Trope Talk: My Powers Are Gone!
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- čas přidán 27. 09. 2018
- Bad news, gang. You know how I can normally bench-press a house and turn bullets into confetti with my brain? Well I'm experiencing some technical difficulties and long story short please keep me alive until this gets fixed I have no idea how you all handle being so squishy all the time.
I'm a fan of this trope (love me some non-disruptive drama that loops back to a nice comfy status quo at the end), but like all tropes it can be done very badly. What's your favorite and/or LEAST favorite execution of this trope?
Sometimes I wonder if the Justice League episode "Hereafter" was a specific counter to the common fan argument that Superman is the only useless member of the League when he loses his powers (Wonder Woman being a highly trained warrior, GL being a marine, etc). He handled himself pretty well stranded powerless on a hostile alienish world for weeks - plus he grew that fantastic beard!
EXAMPLES USED: Spider-Man 2, Avatar: The Last Airbender ("The Library", s2e10), Justice League: Unlimited ("Hereafter", s2e10-11), Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes ("Everything Is Wonderful", s1e25), Justice League: Unlimited ("The Once And Future Thing", s1e12), Justice League (s2e3), Superman: The Animated Series ("The Way Of All Flesh", s1e7), Supergirl ("Human For A Day", s1e7), The Flash ("Power Outage", s1e7), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood ("Father", e28), Danny Phantom ("Maternal Instincts", s1e16), Green Lantern: The Animated Series ("Razer's Edge", e3), Teen Titans ("Stranded", s4e8), Inuyasha ("Fateful Night in Togenkyo", e57-58), Inuyasha ("The Mystery of the New Moon and the Black-Haired Inuyasha", e13), Batman Beyond ("Lost Soul", s2e4), Trollhunters ("Claire and Present Danger", s1e12), Thor, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes ("Alone Against AIM", s2e2), Wolverine and the X-Men ("Guardian Angel", e19), Superman: The Animated Series ("Solar Power", s2e11), Uncanny X-Men (issue #379), Justice League ("The Savage Time", s1e24-26)
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Option 1: “Shit I broke my phone”
Option 2: “Someone stole my phone”
Option 3: “My phone’s battery is dying”
Option 4: “The cell tower is broken”
I think 4 is closer to, Damn, atnt fucked up again
Correction: option 2: I am addicted to my phone so I will throw it away
Option 3 someone stole my phone
Not yet mentioned Option 5, I did something bad so now I must lock away my powers: “I’m grounded”
Option 6: "Oh my powers are gone? Good." czcams.com/video/nL8hVXSDmNM/video.html
Yep, pretty much the Millennial equivalent of losing one's powers.
My powers have been gone since birth and it hasn't made my story more interesting.
You mean the power of not being alive? Yeah, I lost that power too. Now everything just sucks.
Wow, relatable content right there
Naw, you're just being very lazy in your arc to reclaim your powers. You should go out and pursue it, already.
You're just in the middle of your arc, you'll figure it out eventually.
But think of all the character development you've gone through without your powers!
Ben 10 was basically an entire series of “powers are out, time to wait out the clock until they come back” moments.
Yeah, but they pulled it off just perfectly(or at least in the first 3 seasons) it always was fun when he lost it for a lot longer time or it went out of control but because it happens a lot ben always is a badass in this situations and know how to handle himself, even when he could've transformed but he didn't need to because it is just too easy at this point to even bother turning was awesome.
Years later, I still remember the Omnitrix's "out of power" beep.
And when the show did do a "lost powers" episode, it was always more creative than just "no omnitrix", it was him getting stuck as grey matter and abducted, or getting weaker hybrid versions of his aliens.
Yeah
The best trope that the classic Ben 10 uses all the time, basically what gives it it's unique taste.
Permanent power loss is so depressing because a hero losing their superpowers is like an artist losing their eye sight or a musician losing their hearing. They lose a major part of who they are, and even if they want to continue their life work, they need to seriously figure out how to work around their new situation. Not to mention their normal life would be seriously effected as well. Aka. being disabled is not fun.
@Veronica Felkner Friendly reminder that Beethoven's hearing only began to deteriorate after he was an adult and fully taught, and he was so distraught over the slow degredation of his hearing he not only stopped appearing and performing publicly, but actually debated suicide.
On the flipside these can have some of the best feeling pay offs when done right. The whole "Handicapped" Vs. "Handicapable" outlook and development.
Super late but i feel like the anime Bleach does this pretty well. Ichigo is a character who(like nearly every other shonen protagonist) wants to protect everyone. After losing his powers, he has to live as a regular human for a while before eventually meeting someone who gives his the ability to fight properly again(fullbring) only to have it taken from him again, which leads to him completely breaking down. He gets them back again of course but the whole character arc is a rollercoaster lol
Just Ask Barbara, she got shot and lost her legs thous losing her old ID as Batgirl and lives life in a wheelchair and going by a new name so not a completely depressing complete power loss example.
@@chrisbrasel8060 yeah but the new 52 gave her legs back so
Inuyasha, the one anime where being human is the equivalent of a menstrual cycle.
...it’s yearly though.
Shining Darkness it’s with the moon nor yearly
Hahahahaha. But it is so true.
Whoa. I always thought of him like some sort of reverse werewolf.
@@IWouldntIfICould I like this one. It makes sense... Strangely
I want a show based on option 3 where a character is super powerful but ONLY when they're NOT in a conflict.
You can cook your breakfast with your lazor eyes, but the second the bad guy shows up you're gunna have to fisticuff them.
That would be really interesting. Maybe their powers are shut off by adrenaline. Or maybe they don't believe in using their powers against people.
Make an anime
Maybe someone has powers based on however people view them. Like a guy that can be a literal superhero around his kid but is just clumsy and tongue tied when working since his boss thinks he's a useless idiot. When it came to bad guys he'd have to make a specific first impression and their conceptions would power/depower him.
that would make for an amazing comedy superhero show
Kaylee Dalton, could have a plot arc as the character develops zen and a way to remain calm in a fight, allowing him to still use his powers so long as he doesn’t let them control him (if you will).
"A wooden gun!" - Magneto circa 1960.
Reminds me of that time that some country ran out of metal and made single-use cannons out of leather.
That gun has the ability to take the life of will to live.
*puts him in a metal car*
Magneto, five minutes later: "wait a minute."
Heh, I'm just imagining my main character losing his powers then continuing to kick ass and the villain is all confused.
"I stole your powers. You're nothing!"
"I've had those powers two months tops, Ive been a badass since long before then!"
What about both taking his powers and breaking his legs ?
@@nekoqueen5524 ...Do you mean Deku from my hero academia if he ever had to fight against a mind-controlled Aizawa
@@danabinghammclaughlin919 That would be interesting
Why is child jotaro the first one that came to my mind reading this?
What about LeMillion?
"If you kill me, you'll be just like everybody else!!"
"And what's so wrong with that?"
Had to look that one up. Overall I'm pretty "meh" about the Guardians, but that was an epic line. I kinda wish Red had discussed sacrificing powers a bit because that can go in so many directions from "I am not my powers" to "worst mistake of my life".
Other relevant quotes that came to mind:
"I'm not going to become anything. I've always been an ordinary human"
and
"People die when they are killed"
@@willieoelkers5568 Guardians and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood are my favorite examples of the powers sacrifice.
when he lost his powers I actually didn't know that was what he meant, also Yando's death is probably the most hard hitting death I have ever seen
@@Aquilenne I love that one even though I don't know where it's from also "you killed me but I didn't die"
"The Iron Man types, who built their superpowers, aren't likely to freak out"
Laughs in Iron Man 3
Well, to be fair, Stark's freak-out in that wasn't due to the suits, but his near-death experience in Avengers, he essentially had a bad case of PTSD
@@DavidbarZeus1 and he was fairly competent without the suits anyway
Red: An argument can be made that the powers contained in that suit don’t really reflect on the person wearing it.
Me: “TONY STARK BUILT THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!”
However, a case where they ARE likely to freak out would be "Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel", where Doofenshmirtz's Power-Drain-Inator saps Iron Man of his suit's Battery power and temporarily paralyzes him.
Well shit, looks like im gonna have a heart attack again.
Master Wu literally every season: "You've all become too reliant on your powers. You're lazy."
Me: How tf are they supposed to rely on powers they never seem to have?
With how commonly used the losing powers trope is in the show is I expected more Ninjago comments here.
and given that they don't have them half the time how would they not be able to focus without them?
And don't get me started on the dragons.
@@markerikson7423 New trope talk:
My dragons are gone!
@@markerikson7423 Ikr. As a kid, me and my friend just decided that the dragons died, because that was the only explanation we could come up with for why they suddenly disappeared and are mostly never mentioned again.
Option 5: “I-killed-my-best-friend-with-my-superpowers-so-of-course-they-must-be-locked-away-forever„
Shows up fairly often, but imo pretty frustrating cuz' you KNOW the guy is just gonna use his powers whenever he wants again after 20 episodes of pointlessness
Like in the crystal dimension episode of adventure time. It was so annoying watching Jake try to save Finn without using his powers
The only time i feel this is annoying is when something important is at stake and the character still doesn't use their powers. Besides that, it can be used for some interesting character development moments.
Depends highly on how much control the hero actually has over his power (i.e. how rational it is to blame the bad things that happended to the power and how likely it is that the power could cause something horrible again) and what the stakes are in a given situation (possible damage done by using the power vs. damage done by not using it and risking the antagonist to win).
Lucas Miller reminds me of Rurouni Kenshin... “I’ll never use my sword abilities or the name Battousai ever again,” but every episode man... 😂 And then in the manga when he needed to use it the most he kept the sword chained because he blamed himself for Kaoru’s ‘death,’ until the very last moment of course
Depends. As Red so frequently points out, the important thing is to remember to explore how the character functions in the new setting. If the character actually processes the incident and explores the underlying issues and why their knee-jerk oath was stupid this can make a really good plot.
I'd love to see one of these with "Doppelganger does bad thing, protag is blamed for bad thing"
If she doesn't bring up Zelda Four Swords Adventure I'd be mad.
@@BadWolf739 or sonic adventure
@@BadWolf739 Super Mario Sunshine
Captain America Civil war? If you consider Bucky a protagonist
@@petermarsella6537 People confusing things that aren't Sonic for Sonic is wierdly common in that series.
This kinda reminds me of the one Disney movie Bolt. It's a story about a dog named Bolt that has "superpowers" and protects his master from an evil organization. At least in the beginning, because it turns out this was all a T.V show and Bolt believes it all to be real. That is until, in the show, his master is kidnapped, but Bolt thinks she really has been taken and leaves the studio to find her. He ends up getting accidentally shipped across the country to New York where he meets a cat and later on a hamster who help him get home. He quickly realizes his "powers" aren't working and is very confused about it. Towards the middle of the movie, he figures out they were never real to begin with and has to learn what it's like to be a real dog.
Bolt is one of my favourite movies and it's a fascinating take on this trope
This is an interesting case because although Bolt never really had any powers to begin with, he'd been tricked for much of his life into believing he had superpowers, so the story is able to follow the same beats as a character that was legitimately de-powered.
Damn. Thanks for reminding me what a weird movie Bolt is.
And Bolt also has to learn how to deal with what most people would call normal life, since his life was nothing resembling normal, having grown up quite literally on a film set.
BOLT Zoom Zoom
I can't remember where exactly I got this from, but imagine a story where the protagonist is super powerful but the second they use their powers, the overwhelmingly powerful bad dude knows where the protagonist is, so the protagonist is stuck with bluffing, being clever, and using the least possible amount of power (because of course, the more you use, the brighter the locate-me-bad-dude-I'm-here beacon is).
If he can get by without the powers, then clearly he didn’t need them in the first place. ;)
Learning Leisure could still a last resort thing, like most of the time they're fighting average crooks or something but they're forced to use their powers and reveal their position when a more dangerous threat comes to town.
Fay from Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicles. He's not the protag but is a very skilled mage, that can't use his magic because someone/something he wants to avoid will find him if he does use magic.
It's a tad frustrating to see be kinda underused in that series but his arc is one of if not the best story in that manga/anime.
The One Ring from Lord of the Rings could qualify. You get cool invisibility powers when you put it on but then Sauron and his magical minions know EXACTLY where you are.
@@PhoenixFireKMS I think it depends on who has the ring what happens to the wearers. I think Frodo was an invisibility field whereas Sam kept getting mistaken for some great Elven warrior.
I think permenent or semi permenent loss of power is so upsetting because its basicaly watching your hero become disabled and thats something anyone can relate to at some level.
Plus, the loss of an identity is just devastating. It's like when you enter a new phase in your own life and suddenly everything feel out of place, when you yourself don't feel at home anywhere, anymore. Or when you lose a person dear to you and you have to question what your life is without them.
So I agree with you, but would also put it in broader terms - Loss hurts. Always. A lot.
Yeah it like losing your legs.
Exactly, it's not just "they're a normal person now" it's "they're this universe's equivalent of being disabled now"
Nobody is gonna care if the character lost their lazer eyes if they just used it to heat up their food in the morning because that's the equivalent of just not having a microwave and it's just annoying, but everyone is gonna be devasted at the hero that loses their wings because that's the real life equivalent of being paralyzed, it's depressing
I agree, exactly this. With becoming disabled myself, it's a pattern that I recognize pretty well. It's a process of grief of letting go of what the protagonist was once able to do.
Disabled, or simply getting old. Things that were once easy in your youth are now backbreakingly difficult, and there is a frustration and sometimes even shame in not being able to do the things you were once gifted at and took pride in.
And that's relatable because getting old is something that happens to pretty much everyone.
If it wasn't clear why permanent power-loss feels so devastating, the comparison to Bat-Girl's paralyzation should make it obvious. After all, becoming paraplegic is basically losing your legs "super"power. Even if losing your "wings" superpower or whatever just brings you down to a normal human level, it still brings you down; that means it's basically still a disability (especially if all the character's friends are still superhuman). And disabilities feel devastating.
It takes away the one thing that defines you, it makes you vulnerable and being vulnerable is bad and frightening for anyone and puts you in many disadvanteges........or they give you some perks like having the liscense to go to bus without having to buy a ticket XD.
But seriously, it's brutal.
Only problem with that is she got the ablity to walk again so it isn't eprminate.
@laz kar
Which is why using that conparison is bad... And totally agree. :( Everything has to go back to "normal" in some form.
"Oh no, I can't see anymore"
Toph: "Big Fucking Deal"
And what's usually regarded as even more tragic than "just" getting a disability? Getting a disability that explicitly prevents you from using a skill you were great at.
Like a violinist loosing their hands or an athlete losing their legs; losing the asset you invested a big deal of your life developing is a fear that most everyone can relate to at some level.
Iron Man losing his suit doesn't feel as devastating as Angel losing his wings, especially since he lost them not in battle or as an accident, but because his father was so bigoted he would rather mutilate his own son than accept him so he told the doctor to cut them off while his son was unconscious.
Losing a superpower you were born with is a hundred times worse than losing one you gained because, like you said, you have no basis of what life is like without it. You have to learn how to navigate the world all over again but you don't even have experience to work off of.
Zone Doll As one of the comments above said it’s basically like having a disability
Plus, we all know that Tony can just build another one once he gets back to his workshop/mansion. In a sense, his real superpower is his brain and knack for technology.
It'd be interesting to see a plot line where he lost that power somehow. Maybe age or disease, maybe one too many blows the head. Either way, he just can't grok the technical stuff like he used to. For a while no one notices as the suit still does all the heavy lifting... but then it starts to break down with a lack of maintenance in an external display of his internal loss of the ability that defined him...
On the other hand, maybe that's just a little TOO relatable a fear...
matterhorn731 He did lose it for a while. He had to delete his brain to prevent Norman Osborn from getting the Superhuman Registration Act's list of heroes, and as he did so, he became dumber and less capable of using his suits, having to switch to older models as he went.
Also in an episode of Eearth's Mightiest Heroes he just forgets all of his technological knowledge when Cap and Thor lose their powers.
To add to that, if you weren't born with your powers and gained them later, maybe you can regain them somehow. If Tony Stark's high-tech pajamas glitch out, just throw him in a junkyard and he'll whip out something to bridge the gap.
If Hal Jordan loses his ring, all he has to do is something Willpower something something until a new one manifests from the ether.
In the specific case of Angel, if he were to lose his wings long-term, it would be devastating for a reason that's not so obvious as many: yes, he'd still yearn for the ability to fly, yes, he'd try use his wings on reflex, but he was a normal kid throughout his childhood. The problem he'd face that most people forget about or never even realize is that he has instincts that no longer match with his body. He is a flying animal, he has the instincts of a flying animal. Thwarted instincts can lead to very strange behaviours.
This really reminds me of Static Shock. When everyone in the show were losing their powers, it really hit Static's best friend and partner Richie aka Gear really hard. Richie's "power" was super increased intelligence, so when he was slowly losing his power, he saw and felt himself becoming dummer (yes I did this on purpose, a joke =p )
I remember how his grades were quickly dropping and he snapped at Static saying something a long the lines of, "you are just losing your electric powers and flight, I'm losing my future."
God this was such a great show! PEOPLE WATCH IT!!
Also reminding me of the solar flare episode when Static's powers went from normal, to dangerously overcharged, to almost nonexistent as the flare went on.
I was but dc universe removed all video content
Man I wish that show had more seasons.
This made me think of the short story "Flowers for Algernon"
warning for those who don't know, it's depressing
Hyped for that movie
"a permanently de-powered hero can be weirdly depressing"
*weeps in my hero academia*
I shall never forget togata
That man saved the life of a child and it shall never be forgotten.
@@adityasingh6487 It can apply to All Might too. While he handled the power loss a bit better, probably because he'd long known it would eventually happen, it is still a significant impact on the story and it's world, simply knowing that their greatest hero won't be swooping in to save them anymore.
@@adityasingh6487 spoiler alert his quirk returns.
@@aros0018 The way All-Might personally shapes the setting around him by being so dang powerful and inspirational is the most interesting thing about the setting. There's so much you can do with a character like that, and Horikoshi does most of it.
I feel like Superman is always really happy on some level that he gets to punch Lex Luthor *as hard as he can*
*Old man voice:* "Something about a cool super-powered character with awesome superhuman abilities getting turned into a normal human character is kind of a literary gut punch...ehh, Toshinori?"
Shouldn't have punched that bald guy.
Blizzic hecc it's also Mirio Togata
Stephanie Janong and Ragdoll
Stephanie Janong unfortunately the “gut punch” doesn’t apply in his case
oof
When she showed the clip of bird dude with a broken wing i was like "thats what you get for fighting crime, bird bones are really fragile"
because they are hollow
Have you ever been hit by a rooster's wings? They might be fragile, but believe me they can pack a punch...
@@Potkanka No funnily enough that hasn't happened to me
This trope is also strangely relatable in some ways. Like how we define ourselves, if we have musical inclinations/abilities, if we’re known as the “intelligent kid,” or whatever, those are things that could be taken away because life happens (TBI’s, injuries, dementia, diseases, someone better than you, etc). And if those things really define us, what are we really made of? We sometimes make a personality out of our abilities, and if we lose that, we have a crisis.
Nicely put
The best "i have lost my powers but am going to bluff you down" is the princess bride whens hes lying on the bed
Think that is one of the few times when the villain is aware of the power lose but still falls for the bluff anyway.
CareerKnight Its clever because hes like 80% sure but the concequence of him being wrong is too terrifying for such a cowardly character
Correct in absolution. Humperdink is very much aware that no normal man could have endured what Wesley did and still be in fighting shape. And yet the consequences if he is wrong.
If the man who singlehandedly defeated his agents and masterminded an attack on his castle so successful as to defeat his entire garrison *is* still capable of putting up any fight at all. Even if he has been weakened, the idea of actually being in physical danger for once in his wretched life is too much for him to handle. And so he folds at the first sign of resistance, as Wesley knew he would.
no, it's when Sisko bluffs off an entire fleet of Cardasian warships in the first episode of Deep Space 9
*Being productive*
*Email notification*
"Overly Sarcastic Productions just uplo-"
*Flips table and opens CZcams*
That's exactly what happened to me.
same
What did that table ever do to you?!
@@Jono997 it looked at me funny!
Jono99 It only reminds me of the death of my dead tree wife
Batman loses all his power , curse you IRSMAN !
That happens when Batman gets his back broken.
@@lukatomas9465 don't worry. According to The Dark Knight Rises, all it takes is a few pushups and a workout montage. Kinda like Red discussing amnesia.
@@ryangreen6255 Unlike what Hollywood tells you a broken back does not equal paralysis. Barbara Gordan had a bullet to a vertebra which shattered the vertebra causing a spinal cord injury, while Bruce Wayne had one or more fractured vertebra and ribs which is serious but treatable depending on location and severity of the injury. While a broken back will usually bring about a lifetime of problems, the much more severe spinal cord injury will almost always causes some form of permanent paralysis.
@@akatoshslayer7599 yeah, but with that kind of force the spinal cord would've been severed, right? That Was Bane's goal, right?
That would be Batman in the Basement from TAS.
The "protagonist loses power(s), becomes friend with character who conveniently saves them from impending doom, and then they band together and go on a journey to get the protagonist's powers back" is a trope I like to use personally, in a lot of my storylines. (Especially if it then turns out the characters were somehow related, but didn't know it till later!)
It sounds nice, I hope you keep writing
Hey, it’s basically the Trials of Apollo !
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Thank you! Been looking for that comment!
I knew I recognized the song and was just about to comment this
Thanks.
You're doing God's work.
I FUCKING KNEW IT!!!
Trop Talk:Student becomes the master
yes
AND quik learning student
Like the Senganzanken instructor.
There's also the subversion of the "just have to hold out till powers come back trope" where everyone is doing their best to keep the hero safe, but then the hero realizes unless they do something right now even without their powers, everyone is going to die. Sometimes its temporary, and their sacrifice is actually the action that restores their powers (Thor), and sometimes, it creates lasting consequences, such as them becoming permanently injured, depowered (All Might rescuing everyone twice) or killed.
That special moment when you discover a youtube channel more entertaining than anything on TV with hours of footage to watch.
Unfortunately it only has HOURS instead of weeks, I think it took me a couple days to watch most of red
@@isdrakon9802 Good thing there’s two hosts then!
And also educational.
Now I kind of want a TV-Show about the "Thing that happens sometimes" power loss where we get to see the protagonist only during that "downtime", trying to bullshit his way through everything while everyone else expects him to be the quasi-omnipotent hero he apparently is between the episodes.
Awesome idea!
It's not quite the same but have you heard of this webcomic called One Punch Man? :P
A show about Superman except he loses his power every Thursday... and every episode takes place on a Thursday. Nobody else knows his weakness and the only evidence shown to the viewer that he normally does have powers is the say-so of every other character. Sounds like a great concept for a comedy show.
TlsGrz all might from my hero academia for the most part
@@ashori100 I was spoiled about that from my friend
Ben 10 did this quite frequently. There were times where Ben was separated from the Omnitrix - like in Primus or Secrets of the Omnitrix, to name two examples - but there's also the time limit on his transformations in the original series - it may be temporary, but it still forced Ben to get out of dangerous situations without the superpowers he'd usually use. The most unusual version of this trope that the show did was in Small Problem - it wasn't so much that Ben's powers were gone as that he was stuck as Grey Matter (tiny, smart but the least physically powerful alien from the original ten) for the whole episode.
Or in alien force when he was stuck inside alien x
I always liked when the Omnitrix glitched out and gave him the completely wrong alien form.
Grand General Chaotik Oh, right, which episode was that?
The one where all his forms were aged down was also neat, being much less effective as smaller children.
The hybrid thing was in the original series, I don't recall which episode, but basically the Omnitrix got a piece broken off of it in a fight, and whenever Ben transformed he turned into a hybrid. Unfortunately, most of these hybrids were of aliens that made the hybrid very ineffective.
I just checked the episode was Dr. Animo and the Mutant Ray.
"team powerhouse being incapasitated", or other wise unavaliable for the moment sums up every single arc in Dragonball Z
basically everyone is just trying to stay alive until Goku arrives or wakes up from his mid day sleep.
this is also one of the tropes one punch man plays straight. saitama is always the answer, it's just getting him there on time that causes suspense.
I miss when the show was just Dragon Ball and the writing was actually good.
Still going to watch every single episode of Dragon Ball even though I know it's awful now.
@@Rjthewolf ...and also non-combat issues, because suspense can be created from situations which don't involve mortal peril. But yeah.
@Nersius
In my opinion, it’s not awful by any means. In fact, it hasn’t stopped being great since the most recent movie.
How this probably came to be
Brain: Take away his powers
Writer: Why? Then he's just normal!
Brain: you gotta
I've seen a few cases where the character doesn't actually loose their powers but they're put in a situation/environment where using them is even more dangerous than fighting the villains.
Like a guy with fire powers surrounded by oil barrels?
+Scifiguy That is both terrifying and funny at the same time. XD
@@DragonLandlord Genius!
Solid Snake having his guns deactivated in the nuclear missile room, for a more mortal approach to the trope.
An interesting variation of that can be a bad guy bluffing the hero into thinking that using their powers can be potentially fatal for the hero, forcing the hero to willingly handicap himself.
Kind of like what happens in Frenda vs Misaka fight in A Certain Scientific Railgun - Frenda forces Misaka Mikoto to stop using her electricity powers by making her think that she filled the room with highly explosive gas (while in reality it was completely harmless) and that allows the former to kick latter's ass in hand to hand combat.
I have a love-hate relationship with this trope. I get frustrated along with the character but it's really good for coming up for more compelling plots and character developments.
ALRB❤ It depends on how well it’s used. I like when the de-powering happens to people who get their powers from Maguffins (Batman Beyond, the GLs, Jim the Trollhunter) because we get to see the hero will always try to save the day and that he’s more the current bearer of the Maguffin.
It depends on the characters and how they deal with it or work around it for me. Otherwise I zone out, because "oh it's just going to be reset at the end." The permanent loss version is really sad, tho.
ALRB❤ It depends on how it’s handled, tbh. Usually it’s handled badly, in which case I hate it (especially if they go the plotarmor route, or sideline their now disabled Teammate and don’t even HELP them/make an effort to make them feel included into the planning/group dynamics/check up on their physical/mental/emotional health)
Like, gimme the angst, and hurt&comfort. But grief’s kinda messy and cyclical-it’s not always being numb, sad, or angry all the time. Sometimes it’s also a lot of false or mustered bravado and denial, or you’re “fine/cheerful” then it hits you like a truck a moment later. Give me THAT. Then, let them recover/regain purpose, even if it isn’t the “same” as “before”
@@anonymousfellow8879 When it's handled badly, that's when I get frustrated even more leading to me not finishing the series anymore regardless if it is good.
Through Batman begins superpower doesnt come from the suit, its him being a adaptable skilled fighter, the suit just amplifies it. Iron man on the other hand would just be a smart guy. I like Griffith form berserk, who really had it tough after being tortured and taken his ighting abilities, his charisma and his handsomeness taken away. Still a villain but that was a devestating loss of power. And supes is at least as good as batman because he doesnt nessesary relies on his powers but is quick on his feet.
Ben 10 basically made a status quo of "oh shit my powers are gone"
Storm from the X-Men had one of my favorite examples of this happen to her in the comics (and nowhere else) in the legendary "Lifedeath" arc. It wasn't a one-and-done deal, either, it took 4 years for her to get her powers back, and she had to accept all the good and bad that came with being a normal person, AS WELL as lead the X-Men.
It was absolutely epic and I loved it, especially when she got her powers back in "Fall of the Mutants" and her response to the development was decidedly mixed.
See, Ororo Munroe's weather powers are some of the strongest in the X-Men, and in most of the greater non-cosmic MU. But they come with a heavy caveat: they're emotion-based, meaning the more strongly she feels, the more powerful she becomes. Because of this Storm had to put up a calm front, keeping her feelings under tight control at all times. Before her power loss, this emotional repression had caught up with Ororo and made her powers go haywire, to the point where she completely changed her style and appearance to represent the inner shift in her personality (the infamous Mohawk phase).
It was during this Mohawk phase that Storm lost her powers, and while her depression crushed her for a while, she eventually came to love and even celebrate her newfound emotional freedom, able to fully experience joy, sorrow, anger, grief, loss, and love without causing hurricanes or lightning storms that would devastate the surrounding area. When the option came to get them back, it actually didn't take at first, because she felt the cost was too high.
Eventually, she reconciled herself with her powers' big drawback and now she's gotten good at balancing her need to feel her emotions versus her powers' innate destructiveness, but the stories involving Storm between the loss and recovery of her powers are some of her best.
That actually reminds me of a ton of Teen Titans fics about Raven. (I'm sure you know but short sum)
Raven is a half demon whose powers are also excessively emotion-based. To the point where in many comics and in the show she says that she can't fully feel her emotions. It is too dangerous.
I know in a few of the comics she eventually learns how to balance control with actually feeling something (she eventually gets in a relationship with beast boy 😊) but that takes a lot of time and I think her going away to a different place to learn it (don't quote me I haven't read them in forever and tend to mix comic plot and fic plot).
In a ton of fics she has either a spell, a curse, or a gift that seals her powers for a short time so she can feel properly and after she craves it so much that she actively trys to find a balance instead of accepting that she has to live without it.
Heheh... "front"
My favorite instance of this trope is in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy gets hypnotized and injected with somehting that takes away her powers temporarily. But it isn't some evil villain, It's her father-figure and watcher Giles. He works for the watcher's council which watches over slayers (wow). This is a part of a test in which a depowered slayer in put up against a particularly vicious vampire slayer. The watcher's council doesn't care if Buffy lives or dies, because when a slayer dies another is called. However, Giles does care, he breaks down and warns Buffy. However, the vampire gets loose before the test, kills a watcher's council dude, and kidnaps Buffy's mom. She is forced to face the vamp without powers and eventually wins. The head of the watcher's council comes to congratulate Buffy, but although she passed the test, Giles did not. He is fired from the watcher's council because he couldn't remain objective. At the end, Buffy regains her powers but she has learned that Giles is truly there for her, beyond his duties as a watcher.
Anna S BtVS is the best show ever.
It's kinda weird on that last point; Giles is the guy who put Buffy and her mom in danger in the first place because he's the guy who suppressed her powers. As memory serves, Buffy and Giles are kind of on the outs until they bond over a shared loathing of his replacement.
What I particularly love about that episode is at the end when Quentin Travis is congratulating Buffy she turns to him and says "Bite me." meaning to her the Council is no different from the vampires she faces.
The effects of the power loss and the character development was done really well in that episode, but I disliked the premise. I didn't buy how outright ruthless and stupid the council acted. Throughout most of the show, the council was shown to be on the side of good, though certainly not flawless, but their flaws mainly were that they were a bunch of stuck up ultra-conservative bureaucrats that couldn't take someone questioning their authority and that were afraid of taking risks and thinking outside the box. That alone would be more than enough source of conflict between them and their reckless quirky teenage huntress. But what they did in that episode was EVIL, not grey zone morally questionable evil, but full on demonic kicking puppies and eating babies evil. They abuse the trust she sets into her guardian, make her think she's failing without even telling her she is tested, pit her against a terribly tough enemy that is much more likely to kill an unpowered human than not and have no safeguards whatsoever for the event that she fails, not even when it comes to prevent endangering innocent bystanders. It is very hard to believe that people who think of themselves as the guardians of good would do such a thing (and to their strongest ally nonetheless, it's not like the next huntress would pop up immediately ready to fight, every time the huntress fails in such a test they end up with a superpowered but clueless teenager again who'll need years of training).
@@chrisrudolf9839 I think you might like Passion of the Nerd. He is doing a episode by episode summary and review of the show (Angel as well).
He points out in that episode that it isn't about "testing" her. It is about controlling her. She is now a legal adult. If she wanted to she could just say no and walk away from them and they can't do a single legal thing about it. If she lives she knows they can take it all away from her at any time. If she dies乁( •_• )ㄏ another is called and they start again.
She isn't a person to them. She is their weapon! One breaks. Oh well get the new one ready. Oh this one is fighting us. Kill it and we'll start again. They have been doing this for centuries, and they will do it again and again and again. (Spoiler) when faith goes a little crazy and tries to kill Wes and hurt the Scoobies Giles straight up admits they have a way to deal with slayers who went crazy (willing to bet it was a bullet to the brain). One falls and another is called.
No singing at the end?
OMG! Red lost her superpowered singing voice!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Y red?
she doesn't sing at the end of trope talks.
*FUCK!*
I feel like the original ben 10 did this in a sensible and repeatable way with the literal cooldown timer on his abilities
i would argue in a lot of cases with Ben 10, its more of a "misused power" situation. Many times Ben could solve the problem if he didnt mess around, and theres a few times he actually does in the later series and episodes
Lot of older shows enjoyed a "time limit" mechanic, like Ultraman, immeasurable power, but can only hold his form for a few minutes top before reverting back to human
"Someone who's power is some sort of magical choosy artifact might have a full-on existential crisis by being unchosen by the artifact in question"
Oh, poor Duck Newton :/
This was absolutely the last reference I expected to see here.
Zekeram12 what is it a reference to?
@@SorowFame the adventure zone: amnesty
I just realized the background music is a violin version of Paramore’s “Ain’t It Fun”.
God I love this channel.
thanks, I was wondering what that was.
She is using music from the CZcams channel "vitamin string quartet" like in the word destruction trope talk or in the don Chishotte ( at least this is how we Italian call him) but still it's a nice break from the usual royalty free music
@@davidegaruti2582 oh yeah these guys are great, nice choice on red's part
Davide Garuti I love their cover of "Dance, Dance."
I WAS JUST GOING TO SAY i had recognized it and it was driving me crazy trying to remember what the name was! Weirdly appropriate, though!
No i lost my plot armor !! Now im gonna get kill by the bad guy with a knife in the chest !! And i can not loki my way out of this !!!
Oh no
This hit me right in the feels
Lê Đức Anh Trần Even Loki couldn’t Loki his way out of that one this time.
That's "loki" devastating
I'm so funny..
I think you fundamentally misunderstand what plot armor is. Plot armor is the simple fact that it wouldn't be any fun if the character died. It has nothing to do with powers or specific circumstances, it's just the unwritten guarantee that at the end of the day, they'll be fine.
I think my favorite version of this troupe is a kind of sub-category that you didn't really touch on: *Self Sacrafic of Powers*
In this scenario, the hero chooses to give up their powers for variable reasons but usually it boils down to not wanting the "burden" of the power or sacrificing their gift to save someone they care about. Regardless of the reason why, the end goal by the author is to make the hero question their choice in regards to being selfish. When the hero surrenders their power and then can no longer defend innocents against evil, the writer is purposefully weighs the outcome post hero decision. What I find so fascinating about this is that it can be used to both re-enforce the hero's ideology or sever the hero's personal connections.
If they don't want the responsibility but people die as a result, they begin to see their power not only as a gift, but also as a duty.
If they choose to save a loved one but people die as a result the hero is valuing their loved one's life over that of the public; a conflicting moral delima.
In short, this trope is one of the best was to make the hero debate what they *want* vs what they feel they *need* to do.
Lemillion vs Overhaul
It really hurt, especially since Mirio Togata is my favourite character in the show.
My favorite execution of this trope is probably the webcomic 'unORDINARY' Long story short, the MC has no powers while his bestie is a powerhouse of a character. Bestie looses her powers over an accident, but does a good job at keeping it a secret only opening up to MC. And well, things don't go so well, both being bullied after the findings. Even though didn't read it till the end I still find the drama of Bestie loosing the top poison and powers quite interesting as the lose goes on for chapters upon chapters. It's fun
I was looking to see if anyone would mention unOrdinary. Sorry that I'm replying a year later.
sera finally knocked some sense into john and he called her sera again!!!!!!
(Spoiler alert)
What’s currently interesting about that is that even though her powers are back we’re not 100% sure that Sera is back to her old self, as she passed out when fighting John. So, power restoration isn’t an all or nothing situation. The author can choose to restore them only to 70, 80, or whatever percentage is necessary to advance the plot.
😃 unOrdinary fans unite!
@@jessicadecuir5622 nope not really now
Thank God I never experienced this trope. My dope Jedi Force powers will always be here to stay (even if I am dead)!
You had better check yourself Continuity Check. (Excellent name by the way!) Let's not forget that my very first line in Episode IV was "Hello There". I never lost my amazing quoting powers. I only evolved them...
Even with PTSD and alcoholism, General Kenobi hasn't lost his powers or his wit.
Another happy landing!
Except that one half of your powers happens to be a light stick that can (and was) easily get lost.
are you not even afraid of losing the high ground?
I’ve got a list of recommendations for Trope Talk topics, if I may: Overpowered Characters, Deities/Gods/Pantheons, Making Unlikable/Unsympathic Characters Work, Anti-Heroes, Villain Protagonists (may/may not overlap with “Unlikable Characters”), Using Fear/Horror Effectively, Evil Clones/Universes, and Prequels/Origins.
Making unlikeable characters works is not really a trope, but unlikeable characters (in-universe at least) can have several iterations, like an Anti-Hero, a Villain, a Jerk Sue (type of Mary Sue), a Loner character , etc.. I think also the advice for that is kinda simple, as in - write realistically. Make the consequences of their behaviour have weight, have them be disliked in-universe or find good reasons why they aren't. I also think that people disliking characters can either be traced back to shoddy writing or just ... audience preference. Many jerks have a huge fanbase, whereas other people just don't like jerks personally. Sure can like them as a well-written character, but still wanna kick them in the face.
Well well well, guess whose wishes came from
Ah yes, the evil alternate universe. If you ever run out of content, just have a two-episode adventure where everyone has a clone who's a nazi.
One of my favorite power losses is when the hero purposely takes away their own powers for whatever reason. It’s riddled with angst because this usually is because of either self doubt or they just really hate their powers.
My favorite is in "I don't like this kind of hero", a webcomic. It features him spontaneously losing his powers. He then goes to the bathroom to hide the fact that he lost his powers from the others in the Hero group he is in. Since he has lost his powers, he worries about not having any worth to the team, to his friends, while another panic sets in. See, he had offended a lot of people who would want to kill him and his family, so if he were to spontaneously not have powers it would be dangerous to him.
I would suggest reading the novel, it is well done.
I really like that webcomic! For a fellow fan, I have another reading recommendation! This one is a webnovel though.
It has so many trope subversions it's hard to list them all, but the 'losing power' trope mentioned here is particularly interesting in that novel.
See, the protagonist is the archetype of 'my powers are a curse' and his life's motivation was getting rid of that power, but the reason he finally lost the power was actually because it was his companion's last wish trying to set him free from that burden. The power loss wasn't an accident, by a villain, or due to luck. It was the end-game trophy.
But by losing his power, he's now lost the means to bring back his companion.
And his powers never returned.
So there's a gut-wrenching angst where his life is better than it ever was, the pesky superpower is out of the way but he just can't be happy because he lost the power in the worst possible way - in exchange for his companion. And he has no way to fix it.
And this is just one of all the deliciously subverted and meta tropes thrown in that novel~
@@otaku-chan4888 what is it?
@@beannoodle1906 It's called the Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint! It's a bit long, but the novel's complete - I highly recommend it for a good read.
@@otaku-chan4888 (If you don't like reading long comments, I summarized everything in end.)Hey dude, I'm sorry if this sounds kinda rude, but do you mind editing you comment a bit? I mean, I think you really like that novel, so you really want to share it, but you're spoiling it. How? Well, you more or less said how novel will end.
If you're wondering why I'm getting kinda naggy, it's 'cause I saw that novel and thought it was interesting so I plan on reading it. And having the ending spoiled kinda ruins the experience a bit doesn't it?
Though that doesn't mean I won't be reading the novel, I'm just saying that you should probably edit your comment so it wouldn't ruin other readers' experience. And I'm not really asking for a full edit, just add the title first then add some spoiler alerts.
To make the long story short: U too eager to share, u spoil. Me want read novel. I irritated. Me want U edit comment so others not get Irritated.
@@otaku-chan4888 (U no like long comment? Short comment below long one.)Also, just to be clear: I saw the novel first before your comment, so please don't think that I got introduced by your comment. I mean, introducing AND spoiling the novel will kinda make you feel bad, right? (I think? I dunno)
(short comment):
I see novel first. Comment second. U no need feel bad introducing. U only need feel bad spoiling.
"My Powers Are Gone!"
*Samus sweats nervously*
@Danny BRITZMAN runned out of batteries again dangit, should have bought more instead of going to space bars
I feel like it would be more like “oh come on! This again?”
I love it when characters lose their powers. It makes them think outside the box to beat stronger enemies.
And then they forget the lessons they learned when they get their power back.
Mc Jethro Pov Tee sadly
Or they are still awesome, or funny when they are jerks but humbled by it like inuyasha.
@@McJethroPovTeethat’s always the best part
I think it would be cool if a character thought they had powers that kept fizzling out, but they actually never had powers to begin with.
A bit late, but the Disney movie "Bolt" does exactly this. He's a dog raised on the set of a TV show where he had powers. The first time he leaves, he get awfully confused when his "powers" don't work.
6:11 everything can be potential shipping fodder
Is that "ain't it fun" playing in the background? That's clever. Can I get a link to this version of it?
Ooh, i was just about to comment that i love the song in the background. Yeah, it *is* "ain't it fun"! I'm so excited to find a Paramore reference in the most unexpected of places.
czcams.com/video/r7zr13LH_eI/video.html
^^^
@@treboralpha yay, thank you!
Thank you, was having trouble remembering the song playing
I HEARD THAT TOO!!
How about a trope talk on Final Forms?
Brian Sanders Not much you can do with that.
That isn't even their final form
A Trope Talk on permanent power increases generally would probably be a little more robust.
That might be an interesting idea, but it might be easier to mix that into a Trope Talk on Transformations or something similar.
That Random Encounter Guy Maybe it starts off as one about transformations and then turns into one about final forms after a large amount of gloating from the villains, panicking from the heroes and an extended transformation sequence?
Can we get a count of how many times Adora tried to transform, and how many times she succeded?
“-for the honour of grayskull blah blah blah.”
"or when the sun rises"
Escanor definitely talking about Escanor
My whole story is almost based around this, the world's power system is based on trust based powers that are tied to a person's life. Basically you can't use your own power, but the person you trust the most can use your power and if they use too much of it all at once whoops you are dead. That makes it easy for some characters to lose and gain powers throughout their character arcs, but it can be a real sucker punch since if one character loses a power it means that their friend no longer trusts them as much.
Interesting, reminds me of a manga i read called Mayonaka no Cross Method
, in the sense that using powers were tied to other people. Essentially, each person had a power, but they couldn't use it themselves, it could only be used when someone else was body swapped(another trope, and one i'm particulary fond of)
to be in their body.
It sounds interesting but a bit convoluted and confusing. If powers are tied to the literal incarnation of Power of Friendship, then does it work for villains too? Does everyone have a power, or are select people powered? If it is select people, wouldn't everyone want to be their friend just so they can get a power, thus reducing them publicly to their power and not their person and making them paranoid and skeptical towards pretty much everyone else? What happens if there's a person who has the power to manipulate feelings and someone else abuses this power on the original person and then on others in order to power themselves up? Would it be possible for a deceitful person to gain the trust of someone his friend/master absolutely hated and then use the power they gained to kill the original person with their own power?
There's a lot of questions that could be asked and it feels like the system as a whole has a lot of nuance that needs to be addressed or it risks becoming a thematic incarnation of My Little Pony (chosen because the entire premise is based around the magic of friendship) and encounters can feel very contrived and one sided.
What is the name of your story? Is it published? If so I would like to read it because that sounds really, really interesting!
@@vallahdsacretor4839 Trust isn't the same thing as friendship. In Ender's Game, Valentine trusts Peter easily--not because she believes he'd never do anything bad (quite the opposite) but because she knows he has incredible self-control and would never hurt her unless it was clearly in his best long-term interest, which made him very predictable to her since she knew him so well. Without Ender, Peter would actually be her most trusted person. But friends? Hardly.
So this premise actually has potential for very complicated interpersonal relationships. It could be good angst to have a character whose power ends up with someone totally inconsequential to them, and realize what the rest of their relationships are like.
It would impact the economy; imagine insurance agents whose job it is to be the trustworthy person for many people and be paid by those people not to use their power, so those people won't get killed from overuse. Imagine how this would affect different governments... yikes.
And yeah, deceitful people would be a big thing. If there's power available, someone out there is trying to get it.
It kind of sounds like you expect OP's story to be overly simplistic and *not* take things like this into account. Comparing it to an intentionally simplistic kids' cartoon seems like an uninformed insult to me. We have no idea what OP's style is like, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they've probably considered the implications far more than we have, if they're writing a full story with this idea.
@@paintedcrow I do trust the OP to have thought about his world and the implications that a system like this would have. However I do like to try to bring a perspective based on what information has been given rather than assumed information. Asking questions like, 'If power of friendship is literal, how does the villain use this to his advantage?' often makes people consider how it would work if the roles are reversed. Because if OP does go with the usual tropes of story telling where the villain is a manipulative, deceitful and overall unlikable person, how would he get the power needed to be scary if he has no friends to draw upon that power?
While I don't expect it to be overly simplistic, I have seen young authors who created systems that largely impact the heroes in a positive sense and left villains out in the cold, or just simply misinterpret what makes a good power balance between the protagonist and antagonist. And it normally bums me out because the story writing does tend to be good, so I want to make sure all aspects are considered.
I have been re-watching some of the old Trope Talks the last few days and suddenly phone vibrates:
*"Overly Sarcastic Productions uploaded a Trope Talk video"*
Internal Me: THE GODS HAVE HEARD MY PLEAS!!
External "Working" Me: *"Silently proceeds to CZcams with a dumb smile"*
wrong video/ or/
Apparently there’s a fifth option where the powers are traded away. Thanks to a certain show I now know just how stressful this situation can be
There's sort of an option 5: The Final Use Thing, when the hero does the One Thing that drains all their powers.
Who here has lost their powers before?
Also does being a powerless alien make it less weird to date humans?
I'm not asking for me of course, I'm asking for a friend.
I lost my powers when my dad decided that he didn't want a mortal son. Man, being a demigod is the worst.
Also I see nothing wrong with dating humans
Ehh, I lost my powers, still hoping they come back. I've tried spells, everything, but they're still gone. It sucks when you lose innate abilities you had since birth. (Especially if they're wings!)
Considering I must maintain regular contact with several dozen multiverses, that would cause... problems.
Just to be sure, if you want, a friend of mines has a multiverse portal device if you need it...
@@fantasyshadows3207 enter Rick Sanchez
I-Is that a violin version of "Ain't it fun"???
I love it
In X-men books, some characters really never recover them... although nice to see that you went with Archangel as example of all character arcs, as he goes evil when he gets powers back. Also, there´s that some characters get instead a different set of powers.
I really love the Inuyasha work with this trope, after it was introduced I was constantly hoping the next chapter would be a new moon lmao like literally "I hope we have another of these soon" They were so cool! And the other characters had time to "shine" too and when Inuyasha regained his powers, it was so cool!
BNHA Spoilers, just one out-of-context line actually
Next, it's your turn.
Avatar: Legend of Kora spoiler
NEXT!
I don't understand this game.
Yang Xiao Long is Ruby Rose's sister
Ikr
John Fraire QUASAI SPOILERS
This person is referencing the loss of one of the fan favorite characters powers. He has one final victory, and then in a last moment of triumph, even knowing his powers are gone, he points to the world, and the protagonist, and says this line.
It’s a threat to more villains, but also a passing of the torch.
And it hits me in the gut every time I watch it. XD
Another BNHA spoiler
The moment Mirio permanentelly lost his powers.
Also the one thing you forgot to mention, when the Paragon of an civilization lost his power and suddenly the entire power structure is disrupted throughout the world, like SPOILERS All Might in My Hero Academia.
IDK, sounds too similar to the death of a pillar set up, ie like the third hokage's death in naruto.
isnt that just a really big extension of the 4th option?
Hey, (spoiler)'s type of arc was mentioned, so that's at least half
I've been waiting half the video for 'every time Aizawa uses his powers on villains and the students'
"Goodbye, One For All..."
A flavor of “I lost my powers” that I’ve seen is the mentor having lost their powers, either before the story or as the protagonist of the prequel/original
So we’re not gonna talk about paramore on loop in the background. 👍🏿
In one of the stories I'm working on one of my main characters gets a bunch of cool powers from a series of horrific experimentation which mentally damages him so he can't control his powers on his own but he subconsciously develops 6 split personalities who can manage each ability. At first he doesn't get along with his alternate-selves, they get on each other's nerves, they aren't good at working together, he often has to fight with himself and it becomes annoying to rely on them to handle any problem, but over time they work through their issues and learn how to work together as a team, and he has an relationship with his split personalities like they were his siblings. Now that they are finally working together this character becomes the team Powerhouse but then a Psychic character who believes what they are doing is right forcefully gets rid of his split personalities so he still technically has his powers but he's back to being unable to control them himself and has to start over from scratch while also having to deal with the grief of losing the friends inside his head.
Bysthedragon Not gonna lie, that sounds dope! I’m really interested in that kind of narrative. Reminds me of Killer7. If you ever get it down, link me to it. I’d be happy to read it!
@@BonazaiGirl Thank you so much, I'm very happy to see people interested in my story!
Holy shit, that's super similar to an idea for a character that I had! Their base form is basically an ordinary (albeit very intelligent) dude, but he has five alternate personalities, each with wildly different magical abilities and character traits, such as a grizzled warrior with superhuman strength and an assassin who can take the form of any living thing she sees. Then there's the hidden seventh personality, which is this absurdly powerful monster that can only come out if the other six all agree to let him loose. Your idea sounds really cool too, I suppose great minds really do think alike.
Not sure where you are in that story but i'd have had the psychic pick the wrong personality and "delete" the original one.
Then many arcs after this is come to terms with the "deleted" personalities come back with thier own bodies and a stronger connection to the power connected to them.
Like if in Certain Magical Index terms the main had all powers at like lv2-3 the returning personalities are all like lv4-5
@@lancetlo Yeah I think your idea of the original personality being "deleted" is interesting but I'm not going to go with that cause it doesn't fit in the story I'm making however I have thought of his personalities coming back with their own physical bodies although I'm not going to elaborate on that too much right now.
Other fun things you can do with this are having serious, permanent consequences for the hero being too weak, such as someone they care about and would normally be able to protect, dying while they're powerless to save them, in spite of their best efforts. Other fun approaches are things like the character permanently losing one set of powers, but getting a whole different set after some time as a powerless normie; alternately, if your character was powered, knew who they were and then lost their powers, you could have them temporarily re-gain who they were thanks to someone else's MacGuffin and have them tempted by the prospect of just keeping it, while the other person also needs it to do their special thing. Combine all of these and you have an absolutely unrelenting combo that will leave your readers reeling from the emotions! :D
One of my favourite ways to get the hero to lose their powers though, is to make them voluntarily give them up for some greater purpose, or maybe burn them out somehow in a big climactic showdown. This CAN be the end of the story and be what allows the hero to return to the mundane world, but I prefer to have it at the end of the first or second act, just to say to the audience, "Ahaha, you really thought it would all be this simple?"
You're a fan of FullMetal Alchemist, aren't you.
brigidtheirish or My Hero Academia
"This CAN be the end of the story and be what allows the hero to return to the mundane world, but I prefer to have it at the end of the first or second act, just to say to the audience, "Ahaha, you really thought it would all be this simple?""
I mean that went really badly for Bleach... although Bleach was meant to end when Ichigo lost his powers so a bad example.
Wade Spencer
I said at the end of act 1 or 2, not the end of act 4 or 5 and then keep going for another 18 piddling acts! :P
"This CAN be the end of the story and be what allows the hero to return to the mundane world"
Fore some reason I dislike it when heroes loose there super powers at the end of the story.
Its frustrating and dissatisfying.
My favourite example of this trope is Lloyd Garmadon from Ninjago. He only gains his powers back AFTER the fight is over, and the entirety of the plot in season 9 is him learning that his powers aren't the only reason he was chosen. It is brilliantly written, along with his low self esteem that plays along really well with it.
I would like to see an example of this trope where both the villain and hero lose their powers at the same time, and end up competing with each other but the villain fails becuase they believe they are nothing without power and blah blah blah character arc roll credits
Add here that hero is really angry and just wants job done so ye pull the trigger already.
Ooh, maybe this could be one of those stories where the hero and villain have to work together? Like, now that they're both on completely equal footing (and that footing is bad), they have to cooperate with each other to survive.
"Garden variety mugger" is possibly my favourite line in this video, had me chuckling for a minute
I'm all about these trope talk videos.
Same
This got me thinking about Tahno from Legend of Korra. After Amon took away his bending, all of that cocky swagger that had defined him disappeared pretty quickly. We didn't really get a sense of his private thoughts or internal conflicts, but he seemed to become a better person for it, and in the series finale he's shown leading the band at Varrick and Zhu Li's wedding. I always interpreted that as him trying to redefine his identity and discovering that he had a passion/talent for music.
8:35 imagine losing something that has always been a part of who you are, suddenly going blind or deaf, losing the ability to draw or write.
Loss of power for ever just makes me thing of Edward Elric
Spiderman 2: Peter loses organic webbing. Webbing and Spiderman powers are a metaphor for puberty.
*Losing webbing = Erectile Dysfunction*
666melodeath666 LoL
One Thou Wou You do realize that when you do a crossing out words joke you're supposed to replace the words you crossed out with something more appropriate right?
Considering how much of a bummer mary jane can be in those movies, who can blame him
Look I don't care how overused or predictable this trope might be, I LOVE it and I always will
I think the reason true permanent power loss hurts so much is that everyone intuitively understands or can imagine what it’s like to lose a fundamental part of yourself. Whether it’s a relationship you’d hung your life on, a confidence lost to emotional trauma, or a critical skill lost to physical injury. Powers are a huge part of that character and it’s not hard to imagine losing a huge part of yourself.
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..the ad hasn't even finished yet.
Surprisingly, my favorite incarnation of this trope happened in a tinkerbell fanfic. Stay with me here, please. This was also before the Pixie Hollow universe was set up so “pixie dust” was more mysterious. Only the first movie was out.
Silvermist lost her ability to work with water. Typically she was a calm, cool, and somewhat ditzy character, but without her water powers she could only fly. Silvermist, along with the rest of the main Pixies, had to fight off a fire-based creature who was destroying the forest. He was intimidated by her, because he knew she worked with water, but didn’t know she lost her powers. So what happened was the most bullshitty thing I’ve seen a character do : Silvermist shouted phrases about water, similar to Sailor Moon attacks. She raised her hand up and acted like she was collecting water from the nearby area, and the other Pixies splashed water around her.
It was so great to me because it didn’t get resolved after that. She continued to not be able to use water, and ended up using spider silk to carry water around. Through that, she became smarter and more inventive, and eventually she clipped her own wings. She didn’t want to fly anymore, because she learned about herself by losing her powers. So she became essentially a very tiny human.
That sounds really cool. What fic was this?
Madeleine Blue it was something on wattpad years ago. I think it the title had to do with the light fairy? Cause it originally centered around her. Maybe something like “sunflower” or “sunlight”
Toe to Tip That's a Bart Thanks.
I think unOrdinary handles this trope very well with Sera and John getting a great bonding moment before his downfall
I just realized that version 4 of this trope is in the arc of Haikyuu's first national tournament, where Karasuno's genius setter was thrown off by the massive scale of the arena and can't rely on their pinpoint tossing ability to use the full moveset of their team. Instead, the rest of the team has to step up to spike his tosses anyway, defend well to buy more time, etc.
It's funny how many of the tropes covered by Red I can spot in Haikyuu, despite it having none of the life-or-death stakes of most of the examples.
Warren Worthington III AKA Angel, the most tragic result of this trope.
True, but the same thing happened to Storm and you don't see HER becoming a...*sees movies* Oh. Right. $#!+.
And then there's All Might, where power loss was the plan all along. A nice subversion of the trope
It won't last. It never lasts. Superman has been loosing (and regaining) his powers for a new story-line every DECADE since the 1940's.
Joshua Richardson MHA will not last that long, and I don't think anyone wanted Superman to lose his powers forever.
I honestly don't think there's any chance that he would be getting his power back. Sure, there's a possibility in the next arc of the anime, but I trust Horikoshi enough as a mangaka that he'd let a change be permanent (same goes with Deku's arms).
A big difference is that Superman is the protagonist of his stories, while the protagonist of MHA is Midoriya, not All Might. Superman needs his powers to keep the story going, same with Midoriya. But All Might, while incredibly important, is not who the story's main focus is. You don't need All Might to get his powers back in order to keep the story interesting, so there's a very good chance he won't get them back, and honestly I like that so far the author is sticking by that change.
@@aros0018 Given that the entire point of One for All *is* that it gets passed from one person to another, there's not much reason for All Might to get the power back now that Midoriya has it, All Might has done his part for the greater plan essentially.
I just love the Paramore bg music....
Also the content
You know what would be an really interesting (albeit hard to make) trope talk? Silent/environmental storytelling! Make it happen at some point, Red! I believe in you!
I imagined the video would have no narration or text.
@@nathankurtz8045 I don't think that'd be very fun for someone who's blind.
@@but_heres_the_homestuck Environmental storytelling is almost 100% visual. I don't imagine most blind people would get much out of any video about environmental storytelling.
This is always a fun one to pull in table-top roleplaying games. All that fancy shmancy gear you've got, all those spells, all that technology? Well, for one reason or another it doesn't work, so I hope that roleplaying brain of yours still functions and you can pull off all those crazy plans you talk about because now you can't batter every opponent you come across into submission, and you'll get some character dev along the way, maybe.
I had an Iron-Man type character in a game I ran once, and at one stage the party failed in a mission and her armour broke and got taken away by some bad guys. Now, she was building a new one because her tech-based mind didn't go away, and still had a very solid left hook and general brawling capability so she wasn't completely helpless, but some of the most tense moments in that game came from that period where the walking tank was suddenly very squishy and not armed to the teeth. The party even ended up skulking around and keeping out of sight, as well as leaning on our resident team leader's planning, to pull through; it definitely shook up the formula for how they played!
Hashtag #assholegm
My DM put us through our paces by immediately slapping us in a dungeon run by some cult. We got out with all the virgin sacrifices and bags of swag, but, the next morning, our entire city was surrounded by a ghost-riddled mist, and I nearly fucking died. Because I was smart enough to dump almost all of my swag into a bank account, the DM couldn't just sick rando mcclepto after my wallet, but she said, 'The most reliable way to jump start a stalled story line is stealing the party's shit.'
@@peterknutsen3070 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
I did this for my party of druids, where the powerful druids all got kidnapped and the players had to rescue them using only their squishy animal companions. Lots of funky roleplaying ensued!
I think my favorite variant of this trope is: The once totally normal hero (who never really wanted the powers in the first place) loses them at the very end of whatever catastrophe was happening throughout the story, and now gets their normal life back. Don't know if it still counts as "Powerloss" considering they face no conflict because of it, but I like the idea of an "all in a day's work" sort of hero who gets to go back to their completely mundane life and move on from their hero days, permanently.
I don't think that happens too muh with superheroes, but fantasy is full of it. Take LOTR: while there are no powers involed, there is a quest. And then there just isn't. The last sentence might be the saddest thing in that book. "Well, I'm back." Doesn't sound that happy, does he?
@@sciranger6703 I've never actually read LOTR so I don't have much context for that sentence, but I do see this trope a good amount in anime, sometimes in magical girl, and especially in mecha anime. It's pretty rare that the hero starts off with their powers, and sometimes those powers are completely mechanical and only needed/created to fight off the current threat, because there's currently no other tech that stands a chance. Often that tech will be destroyed in the final fight, and the hero gets to leave the frontlines for good. I also like when the hero loses their powers and is forced to step back and return to their normal life, and has to figure out how to cope with that, because I think it opens up avenues for good, non-physical-threat-based drama. Essentially I like seeing what the hero's life was like before they got thrown into the story, and how the events of the story have effected them, because that's often something you don't get to see within the canon story (although it's a pretty common trope in fanfiction).
Periwinkle Artaku Yeah, I thought of this in regards to Princess Tutu. I don’t want to spoil anything if you haven’t seen it, but there’s a power loss in it that I think is really narratively satisfying, albeit a lot of people disagree.
oh so an example of the 4th option would be like in journey to west where monkey leaves the group because he's pissed and then the group proceeds to get it's collective ass kicked repeatedly until monkey is finally persuaded to come back. I don't think I've ever heard that used to describe power loss in anything other than mmo's but yeah that works.
I think permanently losing powers is like becoming blind when you are 22 years old. You suddenly have to come to grips with something you've used your entire life, might have built an identity.
But now? You have to rebuild your identity. Find new hobbies that don't involve sight, the whole shebang in short.
And that's why it's depressing.
I like this trope when the character who has lost their regains them slowly and learns to appreciate them even when their powers are significantly weaker than normal.
What if a hero has had powers for their entire life but choose not to use them at all until recently for various reasons. Would it be like a reverse of these tropes where they have to try to understand how those powers have shaped them before and if they change them now. Do you think this character would also be more competent in a fight if they lost them for a short time and the villain is shocked because they thought this would make them easier to take down but find that now they are still really tough and like 3x as determined. What would this say about them. Would an arc about who am I without the powers even be necessary? Cuz I have ideas for a character of my own and although I don't plan on touching on it exactly I like thinking about how this situation could play out.
This is kind of what happens in the Supergirl series
Well, if they had powers and actively hid them, it is probably because they have a pretty large and exploitable weakness. Super stregnth is nice and all, but if you can't back it up with being bulletproof. Flight is a really cool power, but your wings are a very large target.
On top of this, if you hide your power, it means you probably are not going to win on a simple one-on-one fight against most people, even if they don't have powers. Just because you pull out a gimmick from nowhere doses not ensure your victory.
I experienced that situation multiple times in real life, regarding brains.
I've seen this twist a couple of times in urban fantasy - no demigod, vampires or werewolves though - the main is or descended from a mythical creature that has a gruesome ability and ends up having to use it by the end. In those cases who they are without their power is the start of the story.
Aren't those stories about "hero cursed with a demon so it should never release the power of said being or they get killed" kinda already done that?
A really good example of the "Funky Option 4" is Ninjago: Possession. When Lloyd, the team leader, is possessed by the vengeful Morro; the link that gives the other 4 ninja their elemental powers is cut and they have to somehow save Lloyd + the realm over the season without their signature fighting style.
(Might actually overlap with Option 2, but I'm not sure if Morro severed the link intentionally or if it was just a side effect of the possession in general.)
7:05
"You didn't catch it"
"I loved that mug!!!"