...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Useless Without Powers
- 137 statements
- 24 feature instances
- 14 referencing feature instances
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While some characters manage to still continue to be badass when being Brought Down to Normal, that doesn't happen to these characters. These kind of characters may be very competent and powerful with their superpowers, the drawback of being so powerful is that they become completely dependent on them. So much in fact that they are unable to face any situation without them, becoming useless against any kind of opponent, even the random low-level mooks; or worse they become a Distressed Dude / Damsel in Distress. When taken to extremes this kind of characters will be unable to do even basic tasks like taking a shower or even walking due to their power loss. This trope is often used in order to showcase the value of Badass Normals who actually have to train in order to be skilled and risk their lives much more than their powered counterparts. Also, it can often be part of a Magic Feather-type plot: Hero loses superpowers and is initially useless, but eventually realizes that his brain (or his heart) is his real superpower. Relates to You're Nothing Without Your Phlebotinum and Disability Superpower. Can be defied through Boxing Lessons for Superman. Inversion of Power Loss Makes You Strong. Bigger Stick is the equivalent as applied to equipment instead of inherent abilities. Compare the even more extreme counterpart Death by Depower, where losing superpowers directly or indirectly kills someone. |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_1bdeba5a | type |
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This happens to Storm from the X-Men when she loses her powers. She eventually overcame this by learning various martial arts techniques in order to compensate for her loss and become a Badass Normal for a few years real time. Afterwards when she got her powers back the experience of being depowered made her even more powerful. | |
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There's an episode in the first season of Angel where Angel becomes human. He has to push the Reset Button in the end because he believes he's become The Load. Subverted in Angel: After the Fall when Angel becomes human again. He manages to kill demon hordes rather effectively, but has to rely on magical spells to keep himself from succumbing to his injuries. |
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| Angel | hasFeature |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_283b23c1 | type |
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In the end of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, Hayate becomes the most powerful human mage in the multiverse. However, outside of Unison with Reinforce, she is just a crippled nine-year-old girl. It is especially evident in the last episode, where she is unable to even reach Reinforce in attempt to prevent her Heroic Sacrifice despite only being a few feet away. She gets better during the Time Skip, however. | |
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Heroes: With her powers, Daphne can run at Super Speed. Without her powers, she is unable to walk unaided due to her cerebral palsy. | |
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It's shown in DuckTales (2017) that the Born Lucky Gladstone Gander doesn't seem to have any of the skills people need to get them through life because his luck makes it so that everything turns out all right for him in the end. This is why he calls his family when he becomes the prisoner of a luck vampire, who sees him as an all-you-can-eat buffet. | |
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The Order of the Stick: The battle between Vaarsuvius and a black dragon ends rather decisively when the dragon materialises an Anti-Magic field around herself, which turns the battle from spellcasting elf vs spellcasting dragon to just elf vs dragon. Desperate for powers, V makes some extremely unwise decisions. | |
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The Mortal Instruments shows Simon, who was a vampire, and has been transformed back into a human. When he battles a female vampire in Tales of the Shadowhunter Academy, he realizes that he has not the slightest chance because he's too weak as a human. But it works better for him, because later he becomes a shadowhunter. | |
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Superman II. While at his Fortress of Solitude, Superman gives up his superpowers so he can be with Lois Lane. When they return to civilization, he runs into a bully who beats him up badly. This results in the opening quote above. | |
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This applies to wizards, sorcerers and other spellcasting-focused classes in Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder: antimagic is a major Kryptonite Factor to them as it strips them of their spellcasting and other supernatural powers, making them as useful as mere commoners in combat situations due to their low base attack bonus and hit points. It's worse for those who built their entire skill set around spells and supernatural abilities without at least investing in mundane skills since losing their magic means losing everything they have. | |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_72262aee | type |
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Avatar: The Last Airbender: As long as Katara's able to bend water, she's a force to be reckoned with. Take that away from her, and she's still physically fit, but lacks any martial arts or weapons training. In "Return to Omashu" episode, Ty Lee blocks Katara's chi, which robs her of the ability to bend, leaving her defenseless against Mai. Toph can do many things with Earthbending, and is so hands-on it looks like she's superhumanly strong, but doesn't seem to have any notable amount of physical strength or mobility. When stuck in a steel cage, she escaped only because she found out she could bend metal as well. When Toph was stuck in a wooden cage, she was out of luck and needed Katara to figure out a way to break out. |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_7cf5a07 | type |
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The Flash (2014): Barry has lost his speed a few times, and when he has, he finds it much more difficult to stop criminals and has to find other ways instead of relying on his speed and the Healing Factor that comes with it. Justified since there's not really anything that can compensate for running extremely fast. Played with when Caitlin loses her powers. She compensates by using technology similar to that of Captain Cold's gun, but is still vulnerable due to no longer having the Healing Factor that she had as Killer Frost. Even when she still had her powers, she wasn't that good at fighting and used her medical knowledge to injure people. |
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The Wheel of Time: Defied when Rand founds a new Magical Society; he insists that their Training from Hell include swordsmanship and other non-magical skills to fall back on in situations where they can't or shouldn't use the One Power. | |
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JLA: Act of God: The comic depicts all superheroes with powers as being like this. For example, Superman becomes a moping depressive after he loses his Kryptonian powers. However, some former superheroes, like Supergirl, still try to help out as Badass Normals. | |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_a993be1f | type |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_a993be1f | comment |
Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: Much of the plot revolves around this happening to the Jedi as the potential death of the Force itself looms. | |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_bcadd7cb | type |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_bcadd7cb | comment |
Warhammer 40,000: It doesn't happen often (Anti-Magic people exist, but they're as rare among psykers as psykers are among humanity), but the loss of psychic power can either leave a psyker helpless (most of them), or if they're a Space Marine Librarian (a Kung-Fu Wizard still capable of fighting as an ordinary seven-foot-tall genetically-modified killing machine in Power Armor) or a Grey Knight (an entire Chapter of Magic Knights), still fully capable of physically kicking ass. | |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_be75a917 | type |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_be75a917 | comment |
Subverted in Angel: After the Fall when Angel becomes human again. He manages to kill demon hordes rather effectively, but has to rely on magical spells to keep himself from succumbing to his injuries. | |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_c0da5437 | type |
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| Useless Without Powers / int_c0da5437 | comment |
An inversion with The Punisher, who thinks he'd be useless with powers. During a conversation with Deadpool, he says a Healing Factor would make him sloppy (exhibit A: Deadpool). That, and depending on the continuity he considers his crusade against crime to be the only useful thing he can do until he's inevitably killed, so he wouldn't want anything that would keep him living longer. | |
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Doctor Who: In "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood", this is Martha's opinion of the temporarily human and amnesiac Doctor when things start getting dangerous due to the arrival of the evil aliens pursuing them. | |
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This tends to be a problem for Daredevil. Understandable since his super-power compensates for the fact that he's blind. In one issue crossing over with Secret Wars II, the Beyonder gives Matt Murdock his sight back. Murdock assumes that this will make him an even better crimefighter, but he can't adjust (including losing his Hyper-Awareness) and gets the Beyonder to take back the "gift". One arc during Frank Miller's legendary run on the series had him lose his powers and need to go through Training from Hell with his mentor Stick to get them back again. |
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The Legend of Korra: Amon's ability to take away a bender's powers leaves everyone he de-bends completely and totally helpless from the very moment they're depowered. The process seems to be physically (or at least emotionally) debilitating on top of removing bending, as even athletic pro benders seem very low in energy afterward. A variation in the third season, where the Red Lotus members are all kept in a Tailor-Made Prison that denies them access to their bending element: The firebender is kept in an underground ice fissure that's too cold for her to make fire, the earthbender in an offshore wooden platform with no coal or earth, etc. They're all quickly freed after Zaheer escapes from his mountaintop prison to give them what they need to bend, but to be fair, no one expected him to suddenly gain airbending abilities. |
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer shows it was known as Cruciamentum, a test for slayers. They were supposed to fight a vampire without their special powers to make sure they were not useless without their powers. Of course it was cruel and many slayers were killed. | |
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Jax uses this as justification for leaving the Legends of Tomorrow after Martin Stein's death despite being the only one who knew how to repair the Waverider. | |
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In The Batman: Superman, Martian Manhunter, Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman have their powers stolen by some androids. After this they become completely useless against the villains and dependent on the local Badass Normals in order to regain their powers. | |
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| The Batman | hasFeature |
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Arrowverse: Laurel Lance of Earth-1 was largely this upon first becoming Black Canary. Justified in that while she had some self-defense training she was not really a fighter. Training with Wildcat and an artifical sonic scream helped but not enough to keep her alive. The Flash (2014): Barry has lost his speed a few times, and when he has, he finds it much more difficult to stop criminals and has to find other ways instead of relying on his speed and the Healing Factor that comes with it. Justified since there's not really anything that can compensate for running extremely fast. Played with when Caitlin loses her powers. She compensates by using technology similar to that of Captain Cold's gun, but is still vulnerable due to no longer having the Healing Factor that she had as Killer Frost. Even when she still had her powers, she wasn't that good at fighting and used her medical knowledge to injure people. Jax uses this as justification for leaving the Legends of Tomorrow after Martin Stein's death despite being the only one who knew how to repair the Waverider. |
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