Playing With / I Am Not Left-Handed

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Basic Trope: A character reveals a hidden level of power late in a climactic battle.

• Straight: During her showdown with Emperor Evulz, Alice is getting beat fairly badly. She then reveals that she was only using about 85% of her power, and powers up by switching her sword hand (from her weak left hand to her strong right hand) accordingly, eventually winning the battle.
• Exaggerated: Alice was using less than 1% of her full power by using the very nail on her extremely weak left pinky. The moment she wraps her whole pinky around her sword's handle, the term "Curb-Stomp Battle" begins to sound a lot more like "Curb-Stomp Cushion" with how thoroughly she's licked Evulz.
• Downplayed: Alice was holding back in order to save her strength for the latter part of the battle.
• Justified:
  • Alice didn't know the scope of Emperor Evulz' power, and wanted to keep some of her power in reserve to make sure that she didn't use it all up before she could finish him.
  • Alice's true power could cause a great deal of destruction, but Emperor Evulz has pushed her over the Godzilla Threshold so she can't afford to hold back.
  • Or, Alice's has perfect control over her true powers, but they would almost certainly kill almost anyone, and violate her strict "Thou Shalt Not Kill" rule. She only chooses to unleash them if she's completely sure that the villain in question can take the punishment.
  • Alice is pretending to be a weaker fighter than she really is so that Emperor Evulz will underestimate her and not fight at his full power to avoid wasting energy.
  • Emperor Evulz hit Alice's Berserk Button and pushes her past her Rage Breaking Point. Alice has always said she wouldn't use her powers for killing ... but Evulz is her one exception, and she switches to her right hand as she shouts "I'll Kill You!"
  • Alice failed a Self-Imposed Challenge and has given up trying to prove herself by limiting her power.
• Inverted:
  • Alice discovers a crucial weakness during her battle.
  • Alice discovers she has more powers than she knows.
  • Alice discovers Emperor Evulz is no match for her and starts holding back, knowing she doesn't need to fight at full power to defeat him.
  • Alice goes all out at the start then switches to a weaker fighting style as she gets more injured.
• Subverted:
  • Alice powers up to 100%. There's no appreciable difference in how the fight goes.
  • Alice still has some power left over, but she surrenders instead of using it, admitting she'd be humiliated if she was beaten at 100%.
• Double Subverted:
  • Alice says she's powered up to 100%, so Emperor Evulz does the same. While the Emperor fights much better, Alice doesn't get any stronger. In truth, she was just making sure the Emperor was showing his final form before she powers up for real, knowing he is out of tricks.
  • Evulz passes either the Moral Event Horizon, the Godzilla Threshold, or both, and Alice reluctantly powers up to 100%.
• Parodied:
  • Alice has a power increase for every roadblock Emperor Evulz throws her way. Emperor Evulz snarkily lampshades this.
  • "But there is something I ought to tell you." "What?" "I am not right-handed."
    • "You just told me you weren't left-handed!"
    • "I'm ambidextrous!"
  • "Fool! I was only using one hundred percent of my power! I will now use nine thousand and one percent of my power and destroy you!"
  • Evulz and Alice stop fighting and begin screaming bigger and bigger percentages at each other, quickly degenerating into "infinity plus one percent" and the like.
  • Alice takes a nap while Evulz tries in vain to kill or disable her. Then she wakes up and puts him on the business end of a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Zig-Zagged: Alice says she's powered up to 100%, so Emperor Evulz does the same. While the Emperor fights much better, Alice doesn't get any stronger. In truth, she was just making sure the Emperor was showing his final form before she powers up for real, knowing he is out of tricks — but it still isn't enough, and Emperor Evulz wins ... but this was not her final form.
• Averted: Alice fights at full power the whole time.
• Lampshaded: "I'm not done yet! What I've been telling you is a hundred percent power is really more like eighty-five percent!"
• Invoked: Alice decides early on she should never go into battle 100% so she'll always have a trump card.
• Exploited: Emperor Evulz knows that Alice is prideful, and tries to deal her a critical injury in the opening stage of the fight, before she has a chance to power up.
• Defied:
  • Emperor Evulz forces Alice to power up fully at the beginning of the battle.
  • Alice always uses her full strength in every attack. If the opponent dies, she doesn't have to waste time with such small fry. If they don't, she's found a Worthy Opponent to occupy her time. Either way, she benefits.
• Discussed: "Let me guess ... you're holding back some of your power."
• Conversed: "So she's not using her full power because the author needed the fight to fill an episode?"
• Deconstructed: Deliberately handicapping herself means that Alice is killed by a lucky blow early in the fight, with no time to "switch hands".
• Reconstructed: Alice lives ... and fights on through her injury, tapping her own untouched reserves of strength to win the day.
• Played for Laughs: The whole thing is a Lensman Arms Race in power increases — the fight goes on for hours with each side increasing their power sporadically.
• Played for Drama: The heroes come very close to winning, battered and exhausted, only for Emperor Evulz to reveal that he is not left-handed. They lose. Badly.
• Played for Horror: Alice disarms the BFS from Evulz. All this does is trigger his Villainous Breakdown, bringing him from Tranquil Fury to a full-on Unstoppable Rage. He lunges at her and inflicts a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Implied: Early in the fight, Evulz is beating Alice and she's fighting a bit awkwardly, but then she changes her fighting stance and turns it around.