When gifts or boons are handed out for characters, there is often one person who seems left out.
Typically, however, the longer the characters are seemingly neglected, the bigger their own boon will be. It's almost always well worth the wait.
For instance, there was one floral commercial where the female staff are all given flowers, except one person. However, after playing up the sympathy for her for all it's worth, the commercial ends with her getting an enormous bouquet.
Compare My New Gift Is Lame and The Call Put Me on Hold.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- El-Hazard: The Magnificent World: The Terran heroes who come over get powers, except for Makoto, who seems to be left out. However, he eventually learns that he has a power after all and it's an earthshaking one: the power to reach the soul of Lost Technology and communicate with it, allowing him to control everything from simple gadgets to the most devastating weapons in that world.
- Fushigi Yuugi: In a slight twist on the trope, Tamahome is left out when the other Suzaku seishi receive holy items that increase their powers. He is led to believe that he is being punished for insulting Taiitsukun (the benefactor), when in fact he receives no item because his powers do not manifest themselves through any physical object. He discovers later that he was "upgraded" after all.
- In Gate Keepers, Banchou doesn't manifest his own Gate power until the last episode, and several times before that, some of the other characters wonder if he even has one. While not quite "best", his power is impressive enough to let him fight his way out of a monstrous Invader that had tried to swallow him.
- In Tokyo Mew Mew, Ichigo is the last to find Mew Aqua, and saves the whole city with its residue — that and The Power of Love.
- Digimon:
- In Digimon Adventure, Takeru "T.K." Takaishi's partner is consistently the last of the kids' digimon to evolve to the next stage, only doing so in the face of a Big Bad that had already wiped out the rest of the team combined (Against which his partner's holy powers are significantly useful).
- In Digimon Adventure 02, he was also the last to receive his D3 Digivice (although this time along with Hikari) and his digimon was the last to achieve DNA digivolution/Jogress evolution (this time, along with Iori).
- It's worth noting that the episode where Takeru and Iori get their Jogress is when the team finally manages to do some serious damage to BlackWarGreymon.
- Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh loves cats. Unfortunately, she can't buy a cat because her mom is allergic, and every other cat Sakaki ever approaches reacts by either running away or biting her. Finally, she meets an Iriomote Cat, an endangered wildcat which doesn't just like Sakaki, but proves to be fiercely loyal to her, to the point that he traverses the country to come to her rescue several episodes later. Best cat ever.
- In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Escargoon says an interesting variation of this trope in the fifty-third episode. "Luckily, we saved the worst for last." And out of all the five Martial Arts All-Stars that Kirby battled throughout the episode, the "worst" that was saved for his last opponent was none other than Yankee Sekitori, the super-sized sumo wrestler.
- Usually in One Piece, Luffy's fight with the main antagonist of an arc comes towards the end of the arc, after the other Straw Hats have beaten their adversaries. Also, it's usually the most awesome.
- In Aquarion Evol, Mikono's family all have showy individual powers, but she remains normal despite being past the age where Elements usually manifest. It turns out that her gift is to boost the psychic links between Element users, which- in a war that relies on The Power of Friendship and combining Elements- is pretty darn useful.
Fan Works
- Done straight or subverted in With Strings Attached, depending on one's POV. Paul has to wait a lot longer than the others to get his magic, since the Fans had to go on Winter Solstice Break. When he finally gets his magic in spectacular fashion, he becomes the most powerful of the four. However, being Blessed with Suck and getting a healthy helping of Power Incontinence takes a lot of the fun out of it.
- A Boy, a Girl and a Dog: The Leithian Script: Subverted. In the aftermath of an argument with the Valar, Finrod gives his supporters trinkets as a show of gratitude, saving his estranged fiancée Amarië for last. Unfortunately, because he takes way long to acknowledge her, he unintentionally sends the message that he didn't care for Amarië putting their ongoing feud and her devotion towards the gods aside for his sake. And he did not understand because she got so angry until his friends explained the issue to him.
Films — Animated
- Jack-Jack is referred to early on in The Incredibles as the only family member without a superpower. At the end, however, it is revealed that he can turn into flames, metal, and a demon. (In a bonus short on the DVD, he is also shown levitating, teleporting, spitting acidic saliva, and many others.)
- In the "Just So" Story Fox Fires
, the moon comes down from the sky to offer forest animals the chance to become constellations. The fox arrives at the end, when the sky is totally filled with starlight and there's no room for a new constellation. But the moon says, "Who said you could only become a star?", and transforms the fox into aurora- moving, rainbow light that dances perpetually through the sky..
Films — Live-Action
- In Sky High (2005), Will is the only one at the school without powers. Halfway through the film he gets super-strength and flight.
Literature
- In The Giver, when all the people becoming adults are receiving their careers, main character Jonas appears to be skipped. At the end of the ceremony, they announce that he's to be given the most important job of all.
- Similarly, in the Xanth book A Spell for Chameleon, Bink is exiled from Xanth for not having any magical talent. It turns out that he does have the magical talent to be immune to harm from magic, a "magician"-level talent.
- In the Discworld novel Mort, the eponymous hero waits in the town square to be chosen as an apprentice to some local craftsman. He waits...and waits...while all the other boys go off to become apprentice carpenters or carters or beggars. Finally, at midnight, his prospective master shows up...and it's the Grim Reaper. Arguably, given the events that follow, not the best for last, but definitely the most interesting.
- In Magician: Apprentice when children reach their maturity they are taken as apprentices in the naming ceremony. It's a stressful time because not all the children know which Master will choose them as an apprentice; the greatest fear is to be left out at the end. Poor Pug is left to the end and thinks he was the only one not chosen. Of course, there was ONE master that hadn't picked yet.
- The Lord of the Rings: Galadriel presents the Fellowship with various gifts — an elven bow for Legolas, gold and silver belts for Boromir, Merry, and Pippin, and so forth:
- Near the end, she turns to Gimli, for whom she apparently has no gift at all, and asks what he might request of her. He dares to ask for a strand of her beautiful hair, and she is so impressed and charmed by the requestnote that she gives him three. This seems like a subversion, since hair isn't much compared to the valuable gifts she gave to the other companions, nor does he get a "better" gift later,note but Gimli considers it the most priceless treasure imaginable.
- Played straight with the Box of Elvish Dirt given to Samwise immediately before Gimli's gift. The box doesn't qualify for My New Gift Is Lame, because Samwise both holds the elves in high esteem and loves garden work, but even Galadriel lampshades the fact that it won't help them on their questnote . Of course, at the end of the series, when the Shire has been laid waste thanks to Saruman's reprisals, the dirt becomes very useful, indeed.
- In The Book of Three, the first volume of The Chronicles of Prydain, Prince Gwydion bestows upon his friends gifts of great value. Fflewddur receives a harp string which will never break, Eilonwy receives a magic ring, Doli gets the ability to turn invisible at will. Then (similar to Galadriel in the above example), he asks Taran last of all what gift he might like, and Taran requests the thing he wants most of all: to go home.
Live-Action TV
- Averted in The Office episode "Valentine's Day" when a series of bouquets keep arriving but none for Pam, who keeps expecting one. She spends the episode getting more and more frustrated and all she gets is a 'Happy Valentine's Day' from Jim.
- In Heroes, Peter's part was described simply as having a brother with powers. And look what he has now.
- In an episode of NewsRadio, the characters were each given a gift by their extremely rich boss. While Matthew didn't have to wait, he still had time to get jealous; the others got really extravagant gifts; he was given, in the form of a collection of tapes, his favourite old-time radio show, Fibber McGee and Molly. He was disappointed by the gift, until the boss explained that he'd given him the show - not just tapes of it, but all the rights to the show itself (suddenly everyone else feels jealous and slighted because their gifts weren't as extravagant).
- Subverted in a host segment of Mystery Science Theater 3000: Joel decides to give each of the Bots a present. Gypsy and Tom Servo each get fun/exciting toys. Claiming he saved the best for last, Joel gives Crow... a pair of dress slacks (Crow doesn't even wear clothes, and is hardly ever seen from the waist down).
Western Animation
- Spoofed in Spongebob Squarepants episode "Culture Shock", where Squidward hosts the Krusty Krab talent show, with him claiming that he "save the best for last" with his act. Unfortunately, his interpretive dance results in the audience throwing tomatoes at him, while the crowd really goes wild over Spongebob mopping up the stage afterwards.
- Subverted in Avatar: The Last Airbender: Aang gets waterbending scrolls, Katara gets a vial of water from the Spirit Oasis, Sokka gets... a hearty pat on the back.
