This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Tanto: I really don't think this diverges enough from Holding Back the Phlebotinum and It Only Works Once to merit its own entry.
Earnest: Reading through HBTP ykttw discussion cleared it up for me, this is something that HBTP was originally addressing, but the "Writers/characters forget it exists, maliciously or not" angle was only vaguely implied in it's writeup. I vote for a Lump.
This Troper feels that the last paragraph of the main entry overlaps too much with Holding Back the Phlebotinum, making both entries seem redundant. Further delineation between these two and Misapplied Phlebotinum would be useful. Which are cases where the author just Did Not Do The Research and doesn't realize the implications of his Phlebotinum and which are cases where the author deliberately ignores or hand-waves away those implications for the sake of Plot? Which of Any of these three tropes only applies to one-off appearances of specific Phlebotinum or to recurring Phlebotinum not being used to it's ultimate potential regardless of whether it was deliberate or because of oversight?
Fast Eddie: yanked a bunch of justification stuff
- Also, the Goa'uld Sarcophagus. Enough said.
- This editor seems to recall something about how the sarcophagus would suck out your soul, and thinks he saw some episode where Daniel went through withdrawal after using the sarcophagus too many times.
- But "too many times" is a heck of a lot of times. Once or twice won't hurt you. If SG-1 was smart, they'd make a "maximum allowed sarcophagus dose" like we have for radiation, and restore the dead and crippled when they're under the maximum dose.
- And if it was bad enough in the episode where Daniel uses it to have an effect, why is his soul apparently back to normal after the withdrawal period?
- Because it doesn't literally suck out your soul. That's just how the Tok'ra put it. It's more akin to a drug addiction.
- And those are just the important ones. Part of the premise is that you steal a weapon from every boss you beat, for the entire series and in every spinoff, and there's also many other upgrades in some that you can find or purchase (whether they make you charge faster, let you double jump, make rush into a rocket, or whatever else). But you throw away everything at the end of each game, because you always start the next one with nothing but the megabuster and maybe your dash or slide (though at least one X game subverted it by starting you off with useful armor collected in the previous game, and the Genesis-only Wily Wars game (a remake of the first three original Mega Man games with new content) allowed you to tackle the hidden "final" set of levels with any mix and match of the first three games' weapons and abilities).
- The reason they never used it again may have been because of the psychic connection every howler has to the others of its species, and to their creator, Crayak.
- given that it was gained in an incident with the Elimist, and morphs gained under funky space time conditions have been showen to be lost when said conditions are reversed, they may no longer have it.
- The rocket launcher was stolen from the military, this editor doesn't remember if they showed extra ammo for it but stealing things from the military is an excellent way to get noticed by people with guns. Not good when most of the Scoobies were squishies instead of supers.
- Also, the Goa'uld Sarcophagus. Enough said.
- On the other hand, Robots in Disguise gave Optimus Prime a "Super Mode" with obvious guns on his forearms. He seemed to use them very rarely; however the super mode has guns on its head, missile launchers hidden in his fire truck ladder, and a host of other weaponry, so it doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
Pro-Mole: about Mega Man and other games, don't we have another trope for that entirely? I do feel the swim stuff is on the right place, but when someone mentioned the power-ups, I think that's another trope entirely...
