Basic Trope: That thing only works once.
- Straight: The hero's plans involve exploiting a design flaw in Emperor Evulz's Doomsday Device. It works but it results in the flaw being fixed in future models.
- Exaggerated: Executing said plan results in every single possibility being accounted for by Emperor Evulz and him upping security to an absurd degrees.
- Downplayed: Pulling off the plan results in it becoming much more difficult, but not impossible, to pull off again.
- Justified: The designer of the Doomsday Device defected to the heroes and is the only one who is aware of the design flaw.
- Subverted: After the first time, someone tries the plan again, and seems to have a success...
- Double Subverted: ...only to find out it doesn't.
- Parodied:
- If you even try to mention to reuse an plan, you'll suddenly disappear in a Puff of Logic.
- Or it turns out that Emperor Evulz has recorded every single plan used by the hero, and that's why it only works once.
- Zig Zagged: The plan works once but then it's patched to never work again, which creates new design flaws, which the designers caught and patch, but left a single crucial weakness in the machine.
- Averted: It always fails. Or it always succeeds.
- Enforced: "Audience will feel bored if we keep using the same trick all the time... So we must invent new plot for every episode."
- Lampshaded: "Can't you just reuse your old plans again? Some of them are already 20 years old - nobody will remember that's ever been used!"
- Invoked: "If we pull this plan off, the design flaw won't be there the next time the Doomsday Device is built."
- Exploited:”Excellent the heroes will take the bait and give us the data we need to improve the Doomsday Device in the future."
- Defied: The design flaw in the Doomsday Device is never caught and the heroes keep destroying it each time it’s rebuilt.
- Discussed: "I wonder if these plans only work once. It would be a waste to dispose them."
- Conversed: "In that show the hero just won't use the same plan again... Maybe since it only work once."
- Deconstructed: The heroes never execute their plan again, since they're afraid that they fail at the first time, and become useless after on. They use their lifetime to improve their "perfect" plans to become more perfect.
- Reconstructed: Instead, the heroes just do modifications to the old plans, and propose them as new plans.
Now be quick and go back to the main page, this link only works once!
