Giving the Sword to A Noob

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"We can't trust the Sword of a Thousand Truths to a noob!"
—South Park, "Make Love, Not Warcraft"

Okay, here we have the Big Bad, the Monster of the Week, The Dragon, or the Eldritch Abomination bearing down upon the heroes, their hometown or country, the Royal Army, the Princess in her castle, etc. Things are looking bleak; the villain is on a rampage, and nobody can stop him. But wait, all is not lost! We have this brand new weapon that can turn the tide of the battle, drive back the Legion of Doom, save the day, and make the wielder look totally badass. All we need is to get it into the right hands!

But are these aforementioned hands around? Nope! All you've got is a handful of Red Shirts, the Idiot Ball holder, and/or the local Butt Monkey. Still, times are desperate; we really don't have a choice. Give it to them, and pray they don't do anything stupid!

Unfortunately, such prayers go unheard. By some miracle the Butt Monkey has reached the battle in time without getting lost or losing the weapon on the way, does he immediately seek out The Hero, The Lancer, The Big Guy, or hell, even the Expert? Nope! The C-List Fodder decides to use the weapon himself, because of some misplaced sense of duty, a need to prove himself, or he just missed the point of his task entirely. This typically ends in one of two ways:

Or,

While the Sword is usually a weapon of some kind (typically a sword), it can be anything, from a secret power to a prototype vehicle to a legendary artifact, or even an All The Tropes account. All that matters is it's incredibly powerful and usually fairly dangerous or risky.

Please note that if the character being given the weapon is The Chosen One, the last man standing on the field, or the only person capable of wielding the weapon at all, it is not this trope. This trope comes into play only if there is someone else who is clearly more qualified, better suited, or just plain better who it could be given to.

Examples of Giving the Sword to A Noob include:

Anime and Manga

  • In Gundam Seed Destiny, Cagalli climbs into the cockpit of the Akatsuki, a prototype gundam that is extremely powerful in capable hands, so she can take it to the Battle of Orb. When she gets there, she tries to use it, but winds up getting owned by Shin.
  • In Dragonball Z, Goku attempts to use the Spirit Bomb against Vegeta early in the series. However, since it's so difficult to charge up, he gets interrupted. When someone else attacks Vegeta, Goku gives what's left of the energy to Krillin, who's significantly less powerful than Goku. When he throws the attack, Krillin misses. However, Gohan is able to reflect it back toward Vegeta, scoring a successful hit. Unfortunately, since much of the energy was lost earlier, the Spirit Bomb fails to finish off its intended target, though it still deals a lot of damage. In other words, the attack fails, then is passed on to the noob, then misses, then is bounced back by another noob, then hits, but still fails to deal the necessary damage.
  • In Fairy Tail, Cana gained one of the three ultimate magic of her guild: Fairy Glitter. However, she got it only because she found Mavis's grave before the others in time of need, and it turns out that even with that magic in her possession, she's incapable of using it correctly. In the end, she's defeated and she loses the magic some time later, since it was a short time loan. Instead of a S-Class mage wannabe, true S-Class mages clearly would have been better choices for it.
  • In the second chapter of Rave Master Shiba is too injured to fight when Demon Card attacks the island. The enemy is too strong for Haru to fight bare handed, so Shiba lends Haru his sword. Haru hasn't the slightest idea how to use it.

Comic Books

  • In The Helm from Dark Horse Comics, the eponymous magic helmet accidentally ends up in the hands of a morbidly obese, emotionally fragile manchild; the real chosen one, a stunningly handsome man of herculean proportions with a Badass Mustache, shows up about five minutes too late to claim it.
  • DC has Major Bummer, a serious slacker who accidentally receives superpowers.


Live-Action TV

  • In Power Rangers RPM, the just-barely competent Ziggy is tasked with transporting the Series Green Morpher, only to activate it and become Ranger Green himself. In fairness, he only did it in desperation when The Dragon was about to get her hands on it. Even so, the fact remains that he is perhaps the least capable fighter of any Ranger in the entire franchise.
  • This was the whole premise of Mr. Terrific; Stanley Beamish, the 'weak & droopy daffodil', was the only man who could take the power pill.


Literature


Video Games

  • Subverted with The Legend of Zelda games. The Master Sword can be used by a novice Link...but he has to pass through some trials before he can wield it.
  • In Radiata Stories The main character and new Radiata Knight, Jack Rusell is given his father's sword at the start but told he cannot use it yet because he lacks the experience. However if you pick the Non-Human side in the second half of the game you later get the chance to prove yourself worthy of it's use. However in Human it is never seen again save for the ending.


Western Animation

  • The Trope Namer is the South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft". The in-game Serial Killer that the main characters are trying to kill needs to be finished with the GM-only item The Sword of 1000 Truths, but to get it to the kids (who are the only ones capable of fighting the guy) they need to trust Stan's incompetent fourth-level father with the item. When this suggestion is proposed, the above quote is the response from one of the GMs. In the end the actual Trope is averted because he doesn't try to use it.
  • In DuckTales (1987), mild-mannered accountant Fenton Crackshell acquired his secret identity as Gizmo Duck when he unwittingly used the password that activated a nearby suit of robot armor Gyro Gearloose had intended for a more-competent user.
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