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Elemental Powers
Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! ... Ah, bugger. Knew we forgot something.
In the past, it was thought that all of matter could be classified into easily viewable "elements" that one can observe with the naked eye. Thus, all of the world was made up of natural forces such as "earth, air, fire, water" et al. The discovery of the atom mostly disproved that, but the idea was so deeply rooted in mankind's mind, that it's still used in nearly every supernatural fictional setting (note that the classical elements actually correspond to a different scientific concept, the states of matter, provided you count plasma as a state & not just a type of gas. Alternately, fire corresponds to energy, particularly the heat energy that moves matter from one state to another).

The most common use is to give characters some superpower over an aspect of nature — like a character who can conjure or control fire or water. This usually goes hand in hand with Personality Powers — you're not likely to find a calm and collected guy who can shoot fire, for instance. These "elements" are probably the source of the association of colors with personality traits. A character with elemental power in animation will often have the fitting eye color. It also makes for easy Superhero Speciation.

Just what the "classical elements" are varies from culture to culture. In Greek (and by extension most European), Hindu, and Buddhist mythology, it's usually Fire, Air, Water, and Earth — with Aether (which can be "souls", "heart", "spirits" or Pure Energy) occasionally mixed in. In classical Chinese mythology, it's typically Fire, Water, Earth, Wood (which includes control over plants as well as the wind), and Metal. The classical Japanese elements are Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Void (Aether). In some alchemical texts, there are salt, sulphur, mercury, and quintessence with salt representing the physical, sulpher representing the spirit of life, mercury representing volatility or fluidity and the "passive principle", quintessence was supposed to be the constituent matter of the heavenly bodies, and also sometimes was included with the more common 4 elements.

Usually there will be an effort to make all powers equally important -the elemental powers used in such settings usually employ some form of Elemental Rock Paper Scissors, in order to avoid that any one power is clearly more powerful than the others.

Depending on your mileage, you might also have any natural force counted as an element — Darkness (evil black Death energy), Light (glowing holy life energy), regular Light (as in lasers and holograms), Ice, Electricity, Magnetism, Time, Space, Moon, Sun, Stars, Pizza, Gravity, Void (which is usually like a cross between Space, Dark and Aether), Sky (Wind with storm and weather added), and Sound as alternative elements.

A lot of cultural baggage has become attached to the elements over the ages, making some of them "bad" and assigning personality traits to them and their practitioners much like a Four Temperament Ensemble. Fiction exploring elemental powers tends to use these as tropes and character traits.

  • Earth: Stable and resilient, earth is the element of solidity and support. Earth characters are frequently dependable, strong and, if female, motherly. However, they can also be slooooow and stubborn. Where fire is fierce and air is fickle, earth is far too stuck in its ways.
  • Fire: Often seen as the most powerful element, and usually carries positive connotations like warmth, light, purification and even rebirth. Most series with an elemental motif will usually assign it to the hero or "Red Ranger" and Fire characters have a habit of being impulsive, hotheaded, and brash. On the flipside, it's very very easy to turn it into an antagonistic element by emphasizing its wild, destructive, and unpredictable nature. Most CRPGs featuring a young vigorous sword-wielding male teenage hero (which means, nearly all CRPGs) have him associated with fire, if the characters have elemental associations or attributes.
  • Air: The quickest and most clever of the elements, but sometimes seen as the weakest (unless it is referred to as "sky" or "heaven"). It's usually the one that uses the most ingenious and smartest tactics and what it lacks in raw power it makes up for in defensive maneuvers. Expect Air characters to be laid-back and "go wherever the wind takes them." Where water is wise, air is clever.
  • Water: The element of change; calm one minute and flying into a tempest the next. Water is pretty much always seen positively, symbolizing healing, adaptability and calm. While Fire is fierce, but never clever and Air is clever, but barely fierce, Water can be both at the same time.

Some shows that absolutely need a Five Man Band will come up with a fifth element in addition to the classical western ones, and find a way to make it a team attack that uses All Your Colors Combined. Anime usually employs Light or Lightning, but Western Animation prefers to make something up like Energy or Spirit or...oh, I dunno...

Video Games and RPG's will often add more to the list. Common additions include:

Any setting with magic in it will inevitably have elemental spells.

Finally, it's worth noting that possessing specific elemental powers can make a character vulnerable against a specific element. Fire-elemental beings, for example, don't take too well to Water-elemental attacks.

Examples

  • Most ancient gods, making this Older Than Dirt.
  • Many fantasy settings have Elementals, which are usually living humanoid Fire, or Water or what have you.
  • The Japanese-themed RPG Legend Of The Five Rings, which places great significance in the Five Elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Void) - all spellcasters in that system work by controlling one of the four (other than Void).
    • Void doesn't have a set spell list; instead it gives 'Void Points' which power special abilities.'
      • Void does so have a spell list. It's just that shugenja who can handle void spells are rare (the secrets of the art are really closely-guarded Phoenix clan secrets).
  • The sun Goddess Amaterasu in Okami eventually gains Elemental powers over the Sun, Moon, Wind, Water, Wood, Thunder, Ice, and Fire.
  • The heroes of Broken Saints, do not actually have control over the elements, they are simply associated with them as representations of certain virtues.
    • Oran > Faith > Fire
    • Kamimura > Will > Earth
    • Raimi > Awareness > Air
      • (alternatively, "Awareness" in promotional material is replaced by "Hope" to represent Raimi)
    • Shandala > Lover > Water
  • The elemental heroes and villains of The DCU include:
    • Earth: Terra (Teen Titans)
    • Fire: Fire (Checkmate)
    • Air: Red Tornado (Justice League)
    • Water: Aqualad (Teen Titans)
    • The DCU is also really fond of making up elements. Swamp Thing is a plant elemental? Okay, fine. Brother Power the Geek is a doll elemental? Now you're pushing it.
      • Firestorm is an atomic structure elemental, and Animal Man is an animal life elemental. So Yeah...
      • Firestorm's the fire elemental. Turns out Fire represents /all/ forms of energy, including the nuclear forces. It's implied that DC's air, earth, and water elementals have similar potential.
  • The elemental heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe include:
    • Earth: Avalanche (X Men)
    • Fire: Human Torch (Fantastic Four), Pyro (X Men)
    • Air: Wind Dancer (X Men)
    • Water: Hydroman (Spider Man)
    • Marvel-wise, the Fantastic Four are pretty much a representation of the four classical elements—Earth (The Thing), Fire (Human Torch), Water (Mr. Fantastic), and Air (The Invisible Woman)
  • This trope was the whole premise of Comico Comics' Elementals, a dark superhero comic about the team of Morningstar, Vortex, Fathom and Monolith.
  • The Magical Vacation series really stretches the definition of what counts as "Elemental Powers", with characters having powers over Sound, Beauty, Poison, Bug, Beast, Machinery, and Love along with the more traditional ones.
  • Black Magic in Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts is usually based around Elemental Powers, with Thunder, Blizzard, and Fire being common Black Magic spells. Less commonly, Holy, Dark, Wind, Earth, and Water are also mixed in.
    • Which are often the domain of Blue Mages or other casters not directly connected to the classic classes. White Mages often get Holy, though.
    • "Gravity" is a class of spells which deals percentage-based damage but is generally not directly associated with an element. There are also countless "non-elemental" spells like Flare and Ultima.
  • In Kingdom Hearts, Organization XIII members have their own "attribute". Most of the time, they use elemental attacks based on their attribute. Axel controls fire, Demyx controls water, Xaldin controls wind, etc. Others just use their attribute as a source of power (Saďx), or visual motifs (Marluxia). Or it's just very tangentially related to their fighting style (Luxord's timer is the extent of his time attribute).In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, these elements are extended to Heartless enemies as well, and each one is given a status effect.
    • Nothingness: Xemnas. Can null your defense in 358/2 Days.
    • Space: Xigbar. Can "shoe-glue" you in 358/2 days, preventing you from jumping.
    • Wind: Xaldin. Can "air-toss" you, making you fall to the ground if you're in the air.
    • Ice: Vexen. Can freeze you in 358/2 Days.
    • Earth: Lexaeus. Can halve your health in 358/2 Days.
    • Illusion: Zexion. Can "flip-foot" you in 358/2 Days, reversing your controls.
    • Moon: Saďx. Can silence you in 358/2 Days, preventing you from casting magic.
    • Fire: Axel. Can ignite you in 358/2 Days, making you lose small amounts of health at intervals.
    • Water: Demyx. Can damage-drain you, healing the enemy if you get hit by their water attack.
    • Time: Luxord. Can rewind your defense in 358/2 Days, setting your defense back to what it was at level 1.
    • Flowers: Marluxia. Can blind you in 358/2 Days, making you miss enemies much more often.
    • Thunder: Larxene. Can shock you in 358/2 Days.
    • Light: Roxas and Xion. Can zap your radar in 358/2 Days, messing with your minimap.
  • Harry Potter has fewer Elemental Spells than most other settings. The only two featured are conjuring of fire and water.
    • Each Hogwarts house is associated with an element.
      • Fire: Gryffindor
      • Water: Slytherin
      • Air: Ravenclaw
      • Earth: Hufflepuff
  • Harry Dresden generally conjures wind when he wants to move something or pull his punches and fire when he really wants something destroyed quickly. He also rarely calls on earth magic (in such aspects as magnetism and moving gravity for a moment) but considers that element "difficult, powerful, and dangerous" to deal with.
    • Harry's friend and fellow Warden Carlos Ramirez balances Harry in that he possesses an elemental power that Harry doesn't have ( water) and a power that may or may not be an element in the Dresdenverse— entropy. When the two wizards are working together, they seriously kick ass.
    • There's also the rare use of Earth magic. When we see Harry use it, it's mostly in the form of magnetism to disarm enemies.
      • Interestingly the faeries refer to human technology as a form of "ferromancy" - whether this is simply them not really understanding human technology or something more remains to be seen.
  • Elemental Powers as a whole is one of the spheres of magic Mages can learn in the World Of Darkness.
    • Notably, there's the collection of legacies known as the Elemental Masteries, which allow a mage to develop powers based on a specific element. The five best known Masteries are Void, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, with rumors of various others.
      • Most notable in that they are focused around controlling both the physical and conceptual element (Tamers of Fire can control fire and inspire willpower for instance, or Tamers of Water can control water and heal).
  • The current previous version (3.5) of Dungeons And Dragons has entire elemental planes, which are infinite in scope. Interestingly, this means a permanent portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire pumps energy in an area continuously, acting like a little sun.
    • Each of the four elemental planes also has a native race of genies: the djinn (Air), efreet (Fire), marid (Water) and dao (Earth). There's also a fifth race, the jann, which are native to the mortal world and are composed of all four elements.
    • Earlier editions of D&D, particularly 2nd Edition's Planescape setting, were a lot more complicated (and we liked it that way!). First you had the four elemental planes, then two energy planes (Positive, or "life" energy, and Negative, or "death"/"unlife" energy). Paraelemental planes occurred where the elemental planes crossed over each other ("magma" between earth and fire, for example), and quasielemental planes where the elemental planes crossed with the energy planes (air and positive made for "radiance," or a plane of pure, blinding light of all colors, while air and negative made for "vacuum," the absence of air). Some fans went further and created planes to "fill in the gaps" between the paraelemental planes and the energy planes.
      • Third Edition did this too...they just put a lot less emphasis on it, since Planescape was largely a discontinued setting.
    • Each element also had an energy type associated with it. Fire had fire damage (duh), water had cold, air had lightning, and earth had acid. Then, there was poor, lonely sonic damage...
    • 4th edition replaced all the Elemental Planes with something called the Elemental Chaos.
    • Other elementals exist in different supplements, such as taint elementals in Heroes Of Horror.
      • And Ravenloft has tainted Elementals born out of the corrupting influence of the Dark Powers: Pyre (fire) Grave (Earth) Blood (water) and Mist (A Ir) elementals.
  • Pokémon has seventeen types: Bug, Dark, Dragon, Electric, Fighting, Fire, Flying, Ghost, Grass, Ground, Ice, Normal, Poison, Psychic, Rock, Steel, and Water. To make it even more complicated, a Pokémon can either have one of those types, or have two types and get the Weaknesses and Resistances of both.
  • A lot of characters in Lifeforce Restless have elemental powers. Having an elemental ability as your life skill is regarded as being highly common. Having an elemental ability as your beast skill or weapon skill is almost certain. Not even Makinaru is exempt since his beast skill summons a multi elemental phoenix. Much later after his phoenix is killed, he obtains his weapon skill. His weapon is a wooden staff that advances through multiple forms into an ornate red staff with an artsy golden head. This weapon is actually his phoenix post-rebirth. When it got reborn, it sacrificed the rest of its elemental powers in order to drastically increase its control over fire. What happens after that? Makinaru causes massive wild fires with mere swings.
    • Grif has lightning for his life and weapon skills. He also has wind for his beast skill. Mioji has water for her life skill and changes it to mist with her weapon skill. Furana has wind as his life skill and pretty everything else with his beast skill. Monu can pretty much do whatever he wants. You get the idea.
    • Each of the Six Kings has their own elemental specialty.
      • The Five Kings are more lenient though.
    • Most notably Eitom, Umbra, and Zentero Mura could manipulate every aspect of nature itself through different means. One's ability was control over nature, one molded it through his sheer force of will and overwhelming energy, and one absorbed various elemental powers.
  • The heroes and villains of Digimon Frontier use Spirits that represent ten elements, specifically Fire (Takuya), Water (Ranamon), Earth (Grumblemon), Wind (Izumi/Zoe), Wood (Arbormon), Lightning (Junpei), Ice (Tomoki/Tommy), Metal (Mercurimon), Light (Kouji) and Darkness (Kouichi).
    • In Digimon Adventure, all of the main eight kids are associated with an element: Taichi (Fire), Yamato (Ice), Sora (Air), Koushirou (Electricity), Jyou (Water), Mimi (Earth), Hikari and Takeru (Light).
  • Dan Brown's Angels and Demons featured an assassin who not only killed four cardinals using the elements as a theme, but would burn the name of that element into their flesh before he killed them.
    • One cardinal he buried while stuffing dirt into his mouth (Earth)
    • Another he poked holes into his lungs (Air)
    • Another he trapped inside a burning building (Fire)
    • The final one he drowned in a fountain (Water)
  • One sphere of magic in Skulduggery Pleasant is based around the elements, with each element doing specific things.
  • Certain mages, knights, and unison devices in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha specialize in spells of a specific element, such as Lightning, Fire, or Ice. Also, in full defiance of the main text of this article, the "calm and collected guy who can shoot fire" that "you're not likely to find" describes the Blazing General Signum perfectly... well, except for the "guy" part.
  • This is subverted completely in Super Robot Wars, especially the Masou Kishin portion of the series. They are not called The Lord of Elementals for nothing at all, though personality-wise, not everyone is matching.
  • The world the characters of Naruto live in is made up of five nations named after the elements (using Lightning as the fifth element) and the ninja living in the hidden villages inside those nations use jutsus based on their homeland's elements (Fire-style, Water-style, Earth-style, etc) as well as related sub-elements. The main characters are from the Village Hidden in the Leaves, of the Fire Country so most of their special skills and abilities are fire and plant themed (in Japanese mythology leaves and fire are related).
    • Bloodline powers, or Kekkai Genkai combine two elements to create a new one which cannot be accessed by other characters - the First Hokage can combine Earth and Water to create Wood, Haku can combine Air and Water to create Ice, the Mizukage can combine both Fire and Earth to make lava and Fire and Water to make a corrosive/acidic mist, while Darui can combing Water and Lightning to create "Storm" (the one technique he used it for made a lot of bright beams which are probably made of electricity), and the Tsuchikage can combine Earth and something (probably wind) to create Dust, which can atomize things (and possibly be how he can fly). Sasuke has a special "Blaze" nature which he uses with his haxxed Mangekyo Sharingan (what difference this makes is not yet known, though it may be some sort of Infinity Plus One Element). A filler character could create Crystal with who-knows-what, and a movie villain has, other than a then-movie only Storm (it's unknown if this was just a coincidence), a Steel nature, a Dark nature and a Swift nature, whatever that's supposed to be.
  • Kaze No Stigma.
  • Used by Pug/Milamber to destroy a gladiator stadium in an impressive display of magical awesomeness, in Raymond E. Feist's Magician: Master. Note to any conquerors: If you take slaves from a nation you are at war with, then subsequently help one of them unlock his ultimate magical power and then integrate into your society, don't take him to the gladiator arena where you make his countrymen fight to the death. It won't end well.
  • In Tokyo Mew Mew, Minto/Mew Mint is a birdgirl that can fly, uses a bow and arrow and can withstand strong winds; Retasu/Mew Lettuce is a fishgirl that can turn into a mermaid, uses bubble attacks and can control nearby water sources; and Bu-ling/Mew Pudding is a monkeygirl that creates trenches when she attacks, can manifest boulders out of nowhere, and once caused vines to grow up around Tokyo Dome. The only reason Zakuro has flames in her Transformation Sequence when she becomes Mew Zakuro appears to be to match the other three. This would, of course, put Ichigo/Mew Ichigo under "heart", which fits pretty strongly, actually.
  • In World Of Warcraft the Shaman class can create elemental "totems" that produce various effects; Earth totems tend to give defensive buffs, Fire ones are usually offensive, Water ones provide healing/restoration effects and Air ones provide a variety of support effects such as acting like a lightning rod for enemy spells. And let's not forget the fact that they can shoot lightning (and lava) from their hands.
    • The game is unique in that air and earth count as the same element (nature). It also features Shadow, Arcane (magic) and Holy (which, unlike the other five, has no resistance stat).
    • Story-wise, the Warcraft universe contains universal self-aware spirits for each element. The fifth element, and the strongest of all, is life Wild.
      • Note that there doesn't seem to be any connection to the elemental spirits that Shamans get their power from and the damage types ingame; which are the above mentioned Nature, Shadow, Arcane and Holy, plus Fire, Frost and physical damage. Nature in particular seems to be a 'dump' category, including air and earth, but also poisons.
    • Of course, every spell is connected to an element and most classes have at least two elements used regularly. Exception being the Warrior, who doesn't use anything at all, the Rogue who has poisons and the Paladin who relies solely on Holy spells.
  • The Mega Man franchise:
  • Golden Sun: nearly all of the major characters are "Adepts" with elemental powers, and the player gets one party member (and towards the end of the second game, two) for each element. It also tends to follow the Personality Powers connotations, with (for example) Ivan (Air) being quiet and thoughtful, most Fire Adepts tending to be brash and aggressive and of course Isaac (and Felix) (Earth) being Heroic Mime.
  • Nasuverse has Elements, as well as something similar called Origins.
    • Elements are usually the standard fare of Wind (Noble), Earth, Water, Fire (Normal), and Void (Ether), more specific ones like Lightning and Imaginary Numbers (aka Shadow), and exceptions and very unique alignments like Sword. It is possible to have multiple elements as well as compound elements, and to use multiple elements together.
      • Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi from Fate/Zero uses Wind and Water together to manipulate liquids (generally mercury), which is his primary form of attack and defense.
      • Emiya Shiro from Fate/stay night has the unique element of 'Sword' (because of his relationship with Excalibur's sheath, Avalon), which allows him to project swords with almost no cost to himself, as well as forming the basis of his Reality Marble.
    • The Origin is the "direction an individual will take in life", and something that the person will always been drawn towards. For example: taboo, emptiness, kindness, worthlessness.
      • This is used offensively by Emiya Kiritsugu in Fate/Zero, whose dual Origins of Severing and Binding are contained within his powdered bones and loaded into special bullets. When fired against an enemy magus who is using magecraft (ie. blocking or deflecting the bullet), it directly binds and severs the Magic Circuit of the target, which destroys their ability of magery.
    • There are also attributes which may or may not be the same thing translated differently. An example is Sakura's 'binding' attribute that goes with the magic of the Makiri family.
  • Pretear has Wind, Sound, Light, Fire/Heat, Ice/Cold, Water and Plants.
  • Most characters in Bionicle have an element associated with them. The main ones are Fire, Ice, Water, Air, Stone, and Earth; while the Big Bads have Shadow and the Sixth Ranger has Light. Time and Life are also considered elements; but too powerful to control. And occasionally some other elements are mentioned; from not-so-unusual ones like Lightning, Iron, Plant Life, and Psionics, to offbeat ones like Sonics (sound), Magnetism, Gravity, and Plasma. On Bara Magna, Sand is an element as well (although there are no characters with the power to control it). Fans are still hoping for Kinetics (motion) and Space to be canonized as well.
  • Several of the superpowered teenagers at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe have elemental powers. Riptide has control over water. Fireball and Phoenixfire have fire-based powers. Imperious has the ability to cast lightning bolts, and super strength.
  • In One Piece the Logia Devil Fruits let their users turn into whatever element they're given as well as create huge amounts of them out of nothing and manipulate it. However, this includes more then the basic elements, with Fire being the only classic element that was presented; seen so far were:
    • Smoke
    • Fire
    • Sand
    • Electricity
    • Ice
    • Darkness (the actual power would be better described as "Gravity". In addition it's user doesn't have the power to turn himself into darkness at will, however he can "absorb" huge amounts of damage, though he still feel the pain)
    • Light
    • Magma
  • Spells in The Elder Scrolls series have elemental damage, and also lots of side-effects (that don't really have element-association) like Silence, Dispel or Burden.
  • The Wizardry series divides magic into six spheres: fire (which also includes lightning and light), water (which includes ice), air (which is mostly known for poison), earth (featuring lots of acid and life), mental (exactly what it sounds like), and "magic" (a mix of holy light and more esoteric arcane spells such as magic screen and magic missile).
  • And let's not forget the Seiken Densetsu series, better known in English as the Mana games, where the world's magic is governed by eight elemental spirits: Gnome (earth), Undine (water), Sylphid/Jinn (wind), Salamander (fire), Lumina (light), Shade (darkness), Luna or Aura (the moon or gold, respectively), and Dryad (wood/Mana).
  • The Wheel Of Time: The Five Powers are Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Spirit. Male channelers are more skilled with Earth and Fire, and women with Water and Air.
  • Baten Kaitos has six elements, which oppose each other in pairs. The pairs are Fire and Water, Light and Darkness, and Wind and Chronos (a.k.a. Time).
  • Chrono Trigger has the four elements of Fire, Water, Lightning, and Shadow. Interestingly, even though Robo's laser attacks are all considered "Shadow" in spite of being based on technology instead of magic.
    • This makes more sense in the remake, where Lightning and Shadow are clarified to be Light/Purity and Shadow/Impurity. Hence, an imperfect energy attack generated by techonology by a being without the ability to cast magic naturally is quite impure. Lightning is just the traditional manafestation of the divine in many cultures.
  • Subverted in Order of the Stick when Redcloak summons Titanium and Chlorine elementals (and probably others) to attack Azure City, remarking that he actually got a passing grade in chemistry, and that fire is not even an element.
    • They're not called reactionals, you know!
      • But don't you know the classic elements are called classic for a reason!?
  • In the webcomic Slightly Damned, angels, demons, and mortals are attuned to the four elements: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. In addtion, Angels can use Holy magic, while demons can use Dark magic. It should also be noted that angels are generally better at spells than demons, and demons better at them than mortals.
  • The Djinn of Uta Kata represent twelve different "elements" - one for each episode. They are, in order: Sun, Moon, Earth, Water, Fire, Sky, Wind, Flower, Lightning, Darkness, Sea and Mirror.
  • Metalocalypse has only one element— Metal.
  • The Fifth Element - duh. In this case the classic four are joined by the fifth "perfect" element, which is actually a humanoid girl. In this case Milla Jovovich, and what could be more perfect, after all?
    • Uh, yeah...
    • Well, sort of. Leeloo is just the carrier. The titular fifth element is luv. Awww!
  • Touhou's Patchouli Knowledge has power over the five Chinese elements.
    • Not only that, but she's known as the "one-week wizard" for a reason - along with the five oriental elements, she can control solar and lunar power as well (each element she controls corresponds to a day of the week in the Japanese calendar) - she can even combine multiple elements for her attacks, up to the five-element "Philosopher's Stone."
  • Dinosaur King divides certain types of dinosaurs along elemental lines. In order of opposition, carnosaurs are fire, smaller theropods are wind, large ornithopods are grass, stegosaurs, nodosaurs, and ankylosaurs are earth, ceratopsians are lightning, and sauropods and spinosaurs are water. There is also Secret, which has no definite dinosaur type and no elemental weakness. Dinosaurs and other Mesozoic reptiles obtained through move cards are usually neutral, though there are exceptions.
  • The later games in the Wizardry series, from Bane of the Cosmic Forge onward, use six spheres of magic-fire (also folding in light and general energy), water (including ice), air (involving lots of poison, oddly enough), earth (including acid and wild/nature), mind (lots of weird/limited use spells, but also some directly offensive ones), and magic (which also includes holy/light). Mages mostly specialize in fire and water, alchemists in earth and air, psionics in mind, and priests in magic, but all spellcasters pick up an array of spells from all spheres.
  • The Fighting Fantasy gamebooks feature the Seven Serpents, seven giant winged snakes with specific powers over different elements-Earth, Fire, Air, Water, Sun, Moon and Time. They are the main antagonists in the third book of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series, and the player must defeat them so news of their mission won't get back to the series' Big Bad. Fortunately, the Serpents' elemental powers also give them each specific weaknesses, which skilled adventurers can exploit.
  • Stone and Wood related powers are the best established in The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant due to being the ones favored by the good guys, but other possible "elements" appear to include Fire, Ice, Acid, Lightning, Water, Wind/Sound, Gold, Blood, and Time. There exists also non-elemental magic of pure force, as well as Wild Magic based on White Gold.
  • In the first Tales of Symphonia game, there are eight temples for the eight elements, Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Ice, Darkness, and Light. Spellcasting characters can use spells from each element except for darkness, which for some reason doesn't have spells other than one of Sheena's summons late in the game. In the second Tales of Symphonia game, each character is assigned a different element.
  • Shendu's family of demons from Jackie Chan Adventures all were responsible for an elemental power: fire, earth, lightning, sky, wind, mountain, earth, moon, and water. Once the demons were sealed away for good their powers remained, leaving them vunerable for other people to take, as in the case with Season 5 where seemingly everyone had a crack at an elemental power before they were all taken by the Big Bad.
  • Elementalists in Guild Wars. They have five spell attributes: Fire, Earth, Air (Most of which are Lighting), Water (Most of which are Ice), and their Primary Attribute, Energy Storage, which gives them a large Energy (mana) pool. It has one offensive spell, Energy Blast, which does more damage based on how much Energy you currently have. Elemental Rock Paper Scissors isn't invoked much, mainly against some monsters with an obvious elemental bent.
    • Mesmers can also perhaps be called in here, invoking a strange mix of Heart and Mind, collectively designated Chaos, and they excel at making life for other people miserable by turning their own powers against them, sabotaging those powers, and attacking the very essence of the enemy.
    • Rangers also feature a series of Nature Rituals, tying them into Life, and Ritualists use Spirit as their main power source, with some ties to Life.
  • Tamora Pierce used this with a twist in her original Circle of Magic series: Briar was a plant mage (earth), Daja was a smith-mage (fire), but rather than distributing the final two elements amongst the other members of the circle, she gave Tris, a weather-mage, both air and water, and Sandry was a thread mage, which is definitely not a traditional element.
  • In Kingdom Of Loathing, there are the five elements of Hot, Cold, Spooky, Stench, and Sleaze, with rare occurrences of Bad Spelling and Shadow (the former used by creatures parodying the Internet like Flaming Trolls and Spam Witches, the latter used, appropriately, by your Shadow)
  • In the World Of Darkness RPG Changeling The Dreaming, two races of changelings have elemental themes. However, they are not standard player characters and come across as exotic and alien to the Kithain, the more mainstream fae. The Western elements are represented by the Inanimae. They include the Solimonds (Fire; revolutionaries), Ondines (Water; watchers), Perosemes (Air; travellers), Glomes (Earth/Rock; soldiers), Kuberas (Earth/Plants; hedonists), and Mannikins (Anything human-shaped; enigmatic to Inanimae and Kithain alike). The Eastern Elements are represented by the Kamuii, the noble caste of Hsien (Asian Changelings; the commoners are Animorphs). The Kamuii consist of the Chu-ih-yu (Metal; Knights Templar), Chu Jung (Fire; strategists), Hou-chi (Wood; healers), Komuko (Earth; Balanced), and Suijen (Water; jerkasses).
  • The Discworld, being a nearly-unreal world, uses the Classical Elements, but adds a fifth, and no, it's not Heart. According to the History Monks, the world is made of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, and the fifth element, Surprise, allows everything to keep happening.
  • ReadOrDie features elemental powers of Paper. It is a personality power, the users love to read. As in, will crush a supervillain organization just to get a book from them. It is also possible to have other elemental powers in the verse, for example Fire by liking to burn things.
  • A webcomic example: Magic in the world of Bideogamu is divided into eight elements, each with a patron Seraph: Light, Shadow, Fire, Water, Wind, Earth/Nature, Ice, and Lightning. Furthermore, each person in Bideogamu has an affinity for one of the eight, although Light and Shadow are very rare.
  • While the Castlevania series generally shies away from this, Castlevania Circle Of The Moon uses as the basis for their magic system ten elements, represented by cards:
    • Salamander: Fire
    • Serpent: Water and Ice combined
    • Mandragoras: Plant
    • Golem: Earth
    • Cockatrice: Stone
    • Manticore: Poison
    • Griffin: Wind
    • Thunderbird: Lightning
    • Unicorn: Light
    • Black Dog: Dark
      • While some enemy varieties(ie. demons) have representatives for a few of these elements, the Armor enemies have (at least) one for each.
  • Harukanaru Toki no Naka de has a system based off both the Five Elements and the Eight Trigrams  *. The eight characters in the party fit into the Eight Trigrams concept (to the point of it being used in the manga/anime to track down one of them), and their powers are also tied to it, yet the Combination Attacks utilise the Five Elements version (with wood, metal and earth assigned to two characters each — and two of them aren't even tied to the same holy beast).
  • On the spanish movie Dragon Hill the classical western elements are pretty much said to be the only way a person can get into the titular Lost World ( and the only way out is via a supercomputer). The sequel El Cubo Mágico goes furhter by making the Magic Cube reacting to any of the four elements (which makes one wonder why doesn't it react all the time as it is constantly in contact with the air) by creating an Eldritch Abomination. The bad guy also uses what appears to be light blasts, while the dragon Ethelbert uses ones of a blue colouration.
  • In the Web comic Harkovast there are fourteen (count em) magical elements! They are Fire, Ice, Water, Earth, Metal, Mind, Nature, Technology, Dark, Light, Life, Death, Thunder and Water. Every race that appears is gifted with the magic of two of these elements, each race receiving a different combination. The combination they get determines both the special powers and often aspects of the culture of that race.
  • Visions & Voices has five elements: Cold, Fire, Shock, Necrotic, and Radiant. Five of the playable characters specialize in one element, and one character can switch between light and dark skillsets.
  • In the Bakugan first season, each of the main characters has a favored element.
    • Pyrus (fire) - Favored element of Dan, tends to be displayed in fireballs destroying opponents.
    • Aquos (water) - Favored element of Maruucho, has many elements of changing the rules and defense.
    • Ventis (wind) - Favored element of Shun, shown in blowing opponents attacks back at them.
    • Subterra (earth) - Favored element of Julie.
    • Haos (light) - Favored element of Runo.
    • Darkus (dark) - Favored element of the Big Bad, Maskerade and thus also his alternate personality Alice.
  • Dominion And Duchy, oddly for a Space Opera has at least six Elemental Manifestations. There is Luxianne, Manifestation of Light, Duister, Manifestation of Darkness, Dante, Manifestation of Twilight (which is apparently a specific type of energy), Lord Anarchy, Manifestation of Chaos, Lady Libra, Manifestation of Order and Malaenda, Manifestation of Neutrality and Balance. None of them seem to be evil.

Writers also love to employ the classical elements for their theme, bestowing the main characters with power over the elements and making them integral to their characters. Examples include:

  • Captain Planet And The Planeteers - Kwame (Earth), Wheeler (Fire), Linka (Wind), Gi (Water), Ma-Ti (Heart) And when their powers combine... well, you know the rest.
  • Avatar The Last Airbender, Pictured above.
    • Interestingly, the Avatar cycle goes in the same order as the elements are called out on Captain Planet. This troper doesn't know if that was deliberate.
    • The Avatar cycle corresponds to seasons (starting with Water for winter), so it's only deliberate if Captain Planet did that, too.
    • One unique theme is the presense of the titular Avatar- a reincarnated figure who can (with training and time) harness the powers of all four elements, and serves more or less as the resident Superhero. It also has only only the cast but entire nations themed around the elements- the Fire Nation, the Water Tribes, the Air Nomads and the Earth Kingdom. A certain percentage of people born within those countries tend to manifest their signature elemental power, with no known exceptions besides the Avatar.
  • Xiaolin Showdown - Notable for the leader of the kids, Raimundo, being aligned with Air, while the show's lead Omi uses Water, and The Chick, Kimiko, uses Fire. Clay, though, is played straight for using Earth.
  • WITCH - Notable for subverting the personalities usually attached to the elements. Taranee Cook, the fire-user, is shy and softspoken whereas Cornelia Hale, the earth-user, is spoiled, brutally honest and sometimes kind of a bitch.
  • Winx Club - Bloom (Fire), Stella (Light), Musa (Air and Sound), Flora (Earth), Tecna (Metal) and Layla (Water)
  • Fantastic Four - More subtle than the rest, with Susan being Air (invisibility and forcefields) and Reed Water (flows, stretches, and very resourceful). Ben and Johnny are Earth and Fire, more obviously.
    • Several alternate continuities, such as the Ultimate and Movieverse versions, have Victor von Doom in the same accident as the rest of the Four, where he acquires somewhat uncontrollable power over Metal/Lighting.
    • This editor's favorite was the What If where Doctor Doom's Face Heel Turn gave him The Thing's Earth body, while Ben Grimm turned into the Hulk. Fire, Water, Air and Gamma Rays, yeah!
  • Flame Of Recca - The gold/metal element was added to complete the Five Man Band.
  • Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series features a fantasy world inhabited by "furies" with the standard elemental aspects, plus a few hybrids ("storm" furies are water/air hybrids.) Most people in this world can control at least one fury; talented furycrafters can control two or more or differing elements. As usual, water is for healing, earth for strength, air for movement/flight, and fire for offensive power. Interestingly, fire also covers most emotions (triggering fear, anger, or enthusiasm), although lust belongs to earth. There's also metal for endurance (and swordmanship) and wood for stealth (and archery).
  • Nearly the entire basis of magic in David Farland's Runelords series of fantasy novels. Air and fire are usually treated as the "bad" elements, since they're chaotic and inspire chaos and madness in their wielders (and fire inspires its wielders to be destructive, because they can draw strength from other fires), while earth and water are the "good" elements, since both are considered stable and even nurturing. The hero of the first part of the series was the powerful Earth King, fighting to avert The End Of The World As We Know It at the hands of Fire and Air worshipers.
    • The second series is much less black-and-white. The Earth King's son is a fire mage; the son's challenges lie as much in controlling his rampant power as in fighting evil. We find out that Fire has powers that can be used for good, including doing one thing that nobody has ever been known to do with Earth powers: kill a Locus.
  • The Mystic Knights Of Tir Na Nog
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Mercury = Ice/Water
    • Venus = Love/Metal (except Crescent Beam, owing to her first appearance as a stand alone character, Sailor V),
    • Moon = Light (Sometimes mixed with love/heart, or just Power Of Friendship)
    • Mars = Fire
    • Jupiter = Electricity/Wood
    • Saturn = Destruction (a Person Of Mass Destruction for that mater)
    • Uranus = Sky/Space (except World Shaking is very much like an Earth attack for some reason)
    • Neptune = Sea/Water
    • Pluto = Time (Except Dead Scream refers to the underworld)

  • Yes! Precure 5 has a Five Man Band representing Heart, Fire, Light, Earth, and Water. The second season introduces a Sixth Ranger who seems to represent the previously-missing Air.
  • All over the place in Arcana Heart, with each of the Arcana representing a particular element - fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, and yes...even "heart" (it's more dangerous than it sounds...Take Our Word For It). Each of the girls has their particular preference, but the player can use whatever Arcana they want when selecting a character.
  • In Orson Scott Card's The Tales of Alvin Maker you have torches (fire), doodlebugs (earth), Making and Unmaking, as well as the Indians' Song of the Green. There are also references to earth-fire-air-water... unusually, water is the one considered to be inherently destructive.
  • Exalted divvies up the Dragon-Blooded by the five elemental Aspects of Creation (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Wood). The Aspect of a particular Dragon-Blooded determines their favored attributes (such as Craft for Earth, Sail for Water, Thrown for Air, etc.), and one Charm (Elemental Bolt) lets them produce a blast attack of their particular element.
  • Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series obviously uses this trope. Each book is a re-writing of a traditional Fairy Tale with the involvement of Elemental Powers.
  • Wurts's The Cycle Of Fire Trilogy has particularly powerful elemental magic. The Stormwarden, who uses only air and water, can create a storm fierce enough to melt rock through sheer friction. The Firelord, who uses only earth and fire, kills the Big Bad with a explosion hotter than the heart of a star.
  • Yu Gi Oh has the standard attributes Earth, Wind, Fire and Water, plus Light, Dark, and Divine, which is tournament illegal and applies to the Infinity +1 Game Breaker Egyptian God Cards. The elemental concept is played straight with cards like "Oxygeddon" (Wind) and "Hydrogeddon" (Water).
  • In The Witcher the classical elements are used in full force by mages (for example, Azar Javed is a fire mage, who attacks with fire, and summons a monster from the planes of fire.). Mad Scientist Kalkstein however mentions he has a theory that is effectively a basic description of atoms.
    • Wizards in Witcher's world call upon the elements for mana points magical power they use for spells. Water is easiest to channel, requiring but to find a ley line, so it's the one taught to wizardry students. Earth requires much strength to get magic from it, while Air is technically difficult. Fire offers great power that is easy to reach, but also is a poster child for With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
  • In the Savage World's tabletop RPG, 50 Fathoms, magic is based on elemental mastery. Much like Avatar: The Last Airbender, most mages posess mastery over only one of the four clasical elements. However, Player characters can buy dominion over each element, leading up to buying the 'Elemental Mastery' edge, with which your mage can sucessfully balance all four elements.
  • Light Crusader has Air, Fire, Earth and Water. You can mix the elements to create unique spells like Needlecrack.
  • The four Classical elements form the basis of Quest 64's magic system.
  • August Derleth tried to retroactively impose an elemental theme on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, matching up Cthulhu with Water and Shub-Niggurath with Earth, etc. It never worked too well.
  • Disgaea has three elements: Fire, Ice, and Wind. All units resist one element and is weak to another. There's a fourth element called Star, which is the neutral element. Nothing is weak against it, and nothing resists it.
  • The MMORPG Ragnarok Online has 9 elements. Earth, Fire , Wind (most of it is lightning), Water ( almost everything of it is ice), Ghost , Holy , Undead , Dark , Poison. There's also neutral. First five are used by Mages, holy by Priest and Crusaders, Poison is utilized by Assasins. Dark and Undead is used by monsters. The game involves Elemental Rock Paper Scissors and elemental levels, from 1 to 4. The higher the elemental level the more important its elemental weaknesses and strenghts. A Water1 monster is highly resistant to fire attacks, but a Water4 is invulnerable to them.
  • In Pretty Cure Perfume Preppy, the Five Man Band is comprised of Heart (Cure Rosa), Sound (Cure Vanilla), Lightning (Cure Jasmine), Air (Cure Tangerine), and Earth (Cure Cardamomo), though this changes a little with the power-up attacks. On the other hand, Dark Magical Girl Leather Ashes uses the elements of Darkness and Blood.
    • Similarly, in Futari Wa Pretty Cure Flash Fire, Cures Ember and Glaicer wield the powers of fire and ice, respectively, and in Pretty Cure Full Color, the main heroines wield the elements of Air (Cure Autumn), Ice (Cure Winter) and Fire/Heat (Cure Summer).
    • In Shining Pretty Cure, the main heroines wield the four basic elements, and the upcoming Cure Diamond will wield light/energy. Basically, a bunch of Pretty Cure fanseries have this theme.
  • The Anicopter's elements are Fire, Water, Wind, Wood, and I CAN COMMUNICATE WITH BATS. The elements are little related to their posessors (Bat communication is the power of Robot Ant), and Fire is apparently weak to Wood.
  • In Robin Mc Kinley's Sunshine, the titular protagonist is a magic-user whose abilities are connected to sunlight. This is described as an unusual elemental affinity that falls somewhere between air and fire. It is explained that in this book's universe, being a magic-user associated with a certain element gives you resistance to anything that element opposes or neutralizes. For example, a magic-user affiliated with Water would make a good firefighter, and a mage associated with Sun would make a good vampire hunter.
  • In Cate Tiernan's Balefire quartet, Clio and Petra have fire as "their" element. They assume that Clio's twin Thais does too, until a series of disastrous magical events show that her element is water.

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