Screenwriter: Later, Neo's gonna have a fight with a bunch of Smiths. It's gonna go on for awhile.
Producer: But can't Neo jump inside people and make them explode?
Screenwriter: Yeah, but he's not gonna.
Producer: Why not?
Screenwriter: So there can be a fight scene.
Producer: Oh, okay.
Screenwriter: And then at the end of the fight scene, Neo's gonna fly away.
Producer: Why didn't he just fly away in the first place?
Screenwriter: So there can be a fight scene.
Producer: That makes sense.
Producer: But can't Neo jump inside people and make them explode?
Screenwriter: Yeah, but he's not gonna.
Producer: Why not?
Screenwriter: So there can be a fight scene.
Producer: Oh, okay.
Screenwriter: And then at the end of the fight scene, Neo's gonna fly away.
Producer: Why didn't he just fly away in the first place?
Screenwriter: So there can be a fight scene.
Producer: That makes sense.
When a character has the Idiot Ball slipped into their pocket while they weren't looking, causing them to forget to properly use their skills or abilities to solve a problem, even though they may have used the ability in similar situations before (often many times).
As the title indicates, this often happens with superheroes. It occurs more with more useful powers/equipment, and some unfortunates tend to have this inflicted on them all the time, turning a Genius Bruiser or Badass Bookworm into a garden-variety Bruiser or Badass. Only some lines of technological jargon or displays of useless gadgetry will remind the reader that they have more brains than they normally use. Some might consider this a form of Informed Ability, with the "ability" being genius-level intelligence. It's especially bad when the power being forgotten is an innate ability that the character was born with, which makes it roughly akin to a normal guy forgetting he can walk.
Amnesia Danger is a variant of this trope, where it's justified using convenient amnesia. This is the heroic version of Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?, except while villains don't have to answer for their actions, heroes could be seen as obligated to stop evil-doers or disasters as quickly and efficiently as possible.
See Fridge Logic for when it occurs to the viewers a little later what the character could've/should've easily done. See Remembered I Could Fly when it occurs to the character Just in Time what he should've done long before. If a power or device is discovered, used once, then never mentioned again despite theoretically still being accessible, that's Forgotten Phlebotinum. Compare Drama-Preserving Handicap and New Powers as the Plot Demands.
As mentioned, this is a sister trope to Idiot Ball, the distinction being that Idiot Ball is when a character does something stupid in order to advance the plot, while Forgot About His Powers is when a character fails to do something they would normally do or that would make sense, in order to advance the plot.
In video games, this is a common way for a character to start out, with the abilities that the player learns in tutorials being things the character knew all along. On the other end, this combined with optional skills is the main source of Cutscene Incompetence, as the character written into the cut-scenes doesn't remember the potion of resurrection he found half an hour ago when mourning a slain companion, or that he unlocked the flight skill when falling off something tall.
Compare Reed Richards Is Useless, where a character with superhuman abilities or ridiculously advanced technology reserves it for equally advanced problems and never applies it to mundane difficulties, and Superman Stays Out of Gotham in which another character in the same universe is conveniently not around to easily help the protagonist. See also Useless Superpowers, where there's some reason the character can't or shouldn't use their powers when they would be useful.
Contrast Took a Level in Badass and Dumbass No More.
Not to be confused with Forgot Flanders Could Do That, where an old forgotten character trait from a since-Flanderized character appears again.
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Advertising
- A commercial for Honey Nut Cheerios👁 Image
has Buzz Bee racing Wednesday Addams to her breakfast table and winning, only for Wednesday to open a trap door under him and send him falling while she eats the cereal, even though he was flying in their race just a moment ago.
Comedy
- In The Unfinished Spelling Errors of Bolkien, Martin points that the Balrog seems completely unaware of the fact that it has wings.
Comic Strips
- In one Blondie (1930) strip, Dagwood is impressed by another man's having named his children after food and regrets not having done so himself. He apparently has forgotten that his own daughter's name is Cookie and that his son went by the name "Baby Dumpling" when he was young.
- The final arc of Spider-Man has Spidey in the following situation: He is dangling off a skyscraper, holding a subdued Kilgrave with one hand. The only thing holding him aloft is Luke Cage, who has his leg. Fortunately, MJ is around to remind Peter that he has a second hand.
MJ: Hey, don't forget — you've got TWO web shooters!
Spider-Man: Huh? Oh-yeah! I FORGOT! - The Wizard of Id: From strip to strip, the Wizard will sometimes use unnecessarily powerful spells to perform simple tasks; and other times subject himself to backbreaking manual labour or try to fight off serious threats by hand instead of using his magic, depending on what would be funnier. In one strip he walks into the house complaining about how he threw out his back shovelling the driveway, and Spirit reminds him that he's a wizard and he has magic.
Films — Animation
- BIONICLE:
- In BIONICLE: Mask of Light, Onua causes a cave-in, so he and Pohatu start running, but get buried under rubble. This, despite that they had masterful control over the elements of earth and stone respectively — Onua even uses his power to levitate some giant rocks in a later scene. Pohatu also wore the Mask of Speed (which Onua had access to, too) that would have let them vibrate their bodies through the rock, or just plain run faster. Both could even have summoned their Mask of Shielding to protect themselves. The climax also involves some running and heavy objects falling, but nobody thinks of using their powers to save themselves or help Takutanuva who gets crushed under a gate.
- The Psychic Link between Gali and Takua from the Mata Nui Online Game is left out of the movie, so long-distance communication is done by drums that Lewa needs to decipher, rather than Gali sending her warning about the Rahkshi to Takua directly. This is justified in a meta sense because the link was never meant to exist — MNOG only included it because a different video game got cancelled and the developers were tasked with weaving the other game's plot into their own, so they introduced a psychic link to let Takua witness Gali's POV. Despite the film referencing other parts of the game, the link got ignored. This does become a retroactive plot hole, though, when the link gets brought up in the story years after the movie.
- Some of the few effective attacks against the six Rahkshi are Kopaka's ice beam combined with Gali's water blasts to cause instant freezing and Lewa creating a sand-whirlwind. But when only one Rahkshi is left alive and is about to harm or kill Takua and Jaller, the element-wielding heroes merely watch and do nothing to save their friends.
- In Web of Shadows, Matau is about to fall to his death from atop the Coliseum balcony, but Vakama saves him with a bungee-cord made out of spider webbing. A cool and heartwarming scene, except that Matau got up there by flying in the first place, or technically, grabbing onto an energy-disk that he could fire at any moment. Justified in that a powerful-enough disk takes a long time to charge (though his fall takes longer) and Matau wants Vakama to prove he still has good in him by saving him.
- Likewise in Web of Shadows, when Roodaka betrays Sidorak to face the mighty Keetongu by himself, Sidorak never thinks about using his Mind-Control Device located in his right hand (or on his back if you go by his movie design) to subdue Keetongu or to force Roodaka back into fray. The novelization reveals Sidorak's Inner Monologue during the scene — he is so shocked that his "beloved" Roodaka left him to his death and thereby bested him that he can't bring himself to fight back.
- In Frozen, when her ice palace is under attack, Elsa seems to completely forget all the things she has already done with her powers that would allow her to hold off the attackers indefinitely, such as causing the staircase to sprout ice spikes, creating more Snowlems to back up her existing one, hammering them with a blizzard or simply sealing the entrances to the palace with solid ice walls. Justified due to Elsa's lack of experience with her powers (most of which are less than a day old) and her current state of panic, which is explicitly stated to limit her control over her powers, not to mention her ability to actually think about how to fight her enemies off. Once she does start making active use of her powers, she quickly turns the tables on her attackers and nearly kills them before Hans stops her by invoking Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.
- In the "Mickey and the Beanstalk" segment of Fun and Fancy Free, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy saw down the beanstalk with Willie the Giant in hot pursuit. But he falls, seemingly to his death, despite previously displaying the power to shapeshift into anything he wanted and "fly up high like the birdies". Though, in fairness, he probably didn't have enough time to say the "magic wordies" (which just so happen to be "fe, fi, fo, fum"). However, Willie manages to survive the fall, and the viewer is never shown exactly how, so it's possible he did remember his magic and saved himself at the last second.
- Some of The Land Before Time sequels neglect the fact that Petrie can fly.
- Little Angels: The Brightest Christmas: The angels wonder how to get Daniel safely to a distant cabin, seemingly forgetting the fact that they can not only fly, but have already used their ability to carry other characters around earlier in the film. Instead, they create a rainbow trail to the cabin, and Daniel has to walk all the way there.
- In Megamind, when discovering intruders in his lair, the supposedly dead Metro Man completely forgets about his Super-Speed and tries to turn around and tiptoe away. Naturally, a floorboard creaks and gives him away. Justified because of the shock.
- Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate: Megamind's Dehydration Gun (which turns enemies into immobile cubes) makes several appearances in this movie, but its use is inconsistent. After using it to incapacitate an escaped shark, he neglects to use it to trap Go Fish Gang after his prison malfunctions. He never considers using it against the Doom Syndicate, and there's no mention if they have any immunity to it — and since Megamind does use it against the Go Fish Gang later, he's clearly not against shooting sapient beings with it.
- In the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Magical Movie Night:
- In the segment "Movie Magic", Rainbow Dash and human Twilight Sparkle were the only members of the group who remembered to bring the amulets that allow them to use their powers (Super-Speed and Mind Over Matter respectively). Even then, while Twilight uses her telekinesis for mundane purposes, when the group chases a thief, she chases her on foot and doesn't try to use her telekinesis.
- In the segment "Mirror Magic", Sunset hasn't been to her native dimension in so long that she not only briefly forgets that she's a quadruped in Equestria, but that she's a unicorn that can use telekinesis, spending several seconds helplessly pawing at a book that fell on the floor with her hooves instead. She spends the next scene enchanted by her own abilities once she's reminded.
- Teen Titans Go! To the Movies makes a Running Gag out of Raven forgetting that she can create portals and then conveniently remembering at the right moment.
Films — Live-Action
- In Dragonball Evolution, Piccolo demonstrates telekinesis powerful enough to crush a house, but never uses it again, even to try to retrieve a Dragonball that was rolling away.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has a meta example. According to the creators, this is why Edgin, despite being a bard, is never seen casting a spell in the film's runtime, despite bards being a spellcasting class in every edition. They envisioned hypothetical players for each of the cast members, and when envisioning Edgin's, they decided he was the kind of guy who didn't bother to learn the spellcasting rules and only focused on Indy Ploy antics and hitting stuff with his lute. Hence, Edgin forgets about his powers because his player also forgets about his powers.
- In Godzilla (2014), Big G only uses his atomic breath twice, and doesn't think to use it on the flying MUTO (which he can't attack otherwise when it's flying away) or when he was getting pummeled by both MUTOs at the same time.
- Hannibal: Somewhere between The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, Dr. Lecter forgot how to pick the lock on a set of handcuffs. Could be justified as Lecter not having the necessary tools on hand to pick the cuffs in the time frame available to him, as he now knows that the police are en route to his current location.
- Hook is about a grown-up Peter Pan that left Neverland, and has long since forgotten his powers. Peter hasn't just forgotten how to fly, but has a fear of heights. So, when he's reunited with Tinker Bell and the Lost Boys, he has to relearn his powers so that he can save his children from Captain Hook and his pirates.
- I Am Number Four: John is an alien with a wide variety of superhuman powers, including super strength. While he uses it once early on to put down a bully, he conveniently forgets his wide variety of powers for the rest of the movie so that Jerk Jock Mark can push him around. When John finally does remember he has powers, he slaps down Mark's whole gang.
- The Last Airbender:
- This trope is basically the only excuse for why the Fire Nation imprisonment of the Earthbenders didn't fail in five minutes flat. In the cartoon that the film was based upon, their not doing any bending was completely justified as they were on a metallic platform in the middle of the ocean, with no earth in convenient distance. In the movie, they're at a mine. As in, surrounded by dirt and rocks. They outnumber their Fire Nation guards by a minimum of a dozen to one. The very weak "their spirits are broken" excuse is washed away by a speech that boils down to "You're Earth-benders. You're completely surrounded by dirt and rocks. DO SOMETHING." They effectively imprisoned a bunch of soldiers, made them use their loaded guns to dig holes, and the soldiers never thought to shoot.
- The movie also changes things so Firebenders need an external source for their power to work, so they need to keep torches and braziers everywhere for their bending to work. Nobody ever seems to realize that these limited sources of fire can be put out, or even thinks to extinguish nearby sources of fire whenever they see the Fire Nation coming, in order to deny them ammo.
- When the Ents attacks Isengard in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Saruman had previously shown the ability to levitate an enemy and toss him through the air, and to call down storms and avalanches from dozens if not hundreds of miles away, and Treebeard predicts that the Ents are probably doomed fighting against him. But during the battle, Saruman just watches in horror without attempting any magic whatsoever. Averted in the book, where he actually fights back and launches jets of fire at the Ents, but still loses.
- The Neverending Story:
- In The Next Chapter, Bastian has to save Fantasia with the help of the Auryn, which can grant him any wish he wants. He never thinks to wish for weapons, or an army, or even that Fantasia just be saved. Instead he wishes for things like a can of spray paint and individual steps to climb a huge cliff. He only has a limited number of wishes before running out of memories (each wish removes a memory, though at the time he gets it, he's unaware of this, so he had no reason to limit his wishes).
- This gets even worse in Escape from Fantasia, where again Bastian has the Auryn and this time he has no limitations to using it aside from being told he can't just wish everyone back into Fantasia. There is literally no end to the things he could wish for to outright solve his problem or at least help him. It's especially glaring that this time around his opponents are just a group of bullies: he could wish he were strong enough to fight them, for them to give up, for them to turn on each other, for the book to stop working for them, for them to lose the book, for them to give the book back, for the cops to just arrest them, for wrought-iron cages to appear around them, for their hearts to stop... and so on.
- In Sherlock Holmes (2009), Holmes never tries his Sherlock Scan on the main Giant Mook, leading to multiple Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh... moments for someone who's supposed to be a Great Detective. More glaringly, Holmes earlier used it to soundly beat an almost-as-big Brute in a pit fight.
- In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), we're shown (repeatedly) that Sonic can move so quickly when he's in danger that time almost stands still around him. Yet when Tom shoots at him with a tranquilizer gun he makes no attempt to run or move out of the way. Even though he's able to move out of the way of incoming missiles, apparently a tranquilizer gun is the only thing that'll take him down. This is never addressed or explained, so the only reason why Sonic doesn't move out of the way seems to be because the plot says so. One possible justification is that Sonic knows Tom and considers him a friend (even thought they'd never actually met before that moment), and thus was so shocked that Tom fired the tranquilizer gun that he didn't react in time.
- In Spider-Man 2, Doctor Octopus fights Spider-Man by repeatedly grabbing him with his robot tentacles and slamming him into walls and such. A few moments later it is revealed that at least one of those tentacles contained a long retractable blade which he could've simply stabbed the wall-crawler with. He goes for a single swing with this blade, misses, and never uses it again. May be an example of Octavius's remaining control of himself, as he resists the notion of committing blatant murder.
- The Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers have rifles that come with underbarrel shotguns and nuclear rocket launchers, yet they seem to rely almost entirely on their regular firing mode — even when faced with instances where such weapons would be most effective, such as close combat with the Bugs or when facing a horde of thousands of bunched-together aliens charging their fixed positions. Justified since the movie satirizes Hollywood Tactics.
- In Star Trek: Generations, the Enterprise D sustains fatal damage when the Duras sisters manage to get hold of its shield frequency, allowing their weapons to pierce the Enterprise's shields. It never occurs to any of the main characters to simply change the shield frequency when this happens, even though it was the first thing they tried during a similar situation in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1" (and in that case, Data was able to rotate the shield frequencies so quickly even the Borg couldn't keep up with him, forcing them to drain the shields instead — something the decrepit old Bird of Prey the Duras sisters were using couldn't have managed). The real reason behind this is the producers wanted to destroy the Enterprise-D so that they could build a new Enterprise that would look better in the cinema format for the next film, but they could have come up with a better way to do it.
- Star Wars:
- The prequels retroactively introduce this trope to the original trilogy by establishing that R2-D2 has the ability to fly and torch his opponents, something he never does in the original trilogy even though it would have been useful to do so. Word of God has it that R2's rocket boosters broke at some point in the intervening years, and Industrial Automaton (the company that makes R2 units) no longer manufactures that part. It's possible that the torch had simply been swapped out for other equipment that's more useful to R2's primary roles of interfacing with computers and repairing engines.
- Force Speed is a nifty trick the Jedi can use, first seen when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan flee from the Droideka in the The Phantom Menace. The Jedi never use it again in the rest of the movies despite all times it could've been very useful, although they Hand Wave this by explaining in supplementary material that it's draining to use and requires a longer recovery period. Despite this, it pops up much more frequently in the Star Wars Legends novels and games, and in the Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures shorts Anakin is seen using it in a fight against Dooku.
- Revenge of the Sith begins with the Battle of Coruscant where Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter gets swarmed by Buzz Droids (gremlin-like machines designed to cling on and sabotage enemy ships), with Anakin attempting various tactics, including trying to shoot the droids off without hitting Obi-Wan's ship and ramming their fighter's wings together until Obi-Wan tells Anakin "stop it, you're gonna get us both killed!" — somehow it never occurs to either Jedi they can Force-push the droids away, considering previous movies established the Force does work behind barriers, and even on objects the user can't see (case in point, Obi-Wan grabbing Qui-Gon's lightsaber while dangling from a pit in The Phantom Menace). Interestingly enough, Star Wars: The Clone Wars does rectify the issue with Anakin getting his ship swarmed by Buzz Droids in a separate battle, most of which he Force-pushed away only for a dozen of the droids to cling on and sabotage his ship's underside.
- In The Rise of Skywalker, the first shot we see of Rey is her meditating... 10 feet off the ground. Later, when she has to both get to and then traverse the interior of the ruins of the second Death Star, she completely forgets (or ignores) that she can fly, and only uses her old scavenger climbing skills onscreen. Until she fights Kylo Ren minutes later, when she uses a Force Jump, albeit with a metaphorical run-up.note Specifically, her anger had taken her closer and closer to the Dark Side.
- The Sword of Swords seemingly runs on this trope for its entire second half. The titular Cool Sword is an enchanted weapon capable of generating tornadoes and gusts of wind each swing, and the hero, Lin Jen-Shiau, is entrusted to be its protector, especially when a betrayal from Lin's former mentor Fang Shih-Hsiung leads to the entire martial arts school getting slaughtered. Lin spends most of the movie on the run with his wife and newborn baby son while carrying said sword, fleeing from assassins sent by Fang at every turn, but somehow it never occurs to Lin that he can use the all-powerful magic weapon he's carrying to kick ass (note that the master's instructions for Lin is to guard the sword — he's not forbidden from using it). It leads to the sword eventually falling into Fang's hands, Lin's wife and child getting abducted, Lin blinded by Fang's darts and left for the dead, and a whole village who offered Lin refuge massacred by Fang's minions; predictably in the final battle when Lin confronts his enemy, of course Big Bad Fang uses the sword to his advantage by blasting Lin with powerful wind gusts.
- In Ultraman Saga, Ultraman Cosmos completely forgot about having the ability to transform into forms that are stronger than Luna Mode, even though he was attempting to bring lethal force to bear on Alien Bat and Hyper Zetton. No explanation is ever given for this.
- X-Men Film Series:
- X2: X-Men United: Wolverine realizes that Mystique is disguised as Jean Grey by feeling the scars on her belly rather than by her smell, which he was established to be able to do in the first film when she tried the same trick with Storm which was how Mystique got the scars in the first place.
- X-Men: Apocalypse: Quicksilver is able to spot Xavier's mansion in the process of blowing up and use his super-speed to save everyone, yet in the very next scene, he watches a bunch of armed men take aim at the students and fire without reacting (of course, after doing something that big, it's possible Pietro was just a bit tired).
Gamebooks
- In Lone Wolf, you have powers that can be useful in certain situation, but sometimes, the author forgets that the possibility you have that power may exist, and doesn't give you a choice to use the power. More commonly, the series has three levels of powers: Kai, Magnakai, and Grand Master. Most of the powers of one tier have lower powered equivalents amongst the lower tier. Similarly, someone of a higher tier always has all the powers of the lower tier, but only a select few of their given tier. This results in your character often being asked if he has a certain power appropriate for his tier (and bad stuff happening if you do not), but the author forgetting that there is no reason the lower tier equivalent — which everyone should have — could not be every bit as effective.
Theoretically, at least, if the higher Discipline is required, it's for something that the lesser Discipline can't handle for some reason (you see this all the time in Grand Master, particularly with Kai-screen). Justified, for the most part... simple Mind over Matter should not allow you to grab a big, heavy key on the opposite side of the room while you're behind a locked door. Still, there are numerous instances where you SHOULD be able to use Pathsmanship, or Huntmastery, or (most often) Divination, or at least get some explanation as to why you can't. (You don't need Telegnosis to spirit-walk, it just makes it easier.) Then there's the issue of the myriad Combat Skill and Endurance benefits you get from certain Disciplines, all of which need to be properly balanced... and some of which, unfortunately, don't make a lot of sense (in New Grand Master, you have the same Combat Skill whether or not you're armed). As you might imagine, it's not exactly easy to write these things.
Myths & Religion
- Ramayana:
- As an avatar of Vishnu, Rama should be completely over-powered in the human realm. Instead, Rama seems to forget that he is a god until the other gods remind him. In the original version of the poem, Valmiki's version, this happens more than once.
- When Hanuman was a child, he was blessed with many divine powers. He used to harass the sages out of childish exuberance. So the sages cursed him to forget about his powers. It was only after being reminded by the bear king, Jambavan, that Hanuman recalled them.
Podcasts
- The Tres Horny Boys of The Adventure Zone: Balance often forget their massive amount of magical items, even when it would be really helpful. They occasionally lampshade it.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- In the cosmology, the Demon Lord Kostchtchie, a brute with influence over cold, rage, and frost giants, has many powerful spell-like abilities at his disposal, including Harm, Ice Storm, Unholy Blight, and Greater Dispel Magic. But despite how powerful and useful they are, according to one source, he has such a rotten temper that he often forgets about them completely and just charges into battle with his warhammer. (Of course, with a title like The Prince of Wrath, it isn't surprising.)
- This happens in general to Dungeons & Dragons players, especially as they attain higher levels and have amassed a big catalog of magical artifacts, spells, and such. Forgetting about fantastic powers and resorting to mundane utility is one of the many jokes surrounding the 10-foot pole.
- Mechanically enforced by barbarian rage. One of the effects in almost all editions is that while raging, the character forgets how to use spells, spell-like abilities, and skills involving concentration.
- Can also happen when the Dungeonmaster is playing powerful, high-level NPCs who have so many spells and special abilities, that it's hard to remember them all.
- Exalted players, especially in high-Essence games, can have characters with so many Charms that they can't remember all of the ones they have, let alone what all of them do. This can result in players realizing, after the fact, that the mess they just got themselves into could have been completely avoided if only they'd used a Charm they forgot about.
- An article in Dragon #135 described an incident in a Marvel Super Heroes RPG campaign where a supervillain had captured all the PCs, neutralized their known powers, and was preparing to use them as a power source for a magical ritual. At the very last minute, one of the players remembered their character had a Psychic Link with a hawk that they rarely, if ever, used. The GM ruled that since the player almost forgot about that ability, the villains didn't know about it (and hence didn't neutralize it). The player had the hawk fly into the villain's headquarters and free one of the heroes, who freed the rest of the team, and the newly released heroes defeated the surprised villains.
- The 4th Edition era Champions supplement Golden Age Heroes includes a Superman expy that had, among his other powers, super intelligence that only kicked in if he made an intelligence roll at his normal default. It was explained that he had to remember he had super-intelligence in order to use it.
- DC Heroes had a game where the player-character, Superman, had to break through a wall and decide whether to spend time repairing it (and losing points) before continuing on his mission. The writers must have forgotten that in the DCH system, super-speed allows you to vibrate through walls, because if Superman does so, he can end the game with a better than perfect score.
- Justified in Fate, where a character’s Aspects are always true but require the use of a Fate Point to put into play. So in-universe, it may look like a character has forgotten a useful ability until it’s dramatically convenient, but in a meta sense, the character has to wait until the points are available.
- GURPS has the Forgetful quirk, which indicates that the character often forgets about their powers and equipment, and fails to use them when appropriate. As the description says, the GM may encourage a forgetful player to take this quirk on their character.
- In Warhammer 40,000, Space Marines of Adeptus Astartes are heavily modified humans with a number of backup special abilities, ranging from useful (entering vegetable state instead of dying to mortal wounds) to useful but bizarre (absorbing living creatures' memories by eating their flesh) to bizarre yet questionably useful (spitting acid). Instances in official Warhammer media where space marines actually do any of this are so scarce that it overlaps with Informed Ability.
Toys
- From BIONICLE:
- After a rockfall has buried his pal Pohatu, Kopaka gives up on trying to locate him and instead heads for Pohatu's village to report some sad news, only for Pohatu to show up alive — which Kopaka would have noticed, had he thought of using the Mask of X-Ray Vision that's almost constantly on his face.
- This becomes a recurring trend; once all the masks are collected (twice), the Toa Mata all have twelve different extra powers on top of their elemental abilities to call on at willnote super-strength, super speed, water breathing, a defensive force field, levitation, X-ray vision, invisibility, illusions, telekinesis, night vision, translating any language, and mind control. Outside of some of the online animations, they basically never use these abilities other than that of their original mask, and even then, there's a lot of times where, for instance, Tahu seems to forget to turn on his Mask of Shielding and gets smacked in the face in the middle of a fight.
- In the 2004-2005 Metru Nui flashback story arc, it's shown that the Dark Hunter Krekka, a Dumb Muscle, can fly but frequently forgets this.
- Makuta Icarax suffers greatly after being devolved back to his part-organic state, since there's no room in his armor for organs and muscle. Considering Makuta are master shapeshifters, he could have at least tried to fit his armor to his predicament. Makuta in general seem to have a habit of using about three of the forty-two different Rakhshi powers at their disposal; Word of God states they can only use one of these 42 powers at a time; in addition, they can't use their shapeshifting, dodge, or chameleon powers if they're in a different body (such as a Maxilos robot).
Visual Novels
- Fate/stay night:
- It's not entirely Lancer's fault considering he's been ordered not to just kill everyone (and he actually likes having to put effort into a fight rather than just winning), but he almost never uses his Noble Phantasm to kill someone — the only time he kills someone (Shirou in the intro, himself and Kotomine in UBW) is when he's doing regular stabbing. Just as well though, considering when he does use it, the enemies pull out their own abilities to survive it.
- Gilgamesh is the king of this trope, but it's justified due to his massive pride: He just never considers anyone 'worthy' of going all out on from the start, and by the time he realizes maybe he should, he's already a foot in the grave.
- In Hatoful Boyfriend, main character Hiyoko Tosaka is repeatedly shown to physically outclass almost every single character, being an absurdly strong and physically fit human surrounded by civilised birds. There are multiple occasions where she's shown to be capable of picking up and even throwing her schoolmates simply by advantage of size. But this doesn't help for some reason in Shuu's route, in which a severely physically disabled partridge manages to overpower her and cut her head off without being injured in the process, supposedly because she's paralysed by fear (of a person several times smaller, lighter and weaker than she is). Yes, that's right, Hiyoko manages to forget what species she is. "Just throw him out the fucking window!" is practically a meme amongst Hatoful Boyfriend fans because of how obvious it is as a solution.
- As a plot point in Kagetsu Tohya, Shiki doesn't remember that he has the ability to cut or destroy almost anything just by taking his glasses off and poking it with an ordinary knife. It turns out this information is being kept from him and remembering them is required to progress the plot along. He then does forget about it in the final battle, even mentioning that he legitimately forgot he can take off his glasses and kill anything.
- In Riddle Joker, Ayase's Astral ability allows her to make objects attract or repel one another, and she utilizes it more than once for the benefit of the group, but it's rare for her to bust it out when she's in danger. This is because she actually isn't an Astral but uses a Kikka Academy-developed drug to temporarily imbue her with the power beforehand if she knows she'll need it. She poses as an Astral so anti-Astral groups will see her as a juicy target without being able to use her for anything should they capture her.
Webcomics
- If anyone in Axe Cop remembered to use the Reality Warper powers granted by a unicorn horn (or ask Uni-Man to do it) to solve their problems, instead of for things like "wishing for every weapon", there would be no challenge at all for the good guys. Any random guy holding a unicorn horn to their head can instantly create a whole planet at will. In addition, Axe Cop himself is functionally a Badass Normal because while he sometimes gets New Powers as the Plot Demands, some of which are powerful indeed, he generally never uses them again. Though since the comic is written by a small child, it's not really surprising.
- Bob and George:
- George has real trouble with this. At one point he spends an entire Mega Man game parody dangling from the ceiling, only being reminded that he has electricity powers after he's let down; his resultant rage explosion levels Wily's fortress. Him actually starting to remember his various powers is part of him taking a level in badass - although even in the final battle, he races over to look at something important on the top of a building while the other characters comment that he could just use his bionic eye to zoom in.
George: (on being suspended from a ceiling for the third time) You can't do this! You can't do this! Wait...you can't do this to me. [starts glowing]
- Several strips imply that Mega Man has access to all the abilities of previously defeated Robot Masters - for example, Magnet Man's powers are noted to make him EMP-resistant - but even within the game parodies they rarely come up and he sticks to the current run of Robot Masters, and it can't even be blamed on his stupidity because he's programmed to get smarter when fighting Robot Masters. His ability to teleport also pops in and out of use at random. Subverted during the Mega Man 4 parody, though; it looks like he's forgotten he can teleport after he drags himself miles on the broken stumps of his limbs, but midway through lamenting his stupidity, he remembers that it's broken, much like every other part of his body.
Mega Man: All these stupid enemies! Why do I have to fight them all over again?! And this stupid jetpack weighs a ton! [Beat Panel] Why am I so stupid?
- George has real trouble with this. At one point he spends an entire Mega Man game parody dangling from the ceiling, only being reminded that he has electricity powers after he's let down; his resultant rage explosion levels Wily's fortress. Him actually starting to remember his various powers is part of him taking a level in badass - although even in the final battle, he races over to look at something important on the top of a building while the other characters comment that he could just use his bionic eye to zoom in.
- Darths & Droids: Jim, who is a ditz of the highest order, forgets what abilities his characters have (or sometimes don't have) with some regularity. During his fight with Darth Maul, Sally as Jar-Jar has to remind him he can just use the Force to escape.
- Done several times in The Order of the Stick, and usually played for laughs to parody one of the cases in above D&D entry:
- One early comic has a goblin get more and more damaged as Durkon remembers the various bonuses he could've added to his attack.
- V's raven familiar Blackwing would literally appear and disappear as V demands (and usually only upon reminder from other characters) as a riff on the way that many D&D players would forget about their familiar (or simply not mention them) unless they were getting a concrete bonus.
- In a retroactive case, while falling to his death Roy desperately searches his inventory to save himself, and finds two potions (shillelagh oil and delay poison) that would have immediately solved two prior problems (making an Improvised Weapon in a fight and saving one of his teammates from poisoning, respectively) had he remembered them at the time.
- Being The Ditz, Elan had a major tendency to forget his spellcasting early on, such that you could probably count on one hand the spells he casts in the first two hundred or so comics. His status as something of an Inept Mage further contributes to this. It actually ends up being a plot point in one comic, where, after a long siege where the other two casters of the party are completely out of juice, Elan turns out to have only cast one spell in the entire battle.
- The heroes are not the only ones to fall into this trap. When the Linear Guild is figuring out how to interrogate a captive monster, Nale has to remind his succubus partner Sabine that she can use telepathy.
Sabine: Don't judge me. Some of us are out here with a whole wall of text in our monster entry. TL, DR: demon things.
- El Goonish Shive:
- During the Death Sentence arc, Grace convinced👁 Image
Mr. Raven that she would be able to fly out of the boar's way if it turned violent. When it actually does start charging at her, she panics, tries to run, and trips,👁 Image
forcing Raven to shoot it.👁 Image
She later chides herself👁 Image
for her failing. - Happens in the NP Parable storyline by way of Cutscene Incompetence. When a cutscene begins, Susan finds herself👁 Image
being forced to charge the enemy head-on without using her Time Master magic, and is hit with a shrinking potion which she has to endure despite having hundreds of antidotes👁 Image
; this also means Rhoda prioritizes curing her, letting the villain escape. Susan, of course, Lampshades this by pointing out every way she could've fixed the problem herself while she's forced to make these actions. She then proceeds to try to break the plot for the rest of the storyline to prevent further cutscenes, and when she realizes she won't be able to avoid the final one, she invokes Take Your Time until she can find a different workaround.
- During the Death Sentence arc, Grace convinced👁 Image
- Experience Boost: Shortly after xMurderBanex's Big Damn Heroes moment, Zhusen sincerely thanks Murd for his Heroic Sacrifice and goes to rejoin the battle...only for her to remember she has the Pull of Mercy👁 Image
ability, and could have yanked him to safety before he died. Whoops.
Web Original
- In Enter the Farside it's averted and justified with the main protagonist Shaun Larson. Shaun has never had an opportunity to use his powers in his day to day life, because he simply has never needed to. After some training, Shaun is beginning to understand what else he can be capable of.
Web Videos
- In the Akame Ga Kill abridged series made by "The Schmuck Squad", Tatsumi, seeking to get away from his unwanted girlfriend of terror, Esdeath, finally decides to use the Imperial Arm ability that Bulat gives upon his death to Tatsumi, deeming him worthy of it. Tatsumi even mentions this in his thoughts after dispatching the Christmas-empowered trees he and Wave were sent out to kill, Tatsumi escapes👁 Image
afterwards using said Imperial Arm's effects.Tatsumi: Totally forgot I had an Imperial Arm, very useful. - Dragon Ball Z Abridged lampshades this whenever possible, given how many times the source material did it.
- When Piccolo stretches his arms to attack an enemy...
Nail: Whoa! I didn't know we could do that!
Piccolo: Yeah, I forget about it sometimes too. - And further lampshaded in Super Android 13 Abridged. When Goku and Trunks see Vegeta transform into a Super Saiyan, they only just remember that they can do it too and follow suit. Gohan and Krillin have this brief exchange.
Gohan: Uh, why did it take so long for them to [go Super Saiyan]?
Krillin: You know, I stopped asking that question a long time ago. - And then there's all the times Krillin keeps forgetting about or forgetting to use his Kienzan (or "Destructo Disc"). First, he forgets to use it to try and escape Dodoria.
Krillin: Well, good thing I was there to get us out of that one!
Gohan: Well yeah, but why didn't you use your Kienzan? - It happens again after Krillin escaped 2nd Form Freeza:
Krillin: (explaining) ... So I thought fast and used the Solar Flare on him!
Gohan: And then you used your Kienzan to cut him in half?
Krillin: Umm...
(suddenly, Freeza flies back at the gang, furious)
Freeza: I WILL MOUNT YOUR HEAD WHERE MY TAIL USED TO BE!
Krillin: To answer your question Gohan... No. I did not do that. - This happens yet a THIRD time when Freeza is transforming into his Final Form. However, if he is telling the truth, he is partially justified here.
Gohan: (Freeza screaming in the background) Krillin, why aren't you using your Kienzan?
Krillin: You know, I keep forgetting to do that.
Gohan: ...And?
Krillin: Well, I kind of used all my energy to mortally wound Vegeta.
Gohan: Seriously, what did I miss? - Double-subverted the one time Krillin DOES manage to remember he has this ability, which is when it is completely useless. When Cell has just achieved perfection, Krillin slings a Kienzan right into Cell's neck, but it does nothing. However, his reaction👁 Image
is priceless. - When Tien is about to be finished off by Semi-Perfect Cell:
Gohan: No! We can't just let him die like this! [to Goku] You gotta save him!
Goku: But I can't get him in time! There's no way I could move fast enough to grab him, get out, and— (pauses for a moment, then disappears with a pop as he uses Instant Transmission)
Gohan: ...Did he just remember he can do that?
Mr. Popo: Your father's an idiot. - Shenron in particular loves to get angry at people whenever they call on him and use his powers as a nearly omnipotent wish-granting dragon inefficiently. For instance, he is rather annoyed when Dr. Kochin wishes for Shenron to melt some ice, instead of wishing for, say, fire powers to melt the ice (Kochin responds that he doesn't want to have to do it; that's what Shenron is for). He also explicitly points out to the protagonists that while he can't kill the Saiyans directly, they require ships that he could destroy, disable, or redirect en route to Earth with no effort. Naturally, they ignore him.
- When Piccolo stretches his arms to attack an enemy...
- Oxventure D&D series:
- Paladin Egbert reveals that, ever since Story 12, he had the ability to teleport up to 30 feet away. This is revealed in Story 35. Literally everyone, including the DM, mentally breaks upon receiving this information.
Johnny: We could make our own spin-off revisiting all of the times the show could've gone differently if we knew Egbert could teleport.
- This is by no means Egbert's only example. In an "Court in the Act", Egbert volunteers himself as a defense attorney for Dob and Corazon. Corazon knows that as a paladin, Egbert's skill Zone of Truth would be endlessly useful in cross-examinations, and repeatedly hints that Egbert should use it. Egbert completely misses the clue.
- In "Elf Hazard", when surrounded by the kind of malevolent ghosts that Egbert's abilities would be really strong against, Mike has Egbert grab a crowbar and try to physically rip a cursed brooch off Merilwen, rather than attempting to smite or use turn the faithless.
Andy: (sounding utterly defeated) Why are you a paladin?
- In "Sail of the Century", Egbert would also reveal that he can perform Moonbeam, which until that point had long been considered a signature ability of Merilwen. The DM has also forgotten that Egbert could do this. Merilwen herself would later find out at the beginning of "Brine and Punishment."
- At the end of "Brine and Punishment", Egbert suddenly remembers and casually reveals that he can also perform Speak with Animals, another one of Merilwen's signature abilities, which infuriates Merilwen to the point of speechlessness.
- During the "Freaky Friday" Flip episode "A Fête Worse Than Death", Andy goes so far as to read through all of Egbert's abilities and make a point of using ones that Mike keeps forgetting Egbert can do, including turn the faithless and one that creates a protective ward around a party member, neither of which Mike had actually deployed before and neither of which Mike remembers to use with any reliability afterwards. (Andy doesn't get it all his own way, admittedly; at one point Ellen, who's been handed Corazon's sheet for the duration, makes sure to specify that she's using the shortbow Andy by that point hadn't touched in several years.)
Andy: (holding up a spell card) He has literally never mentioned this one. I can think of like five times that would have come in handy.
- In "Wedded Redemption", the group is interrogating a sommelier. Egbert tries to intimidate him by hitting him with his mace. With this, Mike proves he can also forget about how Egbert's mace has a 1 in 6 chance to turn an enemy into a random animal, when the sommelier turns into a piercer. This is despite the fact that Seal Gaiman, his prop seal that Mike brought out the last time he turned someone into an animal, is right in front of him. Of course, Andy is also tells Egbert to use Zone of Truth to interrogate the sommelier.
- In a comparatively rare non-Egbert example, Jane generally remembers Prudence's warlock powers fairly well, but often forgets that as a tiefling she has an innate counterattack ability called hellish rebuke. Jane was also given a bonus non-warlock spell at the beginning of the Orbpocalypse Saga and forgot to even pick one because she got sidetracked by her warlock level-up spells.
- Paladin Egbert reveals that, ever since Story 12, he had the ability to teleport up to 30 feet away. This is revealed in Story 35. Literally everyone, including the DM, mentally breaks upon receiving this information.
- In Pooh's Adventures, if Pooh has anyone with superpowers, expect them to forget about those when the time is right.