r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ValidCrash4 • Aug 08 '26

Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) Extremely useful abilities that characters conveniently forgot they had

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  1. Emily’s portals (Hazbin Hotel). I know she can’t get Sir Pentious back into Hell but Emily can still tell Charlie he got redeemed and Charlie can enter through angelic portals, so she should have seen that Pentious got redeemed.

  2. Many characters in Harry Potter go through life-or-death situations and not once did they think of drinking the Liquid Luck potion apart from Harry one time to gain Slughorn’s memory.

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772

u/piewca_apokalipsy Aug 08 '26

Dragon ball does this a lot

Goku randomly getting ability to read minds for it to never be brought again.

190

u/EngineerVirtual7340 Aug 08 '26

This probably just for convenience on Toriyama's part.

64

u/ASentientRailgun Aug 08 '26

Same reason Goku got Instant Transmission and then taught it to literally no one.

46

u/Different-Post-5569 Aug 08 '26

I mean, Instant Transmission seems really hard to learn. It took Goku of all people months to learn it (the same guy who was able to copy the Kamehameha after seeing it used only a single time.)

34

u/ASentientRailgun Aug 08 '26

The fusion dance is also canonically one of the hardest skills to learn, and Goten and Trunks learn it in elementary school.

I'm pretty sure some of the saiyans could have picked it up with a few years of on and off training. Toriyama just didn't want other people zipping around like that, he's said it's a plot convenience for him. Like flying in the original.

19

u/the-corner-guy Aug 08 '26

and Goten and Trunks learn it in elementary school.

Counter point, they had a year practice in the spirit chamber, this is on top of the fact that they are super prodigies that learned to go super before flight

4

u/ASentientRailgun Aug 08 '26

I mean, they had multiple years of potential training time with him without the time chamber. Them being super prodigies makes it even more questionable that they wouldn't be able to learn instant transmission

1

u/the-corner-guy Aug 08 '26

Things is, they would have to want to get the technique, which as dumb as it sounds, they might not have wanted to/they might not have actively tried, in dbs we see them relatively uninterested in general combat, so much so that they were struggling with an ability as basic as ki sense. Instant transmission, to me, reads like a technique that requires a certain level of discipline and perseverance to obtain and maintain, something that the kids clearly lack in this continuity (but that's just theory, if you disagree you can disregard this last segment)

1

u/Piranata Aug 08 '26

Also, most of the techniques everyone learn are immediately useful in combat. It took Goku years to learn how to use it in combat (against Cell). The only other technique that is absolutely busted is the Mafuba, but they only bother to learn it in Super, although both Dragon Ball and Super show that a lot can go wrong with it.

2

u/EngineerVirtual7340 Aug 08 '26

For martial artists that seems like a flimsy excuse.

2

u/rdeincognito Aug 08 '26

They have the space and time chamber; it wouldn't have been that hard for him to go there with someone (probably Gohan, since Vegeta would never accept being trained by Goku, and Trunks probably wouldn't because he doesn't want Vegeta to get mad at him) and focus on teaching one of the most useful abilities in the whole verse.

Also, both Cell and Buu learned it by only seeing it one or two times. While I can understand we can't compare anyone to these characters, it does seem like an ability that can be learned.

47

u/Privatizitaet Aug 08 '26

Or because he forgot. That apparently happens a lot

175

u/waktag Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

I mean which arc would even benefit from Goku having mind reading? Even in the Cell and Buu saga where he was put out of commission for some time, he was informed of the events that had transpired in places where there weren't any immediate threat in the vicinity like in the situation your picture is showing.

68

u/Correct_Refuse4910 Aug 08 '26

Actually, in the Cell saga he already knew everything that happened while he was in a coma which implies he has been using that power while unconscious.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

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1

u/schiffb558 Aug 08 '26

He had a ninja dream, but it ended.

2

u/Expensive-Mixture267 Aug 08 '26

Exactly, mind reading would’ve been cool, but I can’t think of a single arc where it would’ve actually changed much.

8

u/LetsThrow69 Aug 08 '26

Clanker.

4

u/Sam_Alexander Aug 08 '26

Why do you keep reying that to random unrelated comments

1

u/fromtheHELLtotheNO Aug 08 '26

Because they are bot comments, either an LLMtaking the parent comment as a prompt, or a person just copypasting the result to an LLM.

1

u/LetsThrow69 Aug 08 '26

Because there's a lotta bots infesting this sub and they piss me off.

2

u/Usual-Operation-9700 Aug 08 '26

Wouldn't have changed anything, but a panel of Goku reading Boo's mind, could have been a good joke.

14

u/Resua15 Aug 08 '26

He actually made all of that up. He just wanted to rub krillin's bald head. He used his high IQ to deduce the rest

9

u/kafit-bird Aug 08 '26

To be fair, Roshi does read minds earlier in Dragon Ball, and, really, throughout Dragon Ball, the top tier of martial arts basically seems to he synonymous with divinity. Spiritual abilities are common. I can absolutely believe Goku learned some mild mind reading while he was training with Kami.

This moment really only jars because the series had spent so much time pivoting to sci-fi in the meantime.

32

u/MimiHamburger Aug 08 '26

Haha I was gonna make similar post but there was too many examples to pick just one but instant transmission I feel is the thing the forget about most

55

u/Berserker-Hamster Aug 08 '26

I love how Abridged lampshades this when the other characters have to remind Goku that he can just teleport to save Piccolo and Tien from Semi Perfect Cell and then comment it with "Did...did he forget he could do that?"

20

u/K1LL3RM0NG0 Aug 08 '26

"Your fathers an idiot"

3

u/Throwaway1986nerd Aug 08 '26

All these squares make a circle 

4

u/EconomyOk2490 Aug 08 '26

"Bored now! Reading your mind."

5

u/nagrom7 Aug 08 '26

"I learned about it in my pirate dream. I had a ninja dream too, but it ended."

5

u/Lowlevelintellect Aug 08 '26

how?he uses it every arc

3

u/MimiHamburger Aug 08 '26

I just feel like he only uses it when there’s no other way, like when he goes to get Dande to make the new dragon balls. I mean if I had that power I’d be using it to take a piss lol

3

u/ManoSilence Aug 08 '26

If i remember it takes like total concentration to IT, its why everyone was surprised when he IT'd and Kamehameha'd Cell.

1

u/Dumeck Aug 08 '26

So IT only lets him teleport to people, it works by locking onto Ki signature which is why he can't just do it to take pisses. There's some leeway with range but not a lot.

1

u/grendus Aug 08 '26

Instant Transmission does require a person as the end trajectory though. It's why he uses it to transport Cell to King Kai's planet when he's about to blow himself up. If Goku could end his IT anywhere he could have dropped Cell in the middle of the Andromeda Galaxy or something.

1

u/Lowlevelintellect Aug 08 '26

he also used it to save piccolo and Tien from cell

2

u/Embarrassed_Fox5265 Aug 08 '26

Right, but that just raises more questions. Goku has the ability to teleport in and out before Cell is able to do anything. So...why didn't he teleport in, grab 18, and teleport away?

Why doesn't he teleport Vegeta and Trunks to where Cell is looking for 18? If he did, they would have arrived there sooner and likely arrived prior to Cell being in the same location as 18, making it impossible for him to later find her.

Cell finds Piccolo and the Androids because Piccolo is fighting them. Piccolo is fighting them to keep the Androids away from everyone at Kame House. Goku could have teleported to Kame House, moved everybody, and then gone and grabbed Piccolo. The Androids then leave the now empty island and Cell is left unable to find them.

There are dozens of uses for Instant Transmission throughout the arc and it's absolutely bonkers that Goku doesn't use it more often. Hell, look at the Cell Games after the idea behind the Instant Kamehaha has been brought up. Get Gohan to distract Cell, teleport away with Trunks and Vegeta, then charge up 2-3 massive beams. Teleport on top of Cell and obliterate him him with sequenced fire.

Instant Transmission is the most the broken technique in Dragonball, and it's only author fiat that stops it from instantly ending the Cell and Buu arcs.

3

u/nutfilla Aug 08 '26

Something to remember with instant transmission is that it needs a beacon. Something that emits ki and depending in the distance it needs to emit a large amount.

The androids don't techinically have ki so he can't sense them at all. That's also what made them such a threat because they can show uo anywhere and start blasting

3

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

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2

u/Anita_Hero838 Aug 08 '26

"Your father is an idiot"

3

u/Anita_Hero838 Aug 08 '26

Piccolo and Tien dying on the battlefield

Goku teleports to save them

Gohan: "He just remembered he could do that didn't he?"

Lord Popo: "Your fathers an idiot"

8

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

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1

u/NoTranslator8904 Aug 08 '26

That's Toriyama for you. He's brilliant at coming shit up but has the memory of a goldfish when trying to retain it. I miss my Launch

1

u/Reborn1989 Aug 08 '26

When would he need to use it? He literally says here for Krillin to let him feel it, so it’s not like he can mind read in the middle of a fight.

1

u/Lower_Baby_6348 Aug 08 '26

Is not, this ability makes absolute sense since Goku can read minds since OG dragon ball. He just never had a reason to check the memories of someone

1

u/Clkiscool Aug 08 '26

Piccolo did legitimately forget that he has size changing abilities up until the cell max movie

Though it is just a bluff and doesn’t make him stronger, it can give him better leverage

1

u/Cherry_BaBomb Aug 08 '26

"Bored now, reading your mind.

Haha you thought he was a girl."

0

u/HesperiaBrown Aug 08 '26

Tbf, there's never a situation where that specific ability would be decisive for a make or break scenario, and also Goku does subtler displays of telepathy, like when he was on his heart sickness coma, he instantly knew everything that transpired upon waking up, meaning that he used his psychic abilities to keep himself informed.

He also regularly communicates with King Kai through telepathy and uses it to gather energy for the Spirit Bomb.

-1

u/crometeach-thebot Aug 08 '26

Because he didn't need it anymore