"Are you saying I have no imagination?!"
— Squidward Tentacles, SpongeBob SquarePants, "Idiot Box"
Some people are very imaginative, able to turn everything into a story, and prone to letting their imaginations run away with them. These are not those people. For some reason, these characters just aren't very imaginative. They never played make-believe even as a kid (and possibly Never Had Toys), telling a Ghost Story won't scare them, and writing a story? Forget it.
Sometimes, these characters will be wet blankets, whether intentionally or not. They could be Disrupting the Theater by pointing out inaccuracies in the movie due to their narrow Willing Suspension of Disbelief, insisting that the cardboard box is not a spaceship, or even telling people to stop imagining, since they view imagination as a waste of time due to a pragmatic personality. If they do the latter, they might be a Fantasy-Forbidding Father or an Insufferable Genius or both.
On the other hand, sometimes they genuinely try to imagine, but they just can't. This could make them minorly annoyed, but it could also make them outright sad, and/or jealous of someone they know who's more imaginative.
Compare Writer's Block and Too Upset to Create for when someone's imagination is just temporarily dampened. Creative Sterility is a subtrope for when the lack of imagination is due to being a Cyborg or robot, a fictional species, or a man. The person may also be Literal-Minded, though that's not a necessity. They could also be The Ditz, the Only Sane Man, the Fun-Hating Villain, The Comically Serious, a Grumpy Old Man, or an Imagination Destroyer. Can overlap with Character Development if they gain an imagination.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Bleach: Ichigo Kurosaki is shown to have problems with this. He's not stupid, per se, but he's not a Blood Knight and has no interest in fighting beyond its ability to solve problems for him. As such, he tends to only view his powers in the most straightforward possible way while rarely experimenting any further with them, only training in improving pure physical attributes like strength, speed, and reaction time. This becomes particularly obvious after the reveal that Ichigo is something of a mongrel of various supernatural groups, yet he still only focuses on those abilities that improve pure physical strength and stamina (for instance, the only Quincy technique he ever uses is Blut, never trying to conjure a bow or perform any other offensive moves). One of the major things that makes his Superpowered Evil Side so dangerous is just that "Hollow Ichigo" actively does come up with new techniques, such as using the cloth wrapping on his sword-hilt to turn it into an improvised flail (when Ichigo saw this, he was completely baffled by seeing such an unorthodox tactic), combining rapid speed and Sword Beams to trap an opponent, or making use of Hollow abilities like Cero.
- Bungo Stray Dogs: Akutagawa suffers from this and has been often reprimanded by Dazai for his rigid mindset. His Ability, Rashomon, has massive potential as it enables him to control the clothes he wears to the point of practically obliterating the laws of physics, but Akutagawa's inability to come up with creative uses for it greatly impacts its effectiveness.
- Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA: Unlike Illya, who immediately masters Flight without issue as a Magical Girl, Miyu has difficulty in trying to master it. This is initially attributed to her lacking imagination in her thinking, not helped by her high intelligence and knowledge in physics and other sciences. When Illya tries to help her by showing an anime depicting a flying magical girl, which is what inspired Illya to fly, Miyu is in disbelief and calls the anime a lie because a human flying is scientifically impossible. Flashbacks to her past reveal she is unable to understand the concept of constellations, unable to see the images in the stars. In art class, she usually creates geometric shapes instead of pleasant images like everybody else does. It turns out to be a subversion, however, as the real reason that Miyu can't fly is due to being a Broken Bird with a Dark and Troubled Past, lacking the idealism that Illya possesses. Ultimately, Miyu solves this issue by projecting platforms under her feet instead, which has pretty much the same effect as flying.
- Full Metal Panic!: Sousuke Sagara acquires a Lambda Driver, a mecha that runs on the pilot's willpower and imagination. Unfortunately, Sousuke has a lot of trouble making it run because he has pretty much no imagination. This situation causes considerable difficulty and frustration for everyone involved until he finally gets some of his issues sorted out.
Comic Books
- All-Star Superman: The Bizarro World is home to many twisted creatures that behave in the exact opposite manner that their Earth counterparts would. Its version of the Green Lantern has a nose ring that can create any object he wishes, but since he lacks the real hero's imagination, he is completely unable to use it.
Comic Strips
Fan Works
- Marinette's Week Off: One of the class's problems is that Marinette and Nathaniel (who remains on Marinette's side and refuses to bail out the other students) were the only people they really had who were skilled artists.note As a result, they're incapable of handling any of the artistic elements that their activities require, such as printing fliers for Mylène's play and making decorations for the class dance.
Films — Animation
- A Bug's Life: Dot looks down on herself for being small. Flik tries to cheer her up by comparing her to a seed, but since he doesn't have a seed, he picks up a rock roughly the same size as one and tells her to pretend it is a seed. He then says a seed starts out small but grows into a large plant. Dot keeps interrupting him to say it is not a seed, it is a rock, despite him saying to pretend it is a seed.
- Discussed in The LEGO Movie, as Emmett needs to have creativity to be a Master Builder and save the LEGO universe, but does not appear to be capable of coming up with anything useful or interesting due to a lifetime of following rules. However, he manages to grow and discovers his creativity over the course of the movie.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit has Judge Doom deliver a Motive Rant to Eddie Valiant, explaining why he seeks to dismantle the Red Car system and replace it with a freeway. When Valiant poo-poos the idea of asphalt ribbons crisscrossing California, Judge Doom chides him: "Naturally; you lack vision."
Films — Live-Action
- Inception: Eames mentions that Arthur has no imagination, which is why he believes inception is impossible; notably, unlike the others on the team whose roles are based on creativity (Ariadne the architect, Yusuf the chemist, Eames the shapeshifting forger), Arthur serves as more of a facilitator, doing groundwork in the real world. Which doesn't stop him from being a fierce fighter in the dream world when he needs to be.
- The Italian Job (2003): This is Steve's (the movie's Big Bad) flaw, as while he managed to pull out swiping the gold from his fellow thieves and nearly killed them, his plan was simply to have a lot of goons with guns on his side. When he used the money, all he did was just mimic what everyone else had intended to use their share for. Charlie points this out to him, point blank telling him he has "no imagination" when finally confronting him face to face and citing that his brash actions ultimately make him panic when things don't go his way that he can't improvise on the fly. This is shown at the end where he's ultimately outgambited by Charlie's more creative heist to steal the gold from him and have a backup plan in case Steve manages to catch up (a plan that Steve himself unwittingly set up when he murdered a cousin of a very dangerous Ukrainian mobster).
- Hook: This is one of Peter's biggest problems when he returns to Neverland, as he's forgotten how to imagine. One night, Peter and the Lost Boys are having dinner, except the "dinner" is all imaginary to them. As everyone starts gorging themselves around Peter, he can't understand it. When they tell him to simply imagine the food, it finally appears and, actually, judging by everyone's surprise after it happens, his imagination overrides theirs.
Literature
- American Psycho - Patrick Bateman has no imagination to speak of. Much of the reason he fails to stand out from a crowd and resorts to murder to try to define himself is that the murder is (probably) the only thing he does that nobody in his social circle does; they all wear the same clothes, go to the same restaurants, watch the same movies, listen to the same music, and really seem to have no hobbies or ambitions apart from keeping up with the latest fad.
- Discussed in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where the Oompa-Loompas sing that watching television "kills imagination dead". Mike, the TV-watching kid, doesn't really show evidence of a lack of imagination (just a lack of manners)note , but there's no evidence to suggest that he isn't unimaginative either.
- Cradle Series:
- It's a minor Running Gag that people on Cradle aren't really that great with names. The country where much of the action takes place is the Blackflame Empire. It was founded by the Blackflame family, who practiced the Blackflame Path, so named because it was a sacred art stolen from black dragons, and primarily revolves around producing black flames.
Eithan: We like our names simple here.
- The Ninecloud Court, rulers of the Ninecloud Country with its capital of Ninecloud City, make their home in a land where magical nine-colored clouds form naturally. Eithan claims that it was people from this land who eventually founded the Blackflame Empire. They're slightly better about it than the Blackflames, in that at least the ruling family isn't named Ninecloud (they're the Sha family).
- Whenever it comes time to name anything, Lindon and Yerin inevitably offer up bland descriptive names like "Training Chamber Number One." Their friends, especially Mercy and Dross, usually compete over more flowery, poetic names.
- In the series epilogue, the son of Lindon and Yerin is named Lirin. According to Word of God, they just couldn't think of anything better than smashing their own names together.
- It's a minor Running Gag that people on Cradle aren't really that great with names. The country where much of the action takes place is the Blackflame Empire. It was founded by the Blackflame family, who practiced the Blackflame Path, so named because it was a sacred art stolen from black dragons, and primarily revolves around producing black flames.
- The Dark Tower: Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger, is described many times as being completely lacking imagination. This has the interesting effect of making him an almost totally fearless killing machine, and also The Comically Serious (sometimes even a Deadpan Snarker).
- El Diario de El Chavo del ocho is a children's book that served as the Origin Story of the Chavo, relating events before he came to the Vecindad and showing details of the other characters once he started to live there. One of the past events was about the bad times he got in the orphanage, being frustrated for not having enough imagination to figure out how to get out of there. That, until one day he cried and the orphanage's owner asked why he's crying, telling her about that. The owner answered "you have said it before" and just let him go.
- Emily's Runaway Imagination has June Barlett, Emily's cousin. While her imagination is indeed capable of "running away" (as shown when she becomes convinced that Emily's house is haunted along with Emily), most of the time she finds it very hard to imagine things, especially unrealistic things. Emily describes her as having "an imagination like a plow horse".
- The Famous Five: The Five think that this applies to many grown-ups. In Five on a Hike Together, Anne briefly teases practical-minded George about her lack of imagination, and hence lack of imaginary fears.
Anne: I keep thinking that Maggie and her friends might be waiting in those cellars to pounce on us.
George: You're silly. Really silly! Do you suppose Timmy would lie quietly if there was anyone in those cellars? You know jolly well he would be barking his head off!
Anne: I know, it's just my imagination. You haven't got one, George, so you don't need to worry about imaginary fears. - In Harry Potter, the Dursleys have very limited imaginations, and disapprove of anything fanciful, even if it comes from a dream.
- Hercule Poirot: Poirot's secretary, Miss Lemon, is described as having no imagination, making her an excellent secretary but sadly unequipped to help her sister with the problems she's experiencing in Hickory Dickory Dock.
Miss Lemon's Heel of Achilles had always been her imagination. On questions of fact she was invincible. on questions of surmise, she was lost. Not for her the state of mind of Cortez's men upon the peak of Darien.
- The Last Hero: The veldt of Howondaland is home to a tribe known as the N'tuitif, who have no imagination whatsoever. Their story of "How The Giraffe Got His Long Neck" simply describes the process of evolution in selecting longer-necked giraffes. After witnessing a spacecraft, the Kite, taking off from the Discworld's moon, they recount: "The moon was brightly lit and from it rose another light which then split into three lights and faded. We do not know why this happened. It was just a thing." The N'tuitif have been more or less hunted to extinction by their more-imaginative neighbours, who are inclined to interpret such things as their gods instructing them to go out and expand their territory.
- Edgar Allan Poe's short story "M.S. Found in a Bottle" opens with the narrator explaining that he's often been criticised for his "arid" mentality and lack of imagination to deter people from thinking the ensuing narrative was made up by him.
- Ramona Quimby: Beatrice "Beezus" Quimby has trouble thinking up an imaginary creature (although she is eventually able to) and then later hates creative writing class due to finding it too hard.
- Elves in Mercedes Lackey's SERRAted Edge novels are totally lacking in imagination to the point where they're completely unable to innovate. They can copy anything they've seen at least once, but they're unable to come up with new things on their own. They can't even use a simple device like a can opener if they've never seen it used before. One of the main reasons the Seelie Court elves like teaming up with humans is because humans can improvise, which is a huge advantage against Unseelie Court elves.
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: In "Ghost Light", the Doctor describes this as the Big Bad's fatal flaw:
- Discussed in Father Ted, when Ted is discussing with Dougal what his three wishes would be.
Ted: And what would your three wishes be?
Dougal: Oh, no, I'm happy enough, really.
Ted: You wouldn't want anything?
Dougal: No, I don't think so. I can't think of anything, anyway.
Ted: You wouldn't, say, want a big car to drive around in?
Dougal: Oh-ho, wow! That'd be fantastic! Driving around in a big car - that'd be brilliant!
Ted: What would be your second wish?
Dougal: Oh, that'd be fine. The car'd be fine.
Ted: You wouldn't like to be a rock star or something, like Elvis?
Dougal: Oh-ho, God, yeah! I'd love to be a rock star like Elvis or something! That'd be brilliant!
Ted: So, uh, your third wish, if you had one?
Dougal: Oh, no, that'd be fine. If I had a big car and I was Elvis that'd be grand.
Ted: You wouldn't like, say, um... this cup?
Dougal: Oh, God, yeah! I'd love that cup! If I had that cup and I was Elvis in a big car, that'd be fantastic!
Ted: You've never had much imagination, have you?
Dougal: You're right there, Ted.'' - Fraggle Rock: An episode focused on the main enclave of Fraggles coming across a second Fraggle colony, only to discover these Fraggles were their polar opposites in that they found boring things fun and didn't see a use for imagination (it distracted them from activities like counting pebbles).
- Sesame Street: Zigzagged for Bert. Usually, Ernie will imagine crazy things and have a hard time getting Bert to imagine them, but occasionally, Bert ends up imagining them as well (such as in the "It's a Circle" song where Ernie convinces Bert that the circle is "so much more" than one), and in one rendition of "The Middle of Imagination", Bert encourages Ernie to use his imagination.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has Kira Nerys. She was never into art and she hates going into the holosuites (where you essentially LARP in a virtual environment).
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner:
- In "DNA Evidence", after Coach Z tells Strong Sad about his superhero identity Damp Towel Man (and his mild-mannered alter ego Dan Towelman) and his nemesis Dry Ragamuffin (and his mild-mannered alter ego Dreyfus Ragámoofin), Strong Sad says Coach Z has "a real sucky imagination," which the latter agrees with.
- Strong Bad Email: In the episode "different town", Strong Bad sings a song about the various ways he'd improve the town if it were up to him. Shortly afterwards, he's disappointed with some of his changes (namely turning the Cloudcuckoo Lander Homsar into a "modestly hot girl") and suspects his imagination is broken somehow.
Strong Bad: Though I'm a little disappointed in what I came up with for Homsar. "Modestly hot", my eye! I think my imagination's broke. Lemme try and think up the Best Thing Ever. Umm... Beef... stew... Yup, it's busted alright. I'm gonna go... place. [gets up and walks away]
Webcomics
- Played for Laughs with Ace Dick in Problem Sleuth, who has an extremely low Creativity stat, which is a minor problem that comes up occasionally. When he gets his 11th-Hour Superpower transformation, he ends up looking exactly the same because of his low Creativity.
Western Animation
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: In "Lights! Camera! Danger!", everyone's in agreement that Jimmy is terrible when it comes to non-science projects. Similarly, in the same episode, he gets ideas for his script from other movies, which makes it completely incoherent.
- Big City Greens: Bill is often shown to be a very unimaginative guy, especially compared to his children. This is highlighted in "People Watching", where the Greens make up stories about passersby; while the others come up with outlandish, highly entertaining scenarios, all Bill can come up with is mundane, everyday events. Eventually, with a little help from his family, he manages to come up with a fun story.
- Captain Underpants: Melvin Sneedly, one of the major antagonists in the series, doesn't have a good imagination outside of scientific endeavors. He's a Child Prodigy who seems to have a lack of imagination in day-to-day life when not being a genius.
- DuckTales (2017): In "Nightmare on Killmotor Hill", compared to his brother's and Webby's dreams, Huey only dreams he has longer legs. He admits he's not very imaginative.
- Addressed in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends' Pilot Movie House of Bloo's when Wilt gives Mac and Bloo a tour, he points out an imaginary friend that is an exact copy of Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls saying that some kids just copy what they see on the TV.
- Justice League:
- Originally, John Stewart used his Green Lantern ring primarily to generate force fields and laser beams. This was criticized by fans for being an unimpressive use of a weapon that was known for its versatility (and that he was out of character for thinking of something so bland as he's an architect and usually very creative with building), and the second season had John criticized for his lack of creativity by his former mentor. When John is reverted to his eight-year-old self in "Kid Stuff" he's shown as being a lot more imaginative in using his powers so this appears to be a trait exclusive to his adult personality.
- Brainiac is described as having no imagination despite his endless drive to collect all the precious information in the cosmos. When Lex Luthor asked an And Then What? endgame to his grand plan, Brainiac had no answer other than acknowledging his directive would finally be fulfilled and implied he would just do nothing. Luthor finds this unsatisfactory and offers to grant his own imagination to Brainiac and work as one entity to reshape the universe to their liking.
- Language Arts Through Imagination: Defied in "Do Dragons Dream?". Emma initially thinks that she doesn't have an imagination; Figment tells her that this is not true. She realizes that he is right by the end.
- Mona the Vampire: In "Spirit Of The Woods", when trying to get inside of Angela's mind, Mona, Charlie, and Lily join hands and start chanting "Think like Angela" over and over, until they imagine they're in Angela's dream. Said dream is a large vacant field, which they decide is indicative of just how unimaginative Angela is.
- Luz's mother Camila from The Owl House is a lot more grounded than her daughter; though she doesn't mind going along with Luz's games on occasion, she has little imagination herself. When she has to deal with a crazy conspiracy theorist trying to dissect Vee, Camila attempts to trick him into letting Vee go by claiming the President just called her... before giving up on the ruse, threatening to call the police on him for illegally setting up traps and cameras on her property, and smacking him with her sandal.
- The Patrick Star Show: "Fun & Done!" prominently features a young child named Andy who is incredibly boring: he eats plain oatmeal, prefers to sit on the floor quietly, and has an overbearing mother who stifles his imagination because she is afraid of him being "overstimulated". SpongeBob and Patrick teach him how to have fun... but once he starts imagining things, it ends up being incredibly dangerous as his strange mind creatures come to life. Patrick and SpongeBob seal up his imagination again to turn him into the same boring person he used to be.
- Ready Jet Go!: Mitchell, being the Agent Scully, refuses to believe that Halloween has any kind of magic. By his own admission, he has "no imagination". Whenever he tries (and fails) to expose Jet as an alien, his parents always say that he has a 'wonderful imagination', and he insists he lacks one. However, in "Moon Face", he ends up seeing a face on the moon and realizes he does have an imagination after all.
- The Simpsons:
- Played for Laughs in "Bart Gets Famous", which starts out with Principal Skinner announcing a trip to the Springfield Box Factory. Bart tries to imagine something more interesting but he just pictures Skinner announcing a trip to the box factory. He then blames television for ruining his imagination.
- In "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie" after Bart is forbidden from seeing the Itchy and Scratchy movie, he tries to fantasize adventures for the duo, saying that real life can't compare to the imagination of a ten-year-old boy. This only results in the cartoon duo standing around in his head doing nothing and eventually shrugging after ten seconds.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: While Squidward has imagined things before, he doesn't have a very good imagination compared to some of the other characters. For example, in "Idiot Box" (which provides the page quote), when he tries to play pretend in a box like SpongeBob and Patrick, it doesn't work until he can actually hear a garbage truck that fits with his fantasy of driving a car.
