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Useless Superpowers: Difference between revisions
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Often involves a [[Fantastic Aesop]] about how [[Mundane Utility|using powers]] to [[Hard Work Hardly Works|avoid hard work]] is Bad[[Tradesnark|™]].
A form of [[Holding Back the Phlebotinum]]. Compare [[Coconut Superpowers]]. For [[Stock Super Powers|superpowers]] that are actually useless in and of themeselves see [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?]] or [[Blessed With Suck]]. When the depowerment happens just when it would've been necessary, then it's [[Plot
{{examples}}
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** By book 3 he starts to evade these problems. He inflates his aunt like a balloon (she gets better and has her memory wiped by a third party) and is excused because everyone is just glad he's safe after he ran away, and then goes to a wizarding friend's house where he can cast supervised magic. In book 4, his abusive guardians are afraid of his godfather coming to get revenge on them, so they leave him alone from then on, and later in the series he often goes to wizarding friends' houses. The author got bored of the restrictions.
*** He's not allowed to cast supervised magic at Ron's house so much as the ministry doesn't know if he does - wizarding parents are expected to monitor their children, because the presence of magic in the house already makes it impossible to know if an adult or child cast it. It's only really obvious who did it if the only adults in the house are muggles.
* In the later ''[[
* Richard of the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series is said to have more magical ability than anyone else living, but he has to be emotionally charged to do jack. Occasionally he'll destroy an entire regiment with nothing more than a thought, but otherwise can't light a candle without flint.
** I think you'll find that Richard's powers are directly related to how many pages are left.
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* Another is in ''[[Out of This World]]'', where Evie's almost unbounded "Gleeping" power manages to fail at crucial plot points in pretty much every episode.
* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' falls in the same category as ''[[Bewitched (TV)|Bewitched]]'' here.
* In ''[[
** It doesn't work on wood, either. (No electronics or moving parts.)
*** And it can be blocked by certain kinds of hairdryer.
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** Averted in the Season 8 comics. By now, Willow has become confident enough to make full use of her powers even though she still gets the [[Black Eyes of Evil]] when she goes all out.
* In [[Misfits]], Alisha makes fun of a boy whose power is the ability to control... Milk! A bit rich considering her own power is the ability to make people rape her.
** Curtis has the ability of turning back time, but [[How Do I Shot Web?|doesn't know how to trigger it.]] It's eventually accepted that Curtis can only turn back time when he feels directly guilty about something, but that doesn't stop everyone else from telling him to turn back time whenever something bad happens (and having him respond, [[Catch Phrase|"It doesn't work like that!"]]).
** Nathan is immortal, but his healing factor only kicks in when he actually ''dies''.
* In ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'', the sound of Jool's scream can melt metal. She screams every time she is surprised, unhappy or scared. She inexplicably does not scream in a few situations where she is being attacked by someone using delicate, metal weapons.
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[[Category:Magic and Powers]]
[[Category:Useless Superpowers]]
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