of communion) from something which ''does'' know all of that, and some nonhumans such as certain faeries fall into that category. Their minds and senses simply give them complete and accurate knowledge of all of the details of the relevant natural processes; for them extrapolating from a strand of DNA to a creature's adult form, natural environment and group dynamics may be as simple as pluralizing a word... and requires no greater intelligence than the latter feat would for a human. This actually carries its own [[Logical Weakness]] in that a being ''that'' aware of cause and effect is at base restricted by that awareness.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* [[Sanctuary|Will and Watson found Clara]] when she was invisible by turning on the sprinklers to get an outline.

* ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' reveals that Terminators can't swim. It also reveals that they can be temporarily disabled by powerful electrical shocks, although they reboot themselves in a couple minutes. Also, they set off metal detectors.

** Elle Bishop generates electrical blasts. However, her electrical powers are usually focused outwards, and she's not insulated from her own blasts. So if she's coated in water and attempts to use her powers, she just ends up shocking herself.

** Claude, an invisible man, still has a heat signature and is thus able to be seen with infrared goggles.

** Matt Parkman, due to his telepathy, is somewhat more vulnerable to bright lights and loud sounds while using it. This makes sense, as he's not just hearing the sounds/seeing the flashing lights with his own senses, but also the senses of the people whose minds he is reading and thus his brain can't handle it all at once.

*** Noah Bennet shields his thoughts from this by ''thinking in japanese'', a language Matt can't understand.

** Although in the event of a water landing, he's designed to operate as a flotation device.

*** [[Epileptic Trees|Maybe he has an airbag that he can inflate but is potentially damageable]].

** In "Trevor," the titular con gains the ability to become intangible after [[Lightning Can Do Anything|being struck by lightning]]. While he has the ability to pass through conductive objects, destroying them in the process, he's powerless against non-conductive materials. He's eventually killed when struck by a car - he can phase through the hood, but not the windshield.

* In ''[[Alphas]]'' it's pretty well established that with every alpha ability comes a weakness of some sort. In early episodes, the most notable was Rachel, who has hyper, sentinel-esque senses. She was initially shown to be able to enhance one sense at a time, but while she did so, she couldn't use her other senses. (While her vision or smell was enhanced, she could not hear the other characters when they spoke to her.) This is a great weakness, which makes all kinds of sense. However, the writers seem to be forgetting about this weakness, as in recent episodes, she's been using her abilities without shutting the rest down.

* In ''[[The Lost Room]]'' many of the Objects have amazing abilities but also have serious weaknesses

 

* Some of the Disadvantages of characters in the "[[Champions]]" superhero RPG were of this type. For example, the insect-like alien Insectoid took damage from exposure to the insecticide malathion.

 

== Video Games ==

 

** Chain-link fences provide perfect cover from Cole's lightning for the same reason - electricity, by its very nature, follows the path of least resistance and gets grounded by those fences.

** But then again this applies to everything in the game, infected or not. Anything not capable of jumping like that [[Super Drowning Skills|dies instantly on contact with water]].

** However, despite his immense mass he can still ''fly'' by shooting blood out of his hands.

** It's not so much flying as gliding, although that does not excuse the incredibly long distances he can do it.

** ''Mega Man 8'' has these for six out of eight Robot Masters. Clown Man gets tangled in his ridiculously-long arms if hit with Tornado Hold; Thunder Claw is the only safe way to [[Playing Tennis With the Boss|bounce Grenade Man's bombs at him]]; Sword Man (who's fire-based) is left smoldering if hit with Aqua Balloon; Search Man lights on fire if you hit his bush hiding spot with Flame Sword; Astro Man, a neurotic (listen to his greeting), freaks out and can't move if you lock on with Search Missiles; and Tengu Man, a flying boss, is grounded by the Ice Wave (like how airplanes are grounded if their wings ice up). The exceptions are Aqua Man (weak to the Astro Crush) and Frost Man (blinded by the Flash Bomb, which doesn't have an obvious logicistic given he's [[An Ice Person]]).

** In some cases, though, it requires some advance knowledge of the boss to be able to figure out what to use. In the tenth game, why would Strike Man's weapon be the best to use against Sheep Man? Because the former uses the Strike Rebounder (which bounces around due to being a rubber ball) and the latter uses the Thunder Wool. In fact, while every boss in ''Mega Man 10'' has weaknesses that fall into this trope, most require knowing just what the boss does.

* Likewise, ''[[Mega Man X]]'' also uses this. Ice bosses like Chill Penguin, Frost Walrus, and Blizzard Wolfang can't stand fire (fire melts ice), while Fire bosses like Flame Mammoth, Magma Dragoon, and Burn Dinorex are weak to wind (wind blows out fire).

* Similar to the above examples, John Marston from ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' can't swim. It makes sense since the charater has spent most of his life in the [[Wild West]], where there isn't a whole lot of water. The above ground water sources we do see are mostly fast moving rivers or dirty and swampy. Also the game takes place in 1911 and most people couldn't swim back then.

** [[Fridge Logic|Even if they're part Flying-type...]]

* In ''[[Magicka]]'', while your characters are all [[Squishy Wizard|Squishy Wizards]] already, you can shock yourself if you use electricity while soiaked.

* Megavolt on ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' is an electricity based villain shorted out by water.

** The Liquidator on ''Darkwing'' is intimidated by "a common cleaning sponge" and (in a [[Shout-Out]] to John Kendrick Bangs "The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall") by being locked in a freezer, as well as by cement and pudding mix(!).

* H2Olga from ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' has the unique ability to be defeated by Ultra-Absorbent Diapers.

* ''[[Static Shock]]'''s protagonist had electromagnetic powers that went on the fritz along with every other gadget in the world when there was a lot of sun spot activity.

** Static also defeated a water-based villain using an electric current, thus breaking the water down into its components (he even calls the process, electrolysis, by name).

** However being splashed by water can short out his ability if he's currently charged up.

* Stitch of ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]'' is super dense and while that gives him super strength and endurance, he can't swim.

* Because [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|benders]] channel their powers through martial arts, binding or paralyzing their limbs is an effective means of defeating or imprisoning them, though sufficiently skilled benders are able to get beyond this.

** Fire- and Airbenders always have their element at hand, but also have their own weaknesses. Fire requires stable breath control to use (making it easier to lose control or tire from using the element), is less effective in cold or at night, and lacks many defensive moves. Likewise, Air Bending has fewer offensive moves, and the culture surrounding it is quite pacifistic, making it especially difficult to finish a fight.

** Toph's [[Disability Superpower]] is rendered completely useless when not in direct contact with Earth {{spoiler|or metal}}. She is extremely apprehensive riding on Appa, gets a view comparable to static when on sand, and is seen having to hold onto her companions when traveling on a wood-built village. It doesn't stop her from intercepting catapult weapons fired from another ship on water though.

* In ''[[Exo Squad]]'', Neosapiens are stated to have heightened senses. Early on in the show they flashbang one to great effect.