The Call Has Bad Reception: Difference between revisions

# An [[Idiot Hero]] cannot be involved. The issue here is that the problem is the fault of the instruction giver, not the hero. If the hero is of the sort that, if he knew exactly what he had to do, he would still screw it up, then it doesn't count.

# Half-truths, [[From a Certain Point of View|pretend-truths]], and the like do not count. Even if the person sending the hero on the mission ''purposely'' tells the hero half the story with good intent, because the very act of telling him the whole story would immediately doom the hero to failure, then it doesn't count.

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* This is the driving force of the plot of ''[[Giant Robo]]: The Day the Earth Stood Still''. The succinct version of the saga is thus: young Emmanuel Von Volger walks in on his father unsuccessfully attempting to stop an experiment that winds up destroying an entire country. His father shuts himself into a room for days, until he stumbles out of his room, randomly babbling that Emmanuel should stop the scientists he worked with at all costs, and hands him the tool he needs to do it before dying. As Emmanuel delivers what he believes is the death stroke to the entire world, the truth is revealed via hologram: {{spoiler|Dr. Volger wanted to stop the energy drive because the drive they created was faulty, and would have created an even greater catastrophe than the original explosion that set the whole story in motion.}} By this time Emmanuel has screwed up so badly that there's nothing left for him to do but kill himself.

* In [[The Wheel of Time]], the Guide noted that in the Age of Legends, many people had themselves tested for aptitude in [[Functional Magic|the One Power]], but failed and never took a second test, leaving their hidden potential untapped.

* In ''[[Wiz Biz|Wizard's Bane]]'' by Rick Cook, hacker (in the sense of ace programmer) Wiz Zumwalt is called into a parallel universe where magic rules, but he knows no magic, to the intense disappointment of the apprentice of the wizard who summoned him. {{spoiler|He discovers the underlying rules of magic, and learns how to program it, making him the greatest magician ever.}}

 

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[Transformers: The Movie]]'' '86. The Matrix is to be used by the Chosen One to light the Autobots' darkest hour. Problem is, no one knows who the chosen one is, and they just assume that it is whoever the leader of the Autobots happens to be at the time. They also don't know exactly when their darkest hour will be, which isn't helped by the fact that in this movie the Autobots day can be summed up in 3 words: [[It Got Worse]]. This results in Optimus Prime being killed, and Ultra Magnus getting killed while attempting to use the Matrix. Eventually it is revealed that Hot Rod is the one to open the Matrix, and their darkest hour is when Unicron tries to destroy Cybertron.

** Although another example may come in the [[Transformers Generation 1|television series]], and the two part "Return of Optimus Prime." In that case, the "Darkest Hour" in question was the release of the Hate Plague, which not only endangered the Autobots and Decepticons, but all sentient life in the cosmos. In that case, the Matrix was also used to light their Darkest Hour. It's just that the chosen one was dead at the time, and had to be revived before he could use the Matrix to save the day. And in fitting with the prophecy where "All are One," at the end the hostilities between the different factions were resolved. At least for the time being.

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[[Category:Call to Adventure]]