History Main / SelfHarmInducedSuperpower

* ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'': Every Contractor has a specific Remuneration that they're compelled to perform after using their powers. The GravityMaster Louis has to [[{{Fingore}} break his own fingers]]. November 11 sees his remuneration as this trope: he's a [[StraightEdgeEvil straight-edge villain]] who has to smoke cigarettes. The contractor Wei is the most overt example in the show: [[BloodyMurder His power is to disintegrate anything he's spilled his own blood on]], and thus his combat style involves intentionally cutting his hands and wrists and using hand movements to flick blood at his opponents.

** [[spoiler: At half-health, the Beast Clergyman stabs through [[RestrainingBoly the gemstone]] in his left hand to unleash [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Destined Death]], and reveals himself as Maliketh, the Black Blade.]]

** In the second phase of his boss fight, [[spoiler: The Fire Giant ''tears off his left leg'' and sacrifices it to The Fell God to increase his firepower tenfold.]]

** When he's at half-health, Godrick cuts off his own arm with his axe, tears off the head of a dragon's corpse, and ''attaches the head to the stump'', with the dragon head now becoming sentient and breathing fire at the player.
** In the second phase of his boss fight, [[spoiler: The Fire Giant ''tears off his own leg'' and sacrifices it to The Fell God to increase his firepower tenfold.]]

** When he's at half-health, Godrick cuts off his own arm with his axe, tears off the head of a dragon's corpse, and ''attaches the head to the stump'', with the dragon becoming sentient and breathing fire at the player.

Superpowers are awesome; however, many writers tend to give said powers some sort of [[PowerAtAPrice tradeoff]] or necessitate an unconventional way of triggering them in order to keep things interesting. One way to do this is to require someone to directly inflict self-damage in order to use/activate their powers. This makes it so one may only use their powers out of desperation; after all, if someone is willing to hurt themselves in order to gain power every time, then surely they mean business, and requiring injury could prevent the powers from being used too liberally. Perhaps the abilities are fueled via ThePowerOfHate or UnstoppableRage, and injuring oneself is the easiest way to fill oneself with the necessary emotions. It could also hint at some darker or sinister nature behind said powers ([[BadPowersGoodPeople though not necessarily the people using them]]), since they require a literal flesh and/or blood sacrifice in order to use.

* ''Webcomic/Aurora2019'': During the battle with Tynan, [[spoiler:Kendal realises that since he is made from Vash's incarnation and holds Vash's sword, he can use himself as a catalyst to re-summon Vash. Kendal promptly does so [[{{Seppuku}} by impaling himself on the sword]], re-summoning Vash. After defeating Tynan, Vash vacates the body again and tells the rest of the party to tell Kendal ''never'' to do that again.]]

** Similar to above, there is also Belly Drum, which deducts half the user's health to instantly max (4x) it's Attack stat.

** When used by Ghost types, Curse is a move that halves the Pokemon's HP by half in exchange for the target Pokemon getting cursed and losing some health every turn. In some games, the move's animation even depicts a nail being driven into the Pokémon using it.

* ''Anime/MyHime'': [[TheDragon Nagi]] could always summon Orphans to attack the [=HiME=] (with the actual goal being to teach them how to best use their powers so they could [[ThereCanBeOnlyOne fight each other later]]). But in the Manga, he has to cut open his skin to summon them, as they form from his blood.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Plays with this trope a little bit with Luffy's Third and Fourth Gear modes, as the self-harm isn't quite what activates it but it is needed to activate them. To activate Third Gear, Luffy bites into his thumb and then blows air into his own bones. With Fourth Gear, Luffy bites into his arm instead and then similarly inflates his musculature structure instead.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Finder}}'', major character Jaeger Ayres has a HealingFactor. Unfortunately, this means that he has to self-harm every so often if he hasn't been injured some other way because with nothing to do his healing factor sends his immune system out of control and he gets auto-immune diseases.

* ''ComicBook/MaximumCarnage'' reveals that Carnage's symbiote got into his bloodstream somehow during his previous fight with Spider-Man and Venom. As a result, if he's ever separated from the symbiote or it gets destroyed, he'll immediately grow a new one if he gets cut, whether he does it to himself or someone else cuts him. As he was a psychotic serial killer before bonding with the symbiote, he has no problems cutting himself to activate his powers though he rarely needs to.

* ''Film/SomeKindOfHate'' is about an undead girl named Mara, who feeds off the sadness of bullied victims, and will avenge them if they're angry enough to say," I want my bullies dead." In order to attack others, she must attack herself. So, to break someone's arm, she must break her own arm. That's how spiteful she is, having been brutally bullied in the past.

* Queenie in ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryCoven'' is a "living {{voodoo doll}}". She harms herself and an identical wound will appear on her target. She also recovers extremely quickly from such wounds.

* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'': The Razor Blade is an item that grants a power boost for the room, provided that Isaac harms himself and gives up at least a heart of red health to the item. The Blood Rights item takes the same price, but deals room-wide damage instead.

* ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'': In the Old Hunters one of the bosses the player faces is Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower. When a third of her health is gone, Maria will stab her sword Rakuyo into her chest coating the blade with her blood allowing her to increase the range with which she can attack and also allowing her to use a few AOE attacks as well.

* In ''Franchise/DragonAge'', BloodMagic requires, well, the spilling of blood... but it can be your own blood, making it this trope. The Magisters of Tevinter use that as proof that blood magic is perfectly fine to study and use and doesn't violate the Chantry's ban on using magic to do harm, studiously ignoring the fact that most blood mages soon [[JumpOffTheSlipperySlope find that they need more power than their own bodies can provide...]]

* In ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'', starting with ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'', the signature move of the Dark Knight is Dark Wave or Darkness, a CastFromHitpoints move with effects that vary from game to game. Some send a wave of darkness across the field that damages all enemies, while others enchant his blade and give it dark-elemental increased damage.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', Queen Gunnhildr became a god by stabbing herself with the auracite weapon, Save the Queen, to save her beloved Bozja from the Fourth Umbral Calamity. [[spoiler:Misija Votyasch]] accesses the full power of the primal Queen Gunnhildr by raising Save the Queen into the air in the heart of Delubrum Reginae. The weapon then levitates behind her before shooting through her into the Queensheart, a massive crystal packed with aether. This infuses her with the primal's power in the same vein as Ysayle summoning Shiva into herself.

* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'' has the Terran Marines and their Stimpack ability. The ability increases the overall power of the Marines [[CastFromHitPoints at the cost of some HP]]. In the original 1998 game, prior to the introduction of the Terran Medics in the ExpansionPack ''Brood War'', there was no way to heal back Marines who used the pack, so it was relegated to very situational uses. The introduction of the Medics allowed the Marines to benefit from the effects of Stimpack while getting healed.
* ''VideoGame/VoodooVince'': Being a voodoo doll, this was [[PlayerCharacter Vince]]'s whole thing. Activating his voodoo powers would cause Vince to injure himself in some way, which would then transfer the damage to all nearby enemies, effectively making it an insta kill move. The power needs voodoo beads to work, which Vince can get by attacking enemies.

* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'': Mollymauk Tealeaf of campaign 2 cuts himself to cast some terrifying spells and curses. Creator/TaliesinJaffe specified that, for Molly, cutting wasn't about self-harm but acts of sacrifice, since Molly never found any pleasure or relief from using his blood in this manner. He gives of himself to protect and maintain. [[spoiler:Upon Molly's death (caused when he cut himself too much in an attempt to blind an antagonist), Lucien is resurrected. The trope ceases to be BadPowersGoodPeople and immediately turns into BadPowersBadPeople.]]