...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Good Is Impotent
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For whatever reason — someone is magically divided into their "light" and "dark" halves, or an encounter with a Sufficiently Advanced Alien — the cast and crew have to deal with a "pure good" (and occasionally an identically powerful pure evil) entity. Regardless of the circumstances, the pure good entity will be a complete and total wuss. Militant pacifist, empathic to a ridiculous degree, incapable of defending itself, and generally utterly useless till the main cast reunites it somehow with its evil, depraved and (of course) effective and proactive side. This probably accounts for the shock and horror with which most Media Watchdogs greet heroes who are, shall we say, less than touchy-feely about how they deal with the villain of the week. "Good," after all, is supposed to be NICE. Right? The seeming impotence of Good in general might be because good no longer hurts evil. May explain why the Balance Between Good and Evil is needed because Evil will get things done, while the presence of Good reins in the ambition to prevent harmful and destructive actions, thus ensuring that Evil's proactivity will be channeled into things of which Good approves. In a meta sense, this trope is used because a good character that is suddenly made extremely powerful and deadly can tip the scales too heavily in the favour of good. While this might not be so bad if the writers make it so the villains work at meeting the hero at the same level, more often it makes the good side into Invincible Heroes. On that same note, concentrating, increasing and highlighting all the positive aspects of one character without upping the ante all-round and doing the same to the other characters can only lead to a Game-Breaker. Can sometimes happen when a character ascends to a higher plane of existence, and later finds out that when you're Ascended you can't actually do anything because of The Rules. For when Good can actually do stuff, see Holy Hand Grenade. Compare Good Is Boring, Redemption Demotion, The Gods Must Be Lazy, Failure Hero. Frequently includes Good Cannot Comprehend Evil. Contrast Good Is Not Soft and Good Is Not Dumb. For when the impotent good is one of two or more personalities, see Helpless Good Side. A Clueless Boss may contribute to this. And no, we don't mean that kind of "impotent". Examples |
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Done in Disney's Aladdin: The Series, but not with the main characters. Instead, they go to China and meet two identical twins, Zin and Zang, one evil and aggressive and the other good and meek. The twist is that neither has actual power until they merge into a dragon, and the alignment of the dragon depends on who forces the merge. When the evil one causes it, the dragon rampages and burns villages. When the good one finally grows a spine and takes control (which frightens the evil one for some reason), the dragon fixes everything. | |
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In Tales of Legendia, Grune turns out to be the opposite force to Shwartz, but is obviously weaker, from her amnesia to her lacking the power to beat her archenemy by herself. (Something obviously happened to cause this, but the game never explains it.) | |
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Bad Teacher: Amy constantly loses in her battle with Elizabeth, because while the latter is an incredible Jerkass, she is a smart and socially astute Jerkass who isn't afraid to hit below the belt. Amy, meanwhile, is an immature and naive twit who at first naively assumes she can befriend Elizabeth. Amy only nearly gets Elizabeth fired when she decides to hit below the belt, but by that time, Elizabeth not only has that loose end tied up, she manages to use the situation to get Amy fired for having drugs that Elizabeth possessed. | |
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Done very subtly in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Most of the characters and plot are stuck firmly into a Black-and-Gray Morality setting. The few truly good characters such as the priests or the Union Commandant are either helpless to change things or relegated to standing on the sidelines while the Black and Gray characters run things. | |
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In Polandball, the European Union, United Nations, and the League of Nations are generally well-meaning, but completely ineffective at stopping Ax-Crazy countryballs like Nazi Germany. The UN is armed with a squirt gun to punish those who misbehave. This is deconstructed tragically in this comic.◊ The UN doesn't see itself because it doesn't need to exist in a peaceful world. | |
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Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in No Country for Old Men is utterly impotent in his attempts to catch Anton Chigurh. | |
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In the Justice League episode "A Better World", an alternate universe President Luthor taunts Superman with that fact that Supes will just throw him in jail for the crimes he's committed, Lex will break out, and they'll start the whole mess all over again with no closure or end in sight. Unfortunately for Lex, Superman agrees and murders him, leading to the heroes becoming the Knight Templar Justice Lords. | |
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In Superman III Superman is affected by artificial kryptonite which instead of killing him turns him evil, and eventually splits him into a good Clark Kent and evil Superman. They fight each other, with Kent taking one heck of a beating — until he gets his second wind. | |
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The entire series of Othello is based on this trope, albeit the "evil" Na-na is different personality and not a literal "new" version of Ya-ya. | |
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Inverted in Xiaolin Showdown, where the good Jack Spicer is far more effective at fighting than he was when he was evil. Too bad he also annoys the hell out of the monks. | |
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You can actually discuss this with Carth, who points out that Malak hasn't won yet and probably was only winning because of the foundation Revan built. note The Republic being weakened by the Mandalorian Wars while it's still recovering from Exar Kun's War also factored in; the latter is why the Jedi didn't want to throw support into the former, inadvertently making the situation much worse. And as passive as the Jedi were, they were unfortunately right about Mandalore the Indomitable being a pawn of the Sith Emperor. Revan also had a Rakata factory capable of cranking out entire fleets of warships, droids, and weaponry at the push of a button while the Republic had to build everything from the ground up. It's also known that Revan was defeated, costing the Sith their competent leadership - Malak is so Stupid Evil that his tactical sense only goes as far as "burn the whole planet." Carth also remarks in the tomb of Ajunta Pal that the Dark Side's weakness is that it eventually consumes itself. | |
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The Death of Stalin: Svetlana Stalin is the only character among the Soviet elite who isn't murderous, cruel, or conniving in any way. But she lacks any real power and is a pawn in the post-Stalin power struggle. Eventually, Khrushchev has her shuttled out of the country once he consolidates power. | |
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In Me, Myself & Irene, the whole reason Charlie's psyche creates his evil alter-ego Hank is because Charlie's too much of a nice guy to stand up for himself. | |
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Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World plays this mostly straight, as Emil is a cowardly little runt who can barely swing a sword while his "Ratatosk Mode" is a cruel and powerful Blood Knight. Subverted in the closing act of the game when Emil seals away his Ratatosk personality and turns out to be just as powerful. In fact, his Mystic Arte has been confirmed statistically to be more powerful than Ratatosk's even without the latter's extension. | |
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Implied in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic somewhat. In a gang war between the 'good' Hidden Beks and 'bad' Black Vulkars, the good guys are losing and they're the side you have to join. Also, the good guys are losing at the beginning of the game when the Endar Spire is overtaken by the Sith. Finally, Malak, the 'Dark Lord' and Big Bad of the game does a good job conquering most of the galaxy and has an army of loyal Mooks. Might makes wrong in Star Wars, it seems. You can actually discuss this with Carth, who points out that Malak hasn't won yet and probably was only winning because of the foundation Revan built. note The Republic being weakened by the Mandalorian Wars while it's still recovering from Exar Kun's War also factored in; the latter is why the Jedi didn't want to throw support into the former, inadvertently making the situation much worse. And as passive as the Jedi were, they were unfortunately right about Mandalore the Indomitable being a pawn of the Sith Emperor. Revan also had a Rakata factory capable of cranking out entire fleets of warships, droids, and weaponry at the push of a button while the Republic had to build everything from the ground up. It's also known that Revan was defeated, costing the Sith their competent leadership - Malak is so Stupid Evil that his tactical sense only goes as far as "burn the whole planet." Carth also remarks in the tomb of Ajunta Pal that the Dark Side's weakness is that it eventually consumes itself. It also factors into the backstory, especially if The Exile is arguing with Atris or one of the other lost Masters. The Jedi were busy navel-gazing while Mandalore the Indomitable was leading his people on a rampage that got as far as Duro. Had Revan not disobeyed the Council by going to war, then the whole galaxy would have either speaking Mando'a, and/or been a satellite state for the True Sith. Subverted come the sequel Star Wars: The Old Republic. Yes, the Empire managed to catch the Republic with their pants down (because Revan and Exile had a masterful grip on the Idiot Ball and the Republic had no idea that they even existed). But then, there's a treaty that's about as strong as toilet paper that both factions treat with the same amount of respect. Still, it allows the Republic necessary time to regroup while the Sith predictably start infighting. The Republic has a bigger population, better developed infrastructure, rule of law (Senators can be crooked, but they can also be removed from office and sent to jail), and are smart enough to keep the wizards out of government for the most part. The Empire is "run" by an Omnicidal Maniac, "administered" by a theocratic cabal of Ax-Crazy sorcerers (with the only qualification for advancement is "I stabbed the other guy first"), has the infrastructure of a Third World backwater, relies on slave labor (and wastes the talents of anyone who isn't human, Sith species, or Chiss by sending them to the auction block), lower population, etc. An individual Imperial is probably a little tougher than their Republic counterpart because of Had to Be Sharp, but overall? The Empire ends up doing more damage to itself than the Republic, and is on the verge of collapse come the Makeb arc. The Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion reveals the Empire was deliberately constructed to collapse under its own weight after sufficiently weakening the Republic as part of a larger plan. |
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In one Slayers made-for-video movie, a magic mirror creates opposite clones of Lina Inverse and Naga. To the villain's horror, these turn out to be simpering, useless "good" copies that won't fight. This leads to his greater horror when he realises what this must make Lina. | |
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In the Red Dwarf episode "Angels & Demons", the ship Red Dwarf and everything on it was triplicated, but into good and evil versions. The good versions, of course, not only couldn't fight, but couldn't conceive of the idea of anyone intentionally causing harm. Needless to say, they didn't survive too long. | |
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In A Swiftly Tilting Planet, this is somewhat averted: the "good" people are proactive, strong, and willing to face evil, at least to give it a stern talking-to. But the wicked people are tolerated in the communities because they're better at things - one woman who is racist against Indians is the best midwife in the village, and Gedder the evil sumbitch is able to teach others how to farm. | |
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Green-Sky Trilogy: While it's not so much "good" as "good intentions," the Kindar have done such an awesome job of banishing conflict, crime, and even words like "anger," that their society is killing itself. Their Erdling counterparts are still hippies by our standards, but their acceptance of their emotional darker side makes them more robust. | |
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Jackie Chan Adventures ultimately subverts this. When the Tiger Talisman splits Jackie into two sides, Jackie's light side certainly seems like this at first, considering his even more extreme aversion to violence than normal, being reduced to crying in guilt after stepping on a bug, and apologizing even more than usual. However, once he's finally convinced that fighting is, in fact, necessary, he'll hand out a beatdown just as effectively as his dark side, even if he does still apologize afterward. In fact, it can be argued that his dark half is actually the less effective one, considering his impulsiveness, overconfidence, and violent attitude make him easier to manipulate. | |
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Played with in The Ren & Stimpy Show. Ren's two halves were evil and apathetic. | |
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In the Black & White series: Good gods are fairly restricted in the first game: they take longer to set up their power base, are much easier to impede, and have to cooperate with the villagers' desires rather than bend their godly power towards dominating the land. Moreover, evil gods get easy access to offensive miracles that are a much more efficient use of power than the defensive abilities of good gods. While evil play isn't sustainable in a level over the long term, its strategy of taking the land by force and moving on to the next conquest makes that almost irrelevant. Greatly mitigated in the sequel: good gods rely on impressing the enemy into switching sides, so they can focus their abilities on becoming powerful Barrier Warriors who build up an idyllic Shining City behind unbeatable defenses. Its Battle of the Gods expansion even adds a non-evil way of wiping out entire enemy armies in the form of a permanent mass Forced Transformation miracle, for those too pure of heart to Kill It with Fire. |
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In The Lord of the Rings, the Fallen Angel Sauron is busy conquering and wrecking the place up while his good counterparts are limited to guiding and influencing the Free Peoples and are forbidden to try to match him strength-for-strength. This is less because they're weaker and more because the last time the Valar took on the Big Bad directly, the resulting battle leveled a few major continents. | |
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The Animorphs book The Separation averts this with Rachel—neither sides are explicitly good or bad. They each got half of the components of her personality at random. The "good" side was given Rachel's tactical and strategic abilities, leaving the "evil" side with just the blood rage and ability to fight. The end of the book results in the evil Rachel grudgingly having to work alongside the good Rachel because evil Rachel can't plan or strategize worth squat, so is totally unprepared for any reaction to changing battle situations other than "kill something." | |
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In Xenosaga, Chaos all too often comes across as an indecisive wuss whereas pretty much the whole series is an Evil Plan by his dark twin Wilhelm. Some people even suspect that Wilhelm's true goal was to force Chaos to make a decisive choice by attempting to make that choice for him. | |
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Subverted in Army of Darkness. "Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun." Better illustrated by the director's cut version of the line: "I ain't that good." | |
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The Disney Afternoon cartoon Darkwing Duck featured an episode of this: Darkwing was hit by a beam that divided him into his "positrons" and "negatrons", resulting in him dividing in two. The "good" version was treacly, cloying, and so nonviolent he refused to even step on bugs... and of course useless in the effort to round up the evil version. However its arguably Downplayed, as the Good version proves to be a Badass Pacifist, who manages to single handily save himself, Gosalyn and Launchpad from his evil Counterpart's death trap. On top of that, the episode in question eventually averted this. Negatron-Darkwing gets hit with the splitter beam, which rather than splitting him again results in his evil getting even more concentrated, and suddenly he can shoot lightning bolts out of his fingers, throw cars with his mind, and cause earthquakes without even trying. It looks like he's given up on merely robbing banks and is about to destroy the city just to laugh while it burns, when in desperation Goslyn decides to zap the useless Positron-Darkwing with the splitter. What happens after that looks like stock footage from Sailor Moon, but it works. | |
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In the French-English comic Requiem Vampire Knight, Résurrection is a Hell-like dimension where evil people reincarnate as hideous monsters and split into different categories according to their sins in life. The closest thing to a "good" faction in this world are the lamias, who did not commit any real crimes in life, but they are sentenced to this world regardless because they were victimized by someone else that did became a monster and the only way they can leave Résurrection is to destroy the one responsible. They are among the weakest creatures in this setting, only slightly above zombies and make up a significant portion of the slave population, with the most beautiful and not yet bitten female lamias being forced to join Count Dracula's harem. On their own, they are only capable of spooking their tormentors in their sleep and depend on mind-controlling other creatures such as centaurs and werewolves (i.e. other evil individuals - rapists and religious zealots, respectively) to really make a difference. And even then, that doesn't mean much since the vampires (Résurrection's elite made up of the most depraved individuals to ever live) are more advanced in every single way. One of their biggest onscreen moments was to be wiped out en masse (possibly Ascending to a Higher Plane of Existence) after Dracula kills one of their most prolific tormentors, a man who'd been kept in cryogenic suspension, by breaking his neck. Blood flows from his nose, forming a very recognizable mustache. | |
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The classic Star Trek episode "The Enemy Within" where a transporter accident lead to Kirk getting divided into "good" (peaceful, passive, considerate, pacifist) and "evil" (violent, resolute, egoistical, aggressive) selves. What makes this the poster child for this Trope is that the "Evil" side does learn to calm down and even assumes command for a short time, while the "Good" side remains unable to make the simplest decisions (though downplayed in that the episode doesn't call it Kirk's good and evil sides, it just ends up that way based on the division of traits). Notably, though, the episode actually plays a bit with the concept, as the "good" side turns out have also have been given Kirk's courage while the "evil" side lacks it and is therefore a total coward when the chips are down, and ends up falling into a useless panic at the thought of losing independent existence, something the "good" side can calmly accept. | |
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Done in an episode of Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness where Po, in his usual shenanigans, splits himself into his Yin and Yang half after glimpsing into the Mystical Mirror of Ying and Yang. While Bad Poe was ruthless, powerful, and even cunning (as when he sneaked up and imprisoned Shifu during his monologues where he realized Po's bizarre behavior was the result of the mirror), Good Po was overly flattering, nonviolent, extremely gullible (Bad Poe tricked him into trapping himself into a pillory just by asking him nicely) and even a little dumb (he thought he couldn't escape even though the keys Bad Po dropped were right in front of his feet and the pillory wasn't even locked in the first place as Good Po demonstrated when he retrieved them). Subverted in the end where Good Po intentionally undergoes multiple Amusing Injuries to weaken Bad Po so that the Furious Five will be able to make him gaze into the mirror again and reunite the two halves (since both Pos share each others' pain), then tricking him into destroying a replica while thrusting the real mirror into his face, regaining his old self. | |
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Most any portrayal of a stereotypical angel. Ironic, since in Judeo-Christian scripture, angels are portrayed as warriors or executioners just as often as they are as messengers, and usually have to tell any humans who recognize what they are not to be afraid. | |
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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are the embodiment of this trope, in one package. Hyde even explains to the rest of the League why he has been getting stronger and stronger while Jekyll had been getting correspondingly weaker: as the embodiment of Jekyll's id, Hyde has all the drive and ambition, leaving Jekyll with nothing. | |
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In The Dark Crystal, the wise and gentle urRu and the cruel Skeksis were split from a single race of beings, the urRu retaining their wisdom, benevolence and purpose but lacking the will to take action, while the Skeksis retain their strength, force and willfulness but lose their wise and compassionate natures and devolve into a Decadent Court. | |
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Dragon Ball: Buu's internal conflict splits him into good and evil halves. While good Buu is far from impotent, he is still bested by his evil side and is absorbed into the more powerful Super Buu. Later on, when Buu is extricated from Super Buu, it is revealed that "Fat Buu" was created when the Grand Supreme Kai was absorbed by the original, pure evil, Kid Buu. Earlier, Kami splits into a good and evil half to ensure that he could work as Earth's "God" (God in this series is actually a job position) without the evil in him causing him to abuse his power. The evil half that becomes Piccolo Daimaou is not, as far as the audience can see, actually any stronger than Kami, but Kami is a Non-Action Guy so it's rather academic. The 2nd Piccolo is stronger due to a combination of youthfulness and an inversion of Villain Forgot to Level Grind. |
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Played with in Johnny Bravo when the villain of a Star Trek episode challenges Johnny to a battle between good and evil. He is assisted by two intimidating mooks, while Johnny is paired off with a choir boy who immediately runs away. Johnny still wins however, because the mooks are dumber than he is, and the villain is a wimpy geek who can't even slap him without hurting his wrist. What makes this weirder is that this episode happened after Johnny was turned into a bumbling idiot who screams like a girl and is beaten up by little boys on a regular basis. | |
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Somewhat the point of Demolition Man. In the future San Angeles, society has banned everything and anything that can possibly harm or offend anybody: guns, alcohol, swearing, caffeine, sexual intercourse (and physical contact too), chocolate, speeding, spicy food... The downside to this city of politically correct Perfect Pacifist People is that when Ax-Crazy criminal Simon Phoenix is thawed out of cryostasis, the wimpy police of the future have absolutely no idea how to deal with his old-school brutality, and Phoenix runs amok. Hence, they need to thaw out tough Cowboy Cop John Spartan to deal with Phoenix and save the day. | |
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On American Gothic (1995), no matter how hard Dr. Crower and Gail fight for Caleb's rights, and no matter how much Merlyn uses her angelic powers to protect him, Caleb is inexorably drawn into Buck's orbit and everyone seems helpless to prevent it, or even expose Buck's evil. It doesn't help that the sheriff is a Villain with Good Publicity and that both Matt and Gail are hardly immune to mind games or temptation, but even Merlyn is made out to be decidedly weaker than her adversary—and gaining more power to face him almost pushes her too far. | |
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In one episode of the Mork & Mindy animated cartoon. You know the drill. | |
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In Watchmen, the superheroes come in three flavors: sympathetic and ineffectual, sociopathic and effectual, and Dr. Manhattan, who is all over the map depending on how "into" humanity he's feeling this week. Nite Owl is the other kind of "impotent" as well and given the nature of the work, this is almost certainly intended to be symbolic. | |
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer subverted it: A demon splits Xander into two, but while one half is meek and the other assertive and strong, neither is "good" or "evil" (although both are convinced that the other half is the demon presumably because they've seen this plot before). And both sides love Anya and try to protect her from the other one. Before they get put back together, Anya expresses an interest in trying out having two Xanders… |
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The Constantine has the angel Manny who shows up to give Constantine cryptic advice or say how he cannot do anything that would interfere with human free will. This prohibition is so strong that he is powerless to do anything against the demonic forces terrorizing humanity and interfering in free will by possessing humans against their will. Essentially, evil can do whatever it wants and the angels cannot do squat including rescuing an innocent girl's soul from Hell forcing them to rely on a broken mortal and the threat of eternal damnation to make sure he is motivated. | |
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Kamen Rider Double: As is standard for Kamen Rider, the heroes and villains draw their power from the same source — in this case, the Transformation Trinket for both is the Gaia Memory. Memories are most powerful when they're inserted directly into the body, but they also carry nasty side effects like addiction. The villainous Sonozaki family, who create and sell the Memories, use special belts that mitigate the side-effects but makes them weaker; in order to make up for this, they use extra-powerful Memories. Meanwhile, the heroes use purified Memories that can't be inserted into the body at all (and look like◊ fancy USB memory sticks, as opposed to the skeleton-themed bad-guy Memories◊), but they're much weaker than the villains' Memories, only reaching full power for a Finishing Move. | |
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Lord Vetinari claims this to Vimes in Guards! Guards! ("A great rolling sea of evil ... but people like you put together little rafts of rules and vaguely good intentions and say, this is the opposite, this will triumph in the end, Amazing!"). Vimes's entire subsequent career proves him wrong. | |
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