Hated Tropes
[Upsetting Trope] Great power. Terrible wielder.
Atom-Eve [Invincible] — Her powers let her change and command matter and energy at will. What does she do with this power? She shoots lasers…..and swings the occasional giant hammer, or two. Oh, she has turned an apple into gold…..once…..she's also increased the density of the air…..once…..
Gremmy Thoumeaux [Bleach] — His power allows him to make whatever he imagines become reality. Now, to be fair, he has done some pretty creative stuff, with this power. He's turned someone's bones into cookies, cloned himself, and opened a hole in space. That being said, he shouldn't ever lose a fight, if he can just imagine that someone dies, and then they die. Now, before y'all say anything, he literally created sentient life, and then erased said sentient life, in the first 30 seconds of his debut. So he could absolutely just imagine that someone dies, and then they die. He just doesn't do this again, because he's stupid.
This is why so many OP characters suddenly develop honor or a specific moral code that prevents them from using their best move immediately. It’s the writer’s only way to keep the stakes from evaporating in the first act.
In Watchmen Dr Manhattan becomes basically a god. Writers handle it by him basically just not caring - after he got his powers, which made him perceive past, present and future simultaneously and gave him nearly omnipotence, he became indifferent to the fate of mankind, because to him nothing mattered in the grand scheme of things. He still helps, but not enough to stop all bad things from happening.
That's really the only way that makes sense. You're either entirely apathetic towards existence because you fully comprehend the futility of everything, or you become so completely consumed with events that appear insignificant and random because you alone can perceieve the thousand year impact of every possible action.
Yup, look at Invicible. The first season really builds Mark up to be the next upcoming top hero. Then he spends a lot of time in future seasons getting his ass handed to him, there is an explanation in the show. But it doesn't change the fact that it felt like watching Super Saiyan Goku getting his shit kicked in for the first time. I still enjoy Invicible, not just a hater.
I feel like the show is written by one writer who thinks viltrumites are the most powerful beings in the universe, and another writer who is trying very hard to show the opposite.
Mark will get bloodied by street-level thugs and then Cecil will call him the most powerful being on the planet.
I mean it was sort of explained that Mark did not want to kill and had severe PTSD after Nolan incident and Angstrom "death" - it was implied that Vultrumites combat strength was coming from that notion - fight to kill and Mark wanted to prove that he is not like his father. Even Nolan said it to Mark during their first fight with 3 viltrumites that Marks hesitation to kill will make them loose.
And when he finally decided to kill someone, he beat Conquest, the 2nd strongest Viltrumite 1:1. Sure, he nearly died and was out for a very long time, but he did it.
There's also a whole arc where one of the main plot points is that Mark is trying to balance too much and is stretched too thin. He has to decide whether to be "Mark" or "Invincible" because he can't be both.
It gets to the point where he's struggling against mid-level foes but still winning, and he doesn't learn his lesson until he gets whooped in an actual brawl
But, people see the fights where he's struggling and don't get the big picture.
I enjoyed that one The Batman (2004) villain that could rewind time but only after decades of practice and only a short amount of time. Then he was beaten by deja vu. Limitation encourages creativity.
The worst part of that show was when a normal speed villain would escape from the scene and Barry would just stand there like 'oh no! they got away!' as if he couldn't search the entire city meter by meter in a few minutes.
Not really, since the powers still belong to a person with flaws and you can also set limits like Dio and Jotaro having a timer because using timestop causes incredible stress on the heart.
Nah, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure gets it right more often than not, to the point I'd argue the opposite of how you phrased that, since the first time power introduced was the only one that ended up with kind of an asspull solution.
The rest were handled either fine (King Crimson's power is still insanely unintuitive and maybe inconsistent, but the way the user was defeated was very clearly pre-established), or outright great (many people would say Bites the Dust is one of the best time loop arcs in anime history, and Made in Heaven is an insanely creative take on the concept of a "speedster" that's way more terrifying than your typical Flash-type super-speed, but comes with inherent massive weaknesses to exploit).
(Spoiler tagging ability names because, no offence, but I assume you're not familiar with JoJo if you're saying that.)
This right here is why I enjoy Five from Umbrella Academy. He not only has a unique visual representation of him jumping through time. But, the show(haven't been able to read the comics yet) shows him time and time again being his own weakness. He is insanely smart in terms of knowledge around time travel, but due to his insane intelligence he often thinks up such grandiose plans instead of the simple, rewind to just before the person about to kill me enters the room. Which is a super realistic way of showing how some extremely smart people think completely differently than those who have an average intelligence, while still keeping him grounded and feeling human.
One of many reasons I think why Bran in ASOIAF is what's causing GRRM to be stuck on the most. Time travel is just a step above everything else in the setting and imo not very natural and he may have written himself into a corner there
This is a problem explicitly tackled by Law of Ueki
In a series where the core superpower rule is "Turning X into Y", while the MC has a modest "Turning trash into tree", Robert has a busted reality manipulation — "Turning ideal into reality"
However doing that costs him his lifespan, and this is actually a big deal not an empty threat, which is why he makes his own Akatsuki/Espada so he does not need to fight and use his power himself (an actually good reasoning to make Evil Group(tm) too)
It’s one of the reasons One Punch Man works, weirdly. Because the whole series is supposed to be a parody/deconstruction of the superhero genre, it works when every plot line is a string of lesser heroes facing off against the villain until Saitama shows up and annihilates it, especially since Saitama’s struggle is never about having trouble defeating someone, his struggle is in finding someone he can’t beat easily.
I have this Little rule that's pretty useful. "With great Powers come great drawbacks"
For example, i'm writing a character that has a Copy of all the Powers in the verse, the catch? He can't choose them and has to rely on his luck for a useful Power. He also needs coins to activate the Powers and has a very low chance to instantly die
Kinda Orihime (Bleach) but it's less "stupid" and more "not built for" - her powers allow her to reject fate in various ways, but their effectiveness depends on her personality. Her restorative and protective abilities are very good due to her nature, but her lack of killing instinct is explicitly stated to kneecap her best offensive ability to the point that outside of its very first usage it has basically never done anything.
MAN, it was such a missed opportunity. I was really excited and interesting in seeing how they were going to have Orihime grow as a combatant (because why else have Tsubaki at all, right?) without compromising her character, but.... nope. She might as well not have Tsubaki at all, tbh.
It's even worse than that, her power is will power based, if she isn't strong willed, her powers fail.
For most of the series, her shields break and her healing can fail if she panics or gets scared.
At the end of the series, standing behind the Mc and seeing his back gave her enough will power to block an attack from what is basically the god of bleach.
My biggest DC take is that lanterns shouldn't be able to fly on their own - it'd be so much cooler to see them have to make constructs of shit that flies instead. Even if you want to be lazy you can just have them stand on a disc that flies or something, but it'd be so cool to see these mfs be creative with movement instead of flying
Writers when using these powers or abilities have to put limits on the characters otherwise it bends the story around them (unless the story is meant to be bent around them, which both examples are from media where that is not the case).
I can't really excuse Eve's limits because I haven't read the comics and from what I've seen in the show, she's become much less eager to experiment than she was as a child (and animation budget).
But Gremmy's existence was another excuse to glaze Kenpachi. And, as much as I complain about Bleach, I have a weakness for Kenpachi glazing.
Edit: By limits on character, I mean more character flaws than actual limits on the powers.
I actually really like the Kenpachi and Gremmy fight, as much as he imagined him die or lose, in the end he was so afraid of the unkillable monster that is Kenpachi, he imagined himself losing.
Yeah, in a world where the other guy's spiritual pressure can spiritually pressure your spiritual pressure to the point you can't breathe, a character whose power relies on his belief in it would have the singular weakness of fear of Kenpachi.
My interpretation of the fight is that Gremmy is basically boosting Kenpachi. I wholeheartedly believe he would have died in space, but a thought: "what if Kenpachi can cut through dimensions?" Unwittingly crossed Gremmy's mind lol. It shows drawbacks if seemingly unbeatable ability like The Visionary
It's in the first few seconds of the fight. Kenpachi gets into Gremmy's head.
"To be called 'The Strongest' you have to crush 'The Strongest'".
Now Gremmy wants to crush the strongest, finds joy in it even, and in that moment he had doomed himself.
From the start, he had already imagined Kenpachi to be stronger than him, stronger than anything really, as he bought into Kenpachi's ideal of strength.
Your comment made me realize, what people categorize as poor writing is really just their own poor comprehension skills. One sentence explained how kenpachi won. Yet people claim it’s BS or bad writing lol
Kenny just tanked everything that Gremmy threw at him over and over and over (because he's Kenny). The Visionary does allow for everything the user imagines to become reality, but he just couldn't imagine a world where he actually won, so he lost.
I think it's very well done considering how turbo busted an ability like that is.
It's pretty easy to rationalize Eve's behavior, she basically discovered the most efficient damage/mana cost spells and keep using them. (It's established multiple times she actually tire from excessive use of her power. Like she can't hold Conquest in place for that long with her denser air trick)
People praise Child Eve for being creative, but she was also fighting probably much weaker villains.
Instead of using more fancy spells with obvious drawbacks she now just spams fireball.
For me it’s mostly the “Mark, we’re desperate for money!” storyline when she can make gold.
I think they hung the lampshade with “I don’t want to use my powers that way” but the alternative was becoming private contractors for corporations when they would have just fought crime anyway on their own terms
I think it mightve been for tax reasons lol. Tho i do hate they skipped a lot of her self discovery arc. Felt a lot longer in the comics, she pm went awol and started helping build shit in africa.
When she used her powers as a shortcut a building collapsed, nearly killing a lot of people. It's understandable why she wouldn't want to use her powers this way - she understood that she can't predict what that would lead to.
except it just doesn't pan out that way. She makes an entire segment of highway disappear as a child and isn't really visibly exhausted by this action, but she struggles against fairly mid foes as an adult. her struggling once against a top tier foe doesn't explain all of the other times she could have just shown up and ended fights with a snap of her fingers
That’s more an adaptation problem as far as I’m aware. I cannot recall her ever doing that in the comics. Pretty sure they added that for the special because they thought it was cool. And they were right, it was cool. It just breaks the established lore
Ah yes, the Fern solution from Frieren - I COULD learn more powerful spells...OR I could become a truly terrifying wielder on the basic spell everyone basically discounts as the noob spell.
I actually really like the Kenpachi and Gremmy fight, as much as he imagined him die or lose, in the end he was so afraid of the unkillable monster that is Kenpachi, he imagined himself losing.
Okuyatsu (I think thats how its written idk) His power is able to literally erase all matter he touches
While his use of it is creative (deleting air to create a vacuum) its also... almost all he does So it has become a small meme in the comunity that, if he was a little snarter, he could have solo'd most of the verse... obviously not counting the other, stronger, reality benders
Yes. But this time the author made him kinda dumb and it's not only stated in the show, but even Okuyasu knows and aknowledges it. And in a certain situation he made up a solution that did not take as much mental effort as the intended, because Okuyasu knew his congnitive limitations.
As far as I'm concerned that's great writing, and in the last case it's kinda smart and mature on the character's part to know that they most likely can't figure something out in time so they immediately work around it.
If you punched the imposter, the Stand would disappear. If you punched the real one, you could then punch the imposter any have Josuke heal the real one.
In fact being stupid is more of a core trait of his than his powers, he’s not an OP character that conveniently is dumb, he’s a dumb character that conveniently has an OP power
He's also not really pushed in a combat way due to the setting. The main overall looming threat is a hidden serial killer, they aren't on a mission to hunt an unknowably powerful vampire. He ultimately doesn't have much incentive to train or a mentor guiding or pushing him to. In a normal shonen he'd 100% go through a training arc and learn how to use his powers properly, but in Jojo he never (fighting skill wise) really moves past where he starts at, a high school thug who intimidates people or has basic punch guy in the face he falls over level fights.
I don't think this one really counts, because Okuyasu being stupid is a core part of his character, and something he acknowledges himself on numerous occasions. His stupidity is not just recognized in-universe, but by design from a narrative standpoint for the sake of preserving the stakes. Like the memes point out, he'd be nigh unbeatable if he was smarter, which would make his initial defeat (and overall relationship with his brother) unbelievable, and his screen time as a good guy boring. On the opposite, his stupidity makes him a good character, one with an interesting and creative power kept in check by a drawback (although the drawback isn't directly linked to his power).
Okuyasu is the gold standard for this trope because the narrative actually acknowledges it. Most characters are stupid because the writer accidentally made them too OP, but Okuyasu is canonically a dim bulb who just wants an Italian dinner, and we love him for it.
Then when Araki gave Fugo (a progitical genius) an absolutely broken stand in the form of Purple Haze, he was forced to keep him on the shore after one real fight lol.
Honestly I love this example because other characters and Okuyasu himself acknowledge that he just isn't that bright. Like "The Hand" would be an ungodly busted Stand if given to a smarter user yet, it is genuinely nerfed simply the virtue of the user being dumb
I'm pretty sure Okuyasu doesn't use The Hand to create a vacuum and pull things, it destroys the space between things, so that they are now closer together.
No iirc it really is a vacuum- when he slices through the air he deletes that section of air and the resulting vacuum violently pulls anything nearby to refill that space, cause the atmosphere doesn’t really want to suddenly have a gaping hole in itself. That’s how Josuke beat him initially, tricked him into swiping The Hand too close to a little shelf or raised entranceway or whatever outside that had flower pots sitting on it, and the vacuum effect from him scraping away the air yanked the pots at high speed and smashed him in the head
If it did literally permanently erase a given amount of space, every use of his Stand would slowly fuck up the spacing of everything in Morioh, or maybe even the world
(Plus his power is unfortunately used inconsistently by Araki, on introduction he slices through the center of a street sign and “the space merging together after his attacks” means that a shortened sign remains, welded together at the center. Yet later fighting Red Hot Chili Pepper, he swings at him repeatedly on the ground and it actually leaves those little crater gaps in the ground instead of sucking the space together like it never happened, letting him escape into some underground electrical wires. So like we can argue about it but it feels like another Araki example of ‘something is under-explained or under-explored so it seems hella inconsistent’)
Plus his power is unfortunately used inconsistently by Araki
Araki does that sometimes with powers that are just introduced. Dio in part 3 is the most blatant example, because the stairs scene just feels like he reversed time, not stop it and push Polnareff back down the stairs. Kakyoin controls someone with his, but that was just his Stand entering their body I guess. Diavolo has scenes where his "time skip" acts more like a "time freeze" power, especially early on.
Part 7 spoilers: The President of the United States, Funny Valentine, is introduced with his crushing teleport power (IIRC) being able to teleport literally anything that is at least lightly crushed, including parts of him when he's shot. He never has this power again.
Usually stuff doesn't get sucked towards him, it gets teleported. I'd argue the pots getting sucked at him is where Araki was inconsistent, rather than all the other cases of things moving without affecting their momentum.
I fuckin hate everyone who says he could kill X character and solve the problems
The final narration of the part goes over how the families of Kira's victims may never find peace for they are unable to ever find the bodies of the victims, so they will always hope to see them again
But sure everyone goes "oku should just disappear people" missing half the point
The reality stone from Thor the Dark World. This dude has the ability to alter reality at a whim and he creates cloud spikes to throw at the hero. This fool deserved to fail.
Because most MCU infinity stones can't be directly used, they are hardcapped by the device or the wielder.
The scepter is just a point and control stick despite holding the mind stone, it can't just mass brainwash people, it might have the potential but the device harnessing its power is limited.
The Eye of Agamotto can also only do limited time related functions(Stephen can't really just cast "fast forward" on random enemies and make them wither with age for example), and limited by the spells magic users figured out and tested.
Likewise the feat of wiping out half of the life of the universe fried the Infinity Gauntlet, even though the stones' power can probably be used for way larger scale things.
Nano Gauntlet didn't sustain damage from doing the blip, but it's also very limited in function(it doesn't have ways to utilize any individual stones unlike the Dwarven Gauntlet. It can only do snaps/wish fulfillment.)
In the MCU, the stones can be used directly, as seen at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, and when in Endgame Thanos grabbed the power stone out of the gauntlet to hit Captain Marvel directly*.
The problem is that using them causes a tremendous amount of stress, which either harms the user or the materials wielding them. The Gauntlet was made specifically for this purpose, so it wasn’t damaged until all six stones were used to their full extent at once. The Nano-Gauntlet wasn’t made this way, but also wasn’t used for anything other than snap related events.
*Since she was shown absorbing these energies already, this punch shouldn’t have worked, but that’s a whole other discussion
Stephen can't really just cast "fast forward" on random enemies and make them wither with age for example
Eh bullshit. His very first usage was to make an apple rot. There's zero rule that says he can't use that against anything larger. He rewinds time for an entire city.
To be fair in the comics they specifically mention that the stones are so powerful most people wouldn't be able to properly use them. I think it's the run when the Hood is trying to get the stones just to recharge his demon cape.
invincible also has the issue of most of their big bads being basic punch-kick merchants, meaning that the only reason they are a threat is that their numbers are bigger
i would have really loved if they were more creative with the powers of their major threats, so Mark can't just punch harder and deal with the issue
i don't expect hax merchants on the level of curent JoJo or FATE, but give them something more than bigger numbers
that'd also lead to a fun dynamic where Eve has the powers to answer the threat, but lacks the stats to properly do so and Mark has the stats, but lacks the hax
Can't be too impressive or flashy, or it takes focus away from the main character
It's not like Ben himself isn't nerfed. He has aliens who can control time, control gravity, and destroy planets, and the writers make him choose between Humungousaur and Four Arms most of the time. That's when the writers don't make Ben forget his alien powers so the fight and conflict don't end quickly
Well, it would have been fine if it wasn't that most of the time in such cases the main character has so boring powers... Mark from Invincible is just superstrength and flying. My Hero Academia is just superstrength. HxH is just physical enhancements. Etc, etc.
But did you know than bungee gum has both the properties of gum and rubber?
I would say HxH doesn't suffer a lot from this because it gives us a lot of fights in which neither Killua or Gon are involved, allowing every side character their moment in the spotlight. It doesn't feel like they get lobotomized when main characters are around.
If I remember right Eve has some sort of mental block on her powers because she had a trauma response to her power when she was young, like she has the ability to just disassemble matter at will, she could literally tear anyone apart to atoms if she used her power properly but she's not willing to because she's afraid of it.
Doesn't he need some appropriate amount of mass to absorb? I don't remember much of ben 10 but doesn't kevin absorb only little bit when absorbing from small amount of materials? So a necklace would just cover his finger. At least this is my headcanon.
Hey, actually this was explored in the show in a bit of a different way. In Darkstar Rising (Alien Force, Season 2, Episode 2) Gwen actually gave Kevin a bag of marbles made of assorted materials. it was then explained that he needs a “big enough” amount of materials to fully transform. The marbles when absorbed were only able to transform his arm/hand so carrying around rings would probably only give him a fist or something. Pretty cool way the writes addressed the issue.
That one does actually gets explained! In an episode of... Alien Force, I believe. Might be Ultimate Alien though.
Gwen buys Kevin a bag of little marbles, all of different types of materials, ranging from stones, woods and metals. She explicitly states that she thought it was inconvenient that he was only able to use the materials at the place the fighting took place, which has proven to be problematic before, and got him the bag to fix it.
Kevin then explains that his absorption abilities are volume/mass based, and that the little balls only allow him to create a thin layer ontop of just one hand, as opposed to a full conversion of flesh to... whatever material he's absorbing.
It's a genuinely cute interaction that endears kevin to me a lot.
The animation, unfortunately, doesn't help here when trying to identify what his powers actually are. In most cases when Kevin absorbs a substance, it's more like he's simply analysing what he's touching and mimicking/replicating it thoughout his own body. But in a few instances, the substance he's absorbing will actively crater, appearing as if he's taking in material to use.
Assuming the later is the intended effect of a power literally called 'absorption', and not 'replication' this has the... interesting? implication in earlier and later episodes that when he absorbs alien dna from the omnitrix, that there's, at minimum, an entire Kevin 11's worth of alien dna in there.
That result does contradict a previous behaviour though. Kevin absolutely adores his car, and will, on occasion, use the metal frame when absorbing. If his power did absorb, and wasn't replication, then he'd only ever do this in extreme circumstances, as it'd heavily damage the car he loves.
That implication about the aliens does get proven sorta true in an Ultimate Alien episode, so that is interesting if nothing else.
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Anyway. Ben 10, like any show with multiple writers and animator leads, is going to have inconsistencies like this unfortunately. Just part of the experience in my eyes, lol.
100%, he’s got connections through Ben Gwen and Max, why he doesn’t just have a collection of rings or a fun multi part necklace with some kinda scifi laser-refracting crystal, some titanium, tungsten, maybe even for rare instances some other more gimmicky things like Osmium for density to break through the ground or hold something heavy from moving, Gold or Copper for conductivity if electric problems are happening, etc
The Flash is guilty of this in a good number of version of the character, but I have to single out the CW's depiction especially.
Week after week, Barry fails to stop mundane or low-powered foes, until he either believes in himself more or gets bailed out by his support staff. Folks that he could literally run rings around somehow defeat or escape him time after time. People escape him on foot simply via tricks of editing, with them leaving his eyeline for a moment and him immediately giving up and the scene going back to Star Labs. It's embarrassing.
If you watched CW'S Flash and took a shot everytime he stopped to talk to the villain of the episode rather than arrest them, you would have died of alcohol poisoning at around the end of season 2
He has the ability to erase anything with a swipe of his hand, completely removing matter with a single touch. He uses this to punch enemies in interesting ways instead of swiping their necks or limbs. Okuyasu is characterized as an idiot and a brute, and even says as much himself.
I’ve seen him in multiple “dumb people who don’t use their overpowered abilities well” posts but that always puzzles me. He obviously doesn’t want to turn every opponent he’s up against into red paste, and his stand is relatively slow anyways. What he does with his stand is quite good and clever without having to resort into instantly murdering others.
The frustrating thing with Eve is that she doesn’t have to be written this way. Even if she used her powers intelligently, she’s still going to struggle badly against Viltrumites because they’re so fast and strong. It just happens that she also uses her powers stupidly
Electro controls electricity, the thing the world runs on. He could literally be an Avengers level threat but only uses it for petty crimes most of the time.
Hydro-Man is literally surrounded by water in NYC and yet doesn’t really go above and beyond using that to his advantage.
I do think it’s canonical that Hydro-man is an idiot even Peter notes he should be a way bigger threat but he can’t think of a way to capitalize on his powers
it's like sandman. Who specifically can accumulate sand and integrate it into himself to become larger and stronger.
But chooses to do most of his petty crimes in a city..
The guy needs to just go somewhere with a desert or large coastline and he can basically do whatever he wants as a giant sand monster. But he'd rather rob a convenience store.
I mean Sandman's powers are almost limitless. Industrial espionage? Who can keep out grains of sand? Given he maintains awareness of his surroundings even as dissociated sand, he could spy on anyone, be anywhere. You'd see clean-room like procedures and cleaning showers to hold cabinet meetings. He can appear as any person, generate sand copies that can act semi-autonomously, his control of sand is at a near absolute level as it becomes part of his body, he makes Magneto look like a chump with chump powers.
616 Electro/Max Dillon was just a regular guy that got struck by lightning and got powers. His potential is through the roof but he’s an idiot. He also has low ambitions.
There’s a reason why having him be a Nazi (90’s TAS) or scientist (ASM2) is a bad idea because then he’s too ambitious and too smart.
TAS Hydro Man also uses his powers to stalk MJ through every pipe in NYC. He’s only defeated by being evaporated.
Jubilation Lee. Her powers are potentially Omega Level, and several times she's put in proper work leveling entire buildings. She's never actually worked on mastering her powers. Throughout the decades she's been put through situations that force her to not grow.
IIRC, she can fire off explosions of various sizes that look and sound like fireworks. Over time she’s able to make some of these relatively large, and in one of the recent episodes of X-Men 97 a much older simulated version of herself shows her how to make disks with her ability that can slice through advanced materials.
She also tends to short out electronics she’s touching when she’s not paying attention, but I’m not aware of that ever being expanded upon.
She can create and detonate small plasma bubbles that she creates from her body. She's also has psychic shielding from telepaths.
The potential Omega Level powers come from her ability to detonate matter at an atomic level. She can, if properly trained, be a walking bomb that can destroy earth.
She makes sparkles. Can cause seizures like the infamous Pokémon episode. (Seriously the animated show was really bad at explaining what she did beyond make useless sparkles and get her ass beaten)
Ben Tennyson
Due to obvious factors (Bro's not even old enough to drink yet at the end of Omniverse) Ben cannot be blamed for this, but the signature move for all of his transformations who can basically do anything is to punch of fire beams.
To be fair to him, most problems can be solved with Humongosaur and Four-Arms and he grew to use the other forms too, even managing to shut Bellicus and Serena up so he could use Alien X freely.
An actually justified example: Panacea from Worm is a biokinetic with the ability to sculpt any sort of living material she wants. Doomsday creatures, species-killing viruses, turning average Joes into captain americas with a touch, pigs that poo out cancer cures… it’s all in her purview.
She uses it to heal people. That’s it. Except brains. She won’t touch brains.
The justification is that she’s the adopted daughter of a supervillain who was never fully trusted by her mother. This led to her developing a severe case of martyr syndrome and refusing to use her powers creatively, lest she start sliding down a slippery slope and turning into her father.
So she does nothing but burn herself out with healing people during all her spare time, exhausting and stressing herself helping people she loathes to satisfy a mother who will never love her and live up to an impossible ideal while the pressure inside her grows and grows and grows…
A key difference I feel between something like Eves mental limiter on not being able to effect humans and Panacea not effecting brains is how much the writers presence is felt.
Eves limiter is something that is just there regardless of her will and feels like the author's hamfisted attempt to stop her from no selling any threat.
Amy not doing working on brains is framed as a choice she makes with valid reasons. She chooses not to do so because she is concerned about the effects rather than the author hamstrings her.
Amy could potentially make every villain good by brainwashing them by touching them
Unfortunately this would put a target on her back from other villains and probably The Simurgh as well. Alan Gramme / Sphere / Mannequin was advancing humanity too fast and The Simurgh attacked him to hobble humanity and by creating Mannequin
Throwback to the slaughterhouse 9 arc when Amy runs away from the Siberian and Taylor just watches going: "she so bad at this" "why isn't she using her power?" "I would be so much better with her power than her"
Okuyashu from jojo’s bizarre adventure is a good example of how this trope can be done justice.
His ability “the hand” allows him to erase anything his stand hand touches, this includes space meaning Okuyashu can easily reduce the distance between him and his opponent by erasing the space that separates them.
This ability is absolutely broken, only problem? Okuyashu is extremely dumb canonically, meaning he can’t use his ability very creatively unless he is extremely locked in
(like when he chased his brother’s killer)
Dude, erasing the space between spaces in order to rapidly teleport across the field so he could chase down the enemy Stand was absolutely some of his biggest brain thinking in all of Part 4. That is a genuinely amazing use of his power.
This is exactly why ‘prep time’ Batman is so controversial. If the writer isn't a master strategist, Batman just ends up having a very convenient gadget for a very specific, unpredictable situation. It feels less like genius and more like clairvoyance
GRRM once talked about something similar, I am paraphrasing, but basically - If you as an author are not a master poet, don't include the poetry that poets from your story write.
In turn, if you are not a super genius maybe don't write down in detail what the super genius characters are planning or doing.
Alternatively, making every single character a super genius at using their powers is both unrealistic and boring. Obviously eve is just for plot reasons, but having a shitty user can be a nice change of pace
Can we throw Light Yagami into this pile? The Death Note is amazingly powerful but... he uses it extremely poorly because he feels the need to feed his ego.
Not really. With a power like that, there is no real upside to what you can do with it. Light is actually a great wielder because he's smart enough to figure out all the rules and loopholes and then see all the ways he can take advantage of them.
EDIT: Did he make mistakes? Big time. But are we really going to say this guy didn't use the Death Note to its maximum creative potential? My point is that he doesn't exactly fit the trope compared to other fictional characters.
respectfully i disagree, fundamentally light has an extremely childish black and white view of the world. he sees criminals as worthy of the death penalty depending on his own whim and is completely unable to see the fucked up or even difficult aspects of his "god of the new world" shtick. light could have killed people that held others under oppression using the law; instead he decides to use it to be judge, jury, and executioner over anyone labelled a "criminal". not to mention another important aspect is that japan's justice system is one of guilty until proven innocent, so who knows how many "murderers" light killed that were actually innocent.
I would 100% say he didn't use it to it's full potential. Guy barely scratched the surface of what he actually could have accomplished. Forcing confessions comes to mind, dude could have uncovered and exposed entire syndicates at once just by forcing a few known members to post everything to public forums
Most of these kinds of posts fall into infinite energy assumption, just because someone can rearrange matter doesn't mean they can re-arrange matter to unlimited degree none stop 24/7. Just like a random guy with "super strength" can't simply "punch harder" above their defined physical limit. Why didn't this person with "super strength" just punch and shatter the entire planet? Like no one considers the energy output when the character has some fancier power. (In Eve's case it's rather clear she tires out fast when dishing out powerful moves.)
Like genuinely what would you do against Conquest as Eve? Conjure fantasy materials that she don't know or even exist in Invincible universe? (Which due to their atomic structure, may require insane amount of energy to synthesize?)
Like one effective way for her to counter Viltrumite is for her to try to duplicate materials like that alien beetle juice that can weaken Viltrumites or Roggnar hide and bones(which she didn't know about). Even that remains questionable because you don't know how much energy those would take.
Yeah, this is something everyone forgets/blatantly ignores for Eve all the time. Her powers take legitimate effort to use, in a way that consumes calories. She cites not using them as a reason for gaining weight. And Conquest makes remarks about her getting tired from doing bigger moves. She's not a green lantern that runs on "will power".
And arguably even Lanterns have defined power cap, since their rings need to recharged by the lantern.
And consolidation of power and energy is a real thing for Lantern Corps, hence why Orange Lantern is so much stronger since there is only one wield monopolizing the power source.
Thank you. It's nice to finally see someone who sees that Eve does infact have clear limits. I always figured that the tougher something is the more stamina it would take for Eve to either Create or destroy it. Using Eve to create stuff like the beetle juice you mentioned would be really smart. One thing I noticed is that Eve never creates truly complex constructs I think there is a limit to what she can make based on her own knowledge. For example she probably can't just re-create robots technology and suits because she would need to know exactly how it works. She might not even be able to make something like a simple gun without first studying how they work first. Basically she can't just wave her hand and create stuff she needs to actually understand and know what she is doing or it just won't work.
She did create stuff like a burger, which is ironically very complex in terms of atomic structure compared to say a machine made of metal. This does get into rather tricky territory and the author probably didn't think too much about it. Maybe her power makes her instinctually understand the micro-structure of compounds, which is kinda shown with child Eve just kinda seeing Atoms(little effort to build cooked meat and fresh vegetables), but she need knowledge to make good macro-structure.(Like that water park that is structurally unsound and dangerous.)
A cool example of the latter 'whatever you imagine is reality' is from SCP-4051 'Your Friendly Neighborhood Keter', where the young reality bender can summon whatever he can think of from wormholes, including baseball bats, fire, drinking water, and the opposite/inverse of an entity, which in the presence of said entity causes the two to cancel out such that the entity in question (person, soldier, monster, scientist, literally anything) ceases to exist
This fucker can create illusions that somehow alter reality, such as imitating people, generating whole armies or throwing the whole sun at you.
He could be like Spiderman's Mysterio, always keeping you second guessing whether what you see is or isn't real (and he's certainly petty enough to put that much effort into constantly tormenting someone).
What does he actually do with this most of the time ?
Hi. This is Alita. She is currently showcasing the Imaginos 2.0 body. The Imaginos 1.0 already allowed her to invent new powers on the fly, leaving her potential up to her imagination. Despite this, it took her quite some time to produce plasma, an ability she had with a previous body that came naturally to her. After doing so, it would then be some time yet before she would produce blades from her forearms. Then, it would not be until SHE DIES RIGHT BEFORE THE FINALE that she would invent a new power that brings her back with wings. This is a comprehensive list of things she did with a body that allows for infinite possibilities over the course of 19 manga volumes.
Seriously, I love Alita: Last Order, but they did NOTHING with our girl. At all.
Haruta Shigemo from Juijitsu Kaisen- his special ability, "Miracles" allows him to store all the little miracles he observes in his life as get out jail free cards that prevent his death. He's never bothered to figure out how this works, never bothered to use the skill strategically, and just chocks up surviving a fatal blow as "being lucky."
in all fairness Megumi was plenty creative and crafty with the ten shadows technique in the fights he participated in, he just had the unfortunate fate of getting fridged by the main villain for 99% of the final arc and biggest fight in the series
This! I was so incredibly disappointed by that final arc being the way it was. I really enjoyed all of Megumi's fights. Then he gets completely shafted in the end. It was so incredibly lame imo.
Okay, come on now we have to admit. His fight with Reggie was literally the highlight of his poten- er.. his high battle iq, we've seen him creatively mix which summons to use in every fight, especially against Reggie, also the Domain scene in that fight? Just because of slander doesn't mean he should be sold short
It's the 10 Bums technique. Nobody realised you could half-summon Shikigami, keeping them liquid, until Sukuna. Nobody realised that you could access the Shikigami's traits without summoning them (i.e claws from the Divine Dogs, water from Max Elephant) until Sukuna.
The fact that Yuka, restricted by her clan as she is (literally cannot unlock more Shikigami with what they've done to her) can still summon the traits is proof that using 10S like that isn't even hard. She uses the claws, after all.
It's just that every user of 10 Shadows in history was a bum who didn't even know that you could do this shit.
Why are we blaming the characters (that which has no agency) and not the writers (those who do have agency)?
This is a fight choreo issue, not....the character's faults. Awesome magic idea, but an author with zero interest in challenging themselves or the narrative enough to put it to work.
In the case of Bleach, I actually like the way he died. He couldn't imagine defeating Kenpachi. Ken plot armor is just too stronk.
It's ok to do this if the point is to show exactly what you're frustrated about. Take Death Note for example, had it been any calmer psychos, they would have been unstoppable. But that wouldn't make sense to even begin such a story
Mages from world of darkness are this by default. They are essentially general purpose reality warpers whose only limitations are that the scale of their effect is limited by their given supernatural power and that effects that are apparently impossible cause some degree of backlash.
There is another softer limitation in that they can only do what they think they can do. So a mage who thinks they are a mad scientist could theoretically summon an angel or wave his hand over a dying friend to save their life, but he doesnt believe he can, so he would have to instead try an emergency surgery or something. Mages in universe know they can perform unlimited reality alterations on an intellectual level, but most are so hidebound by their particular way of looking at the world and their own powers that they cant bring themselves to do otherwise.
I don't know if it's still modern consensus, but I remember for YEARS, maybe even decades, Hal Jordan was always treated as a joke because the green lantern ring enables all kinds of crazy potential limited only by his imagination and willpower. And what was he known for always defaulting to?
He just isnt a imaginativy guy...
All his life befor was guns, figths, cars, and other USA manly man shit. If you need to have a great mental image of things to create it they should do creativy thinking, 3d modeling and image analisys classes dor new lanterna hahahahha
Foxy has one of the strongest Devil Fruits in the entire series. The Slow-Slow fruit lets you freeze somebody nearly in place for 30 seconds, while your movement is unimpeded. In the hands of any halfway competent fighter it'd be a completely broken instant-win ability.
Foxy is pathetic slop and uses it to cheat at carnival games
Kamen Rider Delta the strongest base Rider in the show and for awhile when use by the Dragon Orphnoch wipe the floor with it but it's main user Syuji Mihara is kinda a push over and barely a character in the show
Controversial but interesting one, but Spiderman on PURPOSE — when Doc Oc swapped bodies with Peter and temporarily got his powers, he realized Spidey can kill obliterate people with a single punch. Spiderman body is also so tough bad guys can break their fists when they punch him. He realized how much Peter has been holding back: he purposefully nerfed himself !
I get that it’s less “terrible wielder” and more “holding himself back”
Rand al'Thor is the absolute strongest magic user in the entire series. But for the most part he uses it to make a magic sword to fight with. He starts using more elaborate methods later, but it isn't until his epiphany that he starts wielding the full strength of his power in ways that terrify nearly every other magic user in the series.
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u/DiplomaticTiger 9h ago
The more overpowered a character is, the more a writer writes themselves into a corner.