History Main / InverseLawOfComplexityToPower

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', most everyone has, at the core, a rather simple power. They proceed to use these powers in interesting, complex ways to do some pretty amazing stuff. For example, take Mikoto "Railgun" Misaka, whose power is generation and control of electricity. With this ability, she can: zap people (basic), launch small metal objects at over three times the speed of sound ("railgun"), control and manipulate metal (magnetism), hover when over bodies of water (electromagnetic levitation), cling to walls (magnetism again, assuming there is some metal in the walls), hack electronics by thought (computers are just really complex sets of electric impulses after all), and [[spoiler:''read minds'' (copy the electrical impulses of another person's brain onto her own).]]
** Accelerator might just push this further than Mikoto. His power is "vector manipulation" on vectors that touch his body. For those unfamiliar with physics, a vector is a a measurement of direction and magnitude (can be loosely interpreted as force). This means that when something touches his body, he essentially then gets to decide where it goes and how hard/fast it goes there. He then goes on to apply this in doing everything from [[SuperSpeed running]], to stomping so hard he causes the earth to erupt, to kicking a rock so hard it breaks the sound barrier, to dropping out of a plane that's several thousand meters in the air into a pool of lava with no parachute, to causing a dust explosion (he presumably did this by changing the vectors on some particles touching him to move so fast that the vibrations ignited the flour in the air), to ''stopping the Earth's rotation temporarily'', to [[NoiselessWalker reflecting sound waves off him so he can walk in silence.]] On top of this [[spoiler: at least until he gets shot in the forehead]], his powers are set to subconsciously make every harmful vector that touches him go in the opposite direction, meaning that he's more or less invincible to any kind of attack, no matter how powerful.

[[folder:Comics]]
* Creator/NeilGaiman's ComicBook/TheSandman features the seven Endless who are all {{Anthropomorphic Personification}}s of concepts [[ThemeNaming starting with the letter D.]] From oldest to youngest: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium. None of them are really "more" or "less" powerful. They are all omnipotent within their sphere of influence. However, Death is the one that would be least fazed by the other Endless, since even they admit she will almost certainly "exist" in some form long after the rest of them.
* Comicbook/{{Empowered}}'s Syndablokk averts this entirely. He's a C-List super, but that's because he holds back.His power is elemental control of ARCHITECTURE. Villains have a 0% chance of touching him in a city, near a freeway, or basically anywhere. He never uses it except when really, really pressed, because of the massive collateral damage buildings-wise.
* ComicBook/{{Magneto}} has full control over one of the four fundamental forces of physics, and is consistently portrayed as one of the most powerful human beings in existence.

* [[Literature/AlcatrazSeries Alcatraz]] plays this straight with several of the main characters, notably the Talents of anyone in the Smedry family: The main character has the Talent of "breaking things", which gets used creatively throughout the series. His grandfather has the Talent of "being late", which, when used creatively, allows him to [[spoiler: dodge bullets, delay the effects of torture and survive assassination attempts]], just by arriving too late for it to affect him.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

There are however, some odd exceptions: Despite embodying an incredibly vague concept, the Violence Fiend's power is pretty unremarkable. Conversely, the eponymous Chainsaw Devil was created by fear of an complicated object that was only recently invented, but is strong enough to [[spoiler:outright erase other devils from history]].

* In ''[[Series/BabylonFive The Passing of the Techno-Mages]]'' trilogy, [[BaldOfAwesome Galen]] develops his spell language in terms of mathematical formulae, making it less of an art and more of a science. He orders the known spells he translates from other mages' languages in several groups based on the progression of terms. Then he discovers that, instead of coming up with more complex spells, he could try breaking down the basic two-term spell even further into a simple one-term spell. The result - a SphereOfDestruction that can make anything within it cease to exist. No one else can replicate his achievement (on their own, at least), as the spell languages of others are more artistic than functional. Later, he tries the same thing with the other progressions and comes up with other extremely-powerful spells, such as an organic ([[spoiler:Shadow]]) skin that absorbs energy, energy beams shooting out of his palms, etc. He finally realizes that he can become even more powerful by [[spoiler:casting a zero-term spell; which results in the implants working in harmony with him]]. Only one other mage manages to accomplish this latest feat and only on his deathbed.

* Devils in ''Manga/ChainsawMan'' derive their power from [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve how much humans collectively fear the concepts they represent]]. This means that devils representing more general, widely understood concepts tend to have incredibly high power. For instance, the Bomb Devil might be a PersonOfMassDestruction because of humanity's use of them as such, but she is nothing compared to the Darkness Devil, a natural concept that's existed since the beginning of the universe and a being so powerful [[spoiler:he delivers a nearly TotalPartyKill to the main characters simply by walking on by.]]\\

* Devils in ''Manga/ChainsawMan'' derive their power from [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve how much humans collectively fear the concepts they represent]]. This means that devils representing more general, widely understood concepts tend to have incredibly high power. For instance, the Bomb Devil might be a PersonOfMassDestruction because of humanity's use of them as such, but she is nothing compared to the Darkness Devil, a natural concept that's existed since the beginning of the universe and a being so powerful [[spoiler:he delivers a nearly TotalPartyKill to the main characters simply by walking on by.]]

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', all Devil Fruits are named after a basic concept (Quake Quake, Dog-Dog, Flame-Flame) with Logias, which represent elements, considered the strongest category. However, despite having high base power compared to other categories, they are difficult to make any stronger without outside augmentation and tend to have a very limited bag of tricks.( Pekoms even comments that Logia users who rely on their fruit's tremendous base power and intangibility tend to die quickly against veteran pirates). On the other hand, the Paramecia category is the most diverse (pretty much being the "anything else goes" category) and fruits can grant powers simple enough like being made of rubber, or incredibly powerful like creating earthquakes with every punch and users can often use them in very bizarre ways to keep enemies on their toes. There's also the Zoan type, which come with all the abilities of an animal which their users can transform into, like a phoenix's regenerative abilities or a mole's digging ability and it's hinted that carnivorous Zoan users also gain their animal's ferociousness. There is however a great element of ElementalRockPaperScissors involved, a great example being the rubber-man protagonist being immune to a direct application of 20,000,000 volts from the thunder-man ArcVillain.