Trope Talk: Powerups

My favorite power-up moment is in The Incredibles, when the giant death robot accidentally gives Mr. Incredible a chiropractic adjustment that fixes his back and lets him fight better

As much as the MCU gets wrong, one of the best lines I've ever heard was "Are you Thor, the god of hammers?"

The best “The Power Was Within You All Along” I’ve ever seen is in the How To Train Your Dragon books, where Hiccup suddenly discovers he is a master sword fighter after being terrible at it until that point despite constant training… because he breaks his right arm at the start of the fight and learns for the first time that he is actually left handed

I think my favourite kind of power up is the 'dropping my moral code' power up. The hero has been actively avoiding killing people because they see it as morally wrong. Then the villain does something so terrible the hero snaps, and you get the amazing "Oh sh*t, they're actually trying to kill me now. Please God help me." moment from the villain.

I think the best "I'm holding back" explanation I have ever read was in a Spider-Man comic. He was thrashing the Vulture in a Sinister Six arc and he, in his usual mocking fashion, asks Toomes if he ever wonders how Spider-Man barely defeats them when they come at him one at a time, but can defeat all six of them at once when they come together? Spidey provides an answer. I cannot hold back anymore. When it is just you I am trying, actively, not to hurt you but when the lot of you come together I can't afford to do that.

I think "wise-cracking character stops making jokes and just starts attacking" is a power-up in itself.

The more I learn from these videos the more I realize that the true lesson behind it all is "You can do any trope you like as long as there's story being told along with it."

"You can't use this ability without harming yourself" will always somehow become "You will somehow get away with using this ability whenever you want, as often as you want, with the consequences being absolutely minimal"

I love that the "I am not left-handed!" scene absolutely counts as a power up and Red used it in the video. I absolutely love it.

I love Rock Lee's "time to stop holding back" power up in his fight against Gaara. The whole time everyone's laughing at Lee and how he can't be a ninja without ninjustu, and Gaara is built up to be this monster of a kid. Then when Guy sensei tells him to remove his training weights, they laugh again about how a few training weights could affect the fight. Lee drops the weights causing them to crater the ground and send up a shockwave of dust. It shows everyone's face an shocked expressions. It wonderfully implies all the training Lee had to go through to get to this point.

"I'm not left handed either" is one of the best god damn moments in cinematic history. When Inigo is on the ropes early in the fight and switches hands, the audience knew it was coming since he already established that he was going to duel Wesley left handed so the fight wouldn't be too easy. When Wesley reveals that he was doing the same thing later in the fight, it not only tells us more about the character of this mysterious man in black, but firmly cements him as a highly talented badass. Someone badass enough to, say, win a wrestling match against a giant, or outwit a criminal mastermind, or be immune to one of the deadliest poisons on earth. Basically, the Princess Bride is probably the best movie ever, and all other cinema sword fights wish they were Inigo vs Wesley.

just imagine if the protagonist just got their powerup at a random time, they could just be talking about oranges then they just suddenly go super sayian

In his book, *Manga in Theory and Practice*, Hirohiko Araki tells how by the end of Part 2 of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure he began to realize that basing your story around powerups and ever stronger heroes was a losing game. Over the course of the next parts of Jojo he threw out his old magic system entirely in favor of one that was designed around encounters whose structure wasn't 'am I powerful enough' but 'how do I escape this metaphysical mystery box the villain has put me in before he turns my organs into poker chips?' The heroes almost never get powerups of any kind, but have to figure out how to outsmart their overpowered enemies, and it all hinges on whether their own specific set of powers holds the key to unlocking victory- which it doesn't always. Jotaro's powers are just good enough to defeat a time-manipulating vampire king but he later gets clapped by a rat with a dart gun, all because his powers weren't right for the situation. It's how he's kept the series fresh and interesting for forty years.

I think Po is the best example of a good "the power was within you all along." The 'there is no secret ingredient ' theme means he just has to work hard and believe in himself when previously he didn't think he could.

I like how the first Kung Fu Panda did the ‘power was inside you all along’ trope. It’s built up that the dragon scroll is the ultimate power up and that it’s going to externally somehow turn Po into the dragon warrior. But when it’s revealed that the power was inside him all along we really get it, because it’s a big part of his character to constantly self deprecate. In the end it’s by being himself and using what he learned from the people who believed in him that he defeats Tai Lung who couldn’t fathom the idea that what he had always fought for had always been within

the whole "The power was within you the whole time" Trope was what really killed my enjoyment for the 'Flash' live action show. Theres only so many times that the plot can be resolved by "Im not fast enough!!" "Yes you are Barry." "Oh I am" before you just start to guess the whole season by ep 1.

8:09 We need to talk about "Why do I hear Boss Music besides my own" The thought that bad guys just exude Boss Music is hilarious

I know this isn't a clear-cut case, but Superman's "World of Cardboard" scene feels like a Power-Up in a sense because he explains why he has to hold back. Very much a case of it being justified helping to explain Superman just beating the snot out of Darkseid

I like the fact that the “spiky glasses villain” Red has been drawing for this episode is basically a villain who is also a legitimate therapist who actually does their job at all times New favorite recurring character

7:07 "a problem dropping in out of nowhere presents the opportunity for more story, a solution dropping out of the blue feels like cheating the audience out of a story" honestly the best articulated way of putting that I've ever heard