Heal It with Water

"Ahh! Life-giving water! Nectar of the gods! Graham can now feel strength and renewal flowing through him."

— King's Quest V

Pure, clean water washing away dirt and grime is an age-old idea, and water is a fairly universal symbol for spiritual healing and restoration. In addition, all organic life on Earth is water-based and terrestrial life is thought to originate from the oceans. So it's no surprise that fiction associates water with health and life — specifically, it is often used to heal. Water will have restorative properties (such as recovering health or mana), treat injuries (even internal ones that the water wouldn't even touch), and cleanse a body of poison and other toxins.

One common way to do this is to make healing a subset of water-based powers: healing spells will be water-aligned, and individuals with a water-themed powerset can use their control over water to pull double duty as the team medic (or conversely, the team medic is likely to have an affinity for water magic for the same reason). This may specifically involve the manipulation of internal fluids to repair bodily damage^note There's a tiny grain of Truth in Television to this, in that immediate immune responses often rely on how fast immune cells — which are carried by blood and lymph — can arrive at the site of damage. Because of this, if there's a Classical Elements Ensemble or Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors, expect the healer characters to belong to the Water element.

Heal It with Water relies on the idea of Cool, Clear Water as cleansing and life-giving. Since Water Is Blue, this also allows for the Color Motif of water being calming and soothing. Many real-life first aid procedures such as burn treatments and wound washing ^note although running water alone is not enough to clean a wound; a disinfectant is necessary — water can even infect a wound without it rely on running water, and in the specific case of some poisons, water is used to "flush" them out^note Do Not Try This at Home! Consult a doctor or toxicology specialist before trying anything. And of course, drinking sufficient amounts of water is essential to one's health.

A useful application of Making a Splash, and may be utilized by a White Mage and / or those with Healing Hands, who tend to be feminine women. Super-Trope to Healing Spring, a body of water that specifically has healing properties. Compare Healing Vat and Healing Potion, which are liquids that will recover health, but may be comprised of something other than water, and Swiss-Army Tears when they are used in a healing capacity. Contrast Kill It with Water and Kill It with Fire; see also Heal It With Fire and Healing Winds. This can apply to Fire/Water Juxtaposition if water's healing properties are played in contrast to the destruction caused by fire.

Not to be confused with aqua vitae — see Hard-Drinking Tropes for that. Or Heal It with Booze.

See also Holy Water, which will may be given restorative, curative or even resurrective properties in fiction.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Ameno in Naruto uses the Water Release jutsu to supplement her extensive medical skills; she's seen healing herself and flushing out poison with it.
• In Psychic Academy, Orina's aura is water-based, and can heal with it, which presents itself as little nude figures of hers that turn into water on injuries.
• In Sword Art Online, the Undines are water-based fairies who specialize in healing magic.

Comic Books

• Aquaman: For a time, the title character has a magical hand made of water that can heal anything it touches (among many other powers).
• In Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, the waters of the Mississippi River apparently revived Uncle Sam (the Anthropomorphic Personification of America) after his apparent death in Infinite Crisis.

Fairy Tales

• In many variants of tale type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children", in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index (to which belongs the tale The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird), the titular three golden children (three siblings or triplets) quest for three magical treasures, which includes a magical water source. After the elder siblings are turned to stone, their younger sibling (in most of the variants, a girl) uses the water to restore them to life, as well as several others that failed in the quest and were subject to petrification.
• This is the premise of tale type ATU 551, "The Water of Life": the hero quests for a magical healing water that can cure the king, but it is located in a distant kingdom in the hands of a princess, although the king's remedy may be a vial of healing potion, a bird, a tree or a herb, depending of the variant.

Fan Works

• In Zelda and the Manacle of Cahla, the spell for healing and mending is water-based.
• In the Facing the Future Series, whenever Danny uses his True Ghost Form, afterwards, in order to get his strength back up, he has to guzzle a bottle or two of water. Sam quipped that at least he was staying well-irrigated.

Films — Live-Action

• Downplayed and justified in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The protagonists are given boils by a poison fog which washes away when they step into a pond. In this case, the injuries from the fog were designed to wash away upon contact with saltwater.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians — The Lightning Thief: This ability is expanded from the books. While in the books contact with water (particularly salt water) can empower and heal Percy, in this adaptation he is capable of also using it to heal others' wounds, as seen when he submerges himself and gently holds Annabeth's wrist.

Literature

• Codex Alera: Healing magic is one of the watercrafting arts and one of the most commonly used for its Mundane Utility. It usually requires the patient to be immersed in a tub of water, but the more powerful practitioners don't need to do so.
• In the Discworld, witch Tiffany Aching develops a magic for taking away pain from a patient: she channels their pain through herself into a bucket of cold water, which accepts the pain-energy and noticeably heats up, in some cases coming to the boil.
• The Dresden Files: Water is associated with entropy, cleansing, and Anti-Magic in the setting. Best exemplified by The Archmage Joseph Listens-To-Wind, who uses water magic both in his peerless Healing spells and to Dispel hostile magic.
• Percy Jackson of Percy Jackson and the Olympians has a variation of this (and Healing Factor) as one of his many water-based superpowers — because he's the son of the Lord of the Ocean, jumping into any body of water will heal his injuries.
• The Shadow of Kyoshi: Sifu Atuat is a famous waterbender healer. In fact, it's implied that she's actually a bloodbender, secretly using a dangerous and horrific talent that no one else knows about in order to increase her abilities. She also pioneers using the ice side of waterbending to aid in the more direct manipulation of energy that is traditional healing.
  Sifu Atuat: Anybody can punch someone with water. I punch people's energy pathways with water so that they live a few more decades.
• Whateley Universe: From Silver Linings 1 (Part 5): Sobek, used his powers related to the waters of the Nile, to "wash away evil", cleansing Quinn Seabury of magical rot, and washing away the traumas afflicting some children.
• Subverted in The Wheel of Time. Healing weaves often use a combination of Water, Air, and Spirit, but it's a flawed version that works via Life Drain, and later books introduce a weave using all five elements as the true healing weave.

Live Action TV

• Mako Mermaids: An H₂O Adventure: Water-based healing is part of a mermaid's basic power set, but unfortunately, Rita is the only mermaid who actually knows how to do it. When she's knocked unconscious by a blast from a Moon Ring, the others have to brute force a healing spell by dunking her in the ocean.
• Tidelands (Netflix): Tidelanders can heal through manipulating the water in people's bodies.

Myths & Religion

• In Celtic Mythology, Fionn mac Cumhaill offers to heal the mortally wounded Diarmuid by bringing him water cupped between his hands, but in his jealousy "accidentally" lets it slip twice, with Diarmuid dying before he can bring it a third time.
• In Japanese Mythology, after escaping from Yomi, Izanagi saw that his body had been corrupted by the uncleanliness of the dead world, and decided to purify himself by bathing in a river. In the process, he gave birth to various gods of the Japanese pantheon, including Amaterasu.

Toys

• BIONICLE: In Mask of Light, Gali uses her elemental power of water to purify Tahu from Lerahk's poison inflicted earlier in the film.

Video Games

• Angry Birds Epic: The Rainbird, one of Chuck's classes, has the "Healing Rain" ability.
• Arc Rise Fantasia: Water Gems provide the user with both attacking and healing magic. In fact, Water is the only element (out of eight) with no attacking spells on its first tier.
• In BioShock 2, the Fountain of Youth gene tonic slowly regenerates health and EVE when in contact with water.
• Chantelise: The only healing spell in the game is made using blue crystals of water magic.
• In Chrono Trigger, Marle and Frog are the two Water-aligned party members, and they are the only ones with dedicated healing spells. Marle functions more like a White Mage, with a more dedicated healing and support arsenal, whereas Frog is more of a Combat Medic, where he can dish out damage and keep the party alive. In the sequel, Chrono Cross, the Blue element, which governs water and ice, includes a large number of powerful healing spells.
• Water-based characters in DC Universe Online can use their powers to heal or prevent damage.
• Divinity: Original Sin and sequel Divinity: Original Sin II:
  • The Hydrosophist ability governs water and ice magic and includes a number of skills to restore Hit Points or remove status ailments, such as Restoration, Healing Tears, and Cleanse Wounds.
  • Zig-zagged in the original game: the Hydrosophist ability has healing skills at all levels of proficiency, but the Master level also unlocks the "Mass Disease" skill.
  • In the sequel, when Water surfaces and steam clouds are blessed with Source magic, they heal anyone who stands in them.
• Dodgeball Academia: Balloony is capable of doing this with his Balltimate move. When seen doing this, water is around him and he can heal his teammates.
• Rab from Dragon Quest XI is able to summon a healing rain shower with his Right as Rain ability, which grants the entire party healing over time.
• In Duke Nukem 3D, Duke can drink water adding 1% health for each sip. This is usually done after wrecking a fire hydrant or a toilet, then sipping from the fountain thusly created. Some levels include drinking fountains that can but don't have to be broken to drink from.
• In Fallout 3:
  • The main plot concerns the reactivation of a water purification system (which serves as a metaphor for healing the post-nuclear wasteland). It becomes an important factor in the "Broken Steel" DLC (set after the events of the main plot, where the system's been reactivated and possibly contaminated if the player took the "evil" option). In the game, distilled water (hard to come by) is a healing item (and one of the few that don't cause the PC to accumulate rads (although any water does some healing, at the cost of radiation poisoning).
  • There's also a quest in the DLC about a ghoul salesman selling a miracle cure to ghouls, claiming it can reverse the ghoulification process. It turns out he's been irradiating the water the Brotherhood of Steel's distributing; the radiation causes some healing effects for ghouls, but technically hastens the ghoulification process.
• Final Fantasy Brave Exvius:
  • Warrior of Light Lenna is a healer with water-related skill names to emphasize her status in her own game as Warrior of the Water Crystal.
  • Shui Yu, a Global Original unit, is a water mage that can use healing skills.
• Flippin Kaktus: Whenever the cactus takes damage, he can recover health by standing in water.
• In Genshin Impact, Hydro-based characters generally have healing powers. On the player's side, Barbara and Sangonomiya Kokomi are dedicated healers and Xingqiu has some slight healing on his Elemental Skill. On the enemies' side, Hydro Samachurls, Fatui Hydrogunner Legionnaires, and Hydro Specters are capable of healing other monsters with Hydro abilities. Ironically, most characters from Fontaine (the Hydro Nation) operate with some form of Cast From Hitpoints mechanic, with Hydro Archon Furina's unique skill boosting it's damage by draining health from the entire party.
• Fortune Summoners: The earliest healing spell available is Sana's starting spell "Heal Water".
• Golden Sun:
  • The water element healing spell series, Ply, which includes the strongest single-target healing, and Wish, which includes the strongest multi-target healing. Water is also the only element to provide status recovery spells.
  • The water-elemental summon, Coatlicue, is the only summon spell that focuses exclusively on healing rather than causing damage.
  • The Water of Life item revives a fallen party member.
  • In general, Mercury (Water) Adept characters are slanted towards healing and support. Best exemplified by Mia, a water user who works as a healer and acts as the White Magician Girl. Her son Rief shares her abilities.
  • The Water of Hermes is obtained after igniting the Mercury lighthouse, and is used to restore Tret after his insane evil personality has been defeated and keep Imil's inhabitants safe from any disease. If reobtained, it can be used to fully heal a party member.
  • Lemuria's inhabitants live multiple centuries thanks to the properties of the water from their island's fountain. Babi escaped the island with several bottles of the water, but his supply is running out after decades and he sends the heroes to get more. He dies offscreen in the second game before you can get him the water.
• In Grandia II, all healing spells fall under the elemental water category.
• In Guild Wars 2, the Elementalist profession has an attunement to water that uses water magic and focuses on healing.
• Jade Cocoon 2: Each of the four classical elements is associated with a particular strategy in battle, with water representing healing.
• Nami, the Tidecaller, from League of Legends is a support-type champion who can both heal allies and damage enemies at the same time with her Ebb and Flow ability. If she targets an ally, the water can bounce back and heal another ally.
• The Trails Series plays with this idea. While the The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky trilogy has all healing arts be of the water element, subsequent games afterwards have the Area of Effect healing arts be of wind element to avoid Crippling Overspecialization.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Mipha, whose magic is is explicitly aquatic because she was princess of the Fish People Zora, was also a renowned healer when she was alive. The skill she gives Link is the ability to restore his health to full, and it even has a bubbling visual effect.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the sequel to Breath of the Wild, reveals that all the Zora have at least some magical control over water and its healing properties; Mipha just happened to be uncommonly skilled with it. Yona and her attendants are shown using their water magic to heal Zora who have been poisoned by the sludge polluting Zora's Domain.
• The water-element Glyphs in Lunarosse focus primarily on healing and buffing.
• Mega Man Battle Network 6: In the Falzar version, after Mega Man finishes the side quest with Spout Man, he'll gain access to Spout Cross, where Mega Man acquires Spout Man's abilities. When he activates Spout Cross, Mega Man will be able to heal 5% of his HP whenever he uses Aqua-element Battle Chips.
• Pokémon:
  • The move Aqua Ring is a Water-type move that surrounds the user with a veil of water that slowly restores health.
  • The Life Dew move spreads water to heal the user and any allies on the field for twenty-five percent of their maximum HP.
  • A few abilities are based on this concept. Rain Dish causes a Pokemon to regain some HP when it's raining, Water Absorb and Dry Skin will both heal Pokemon hit with Water-type attacks instead of damaging them, and Hydration will cure status effects (eg. burn, freeze, poison) in rain.
• In the Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy, fountains, pools and any other source of water will heal the Prince to full health (handy if you take a nasty fall in the waterworks). Taken to its greatest extent in The Two Thrones, where touching water will revert him back from the Dark Prince form.
• Secret of Mana: The water spirit Undine grants support mage Primm a "Healing Water" spell when the party go to her to learn magic. Candy, the healing item, gives out a water drop animation when used.
• The Crystal Key 2 involves a Healing Spring that can revive dead plants in seconds, and make trees grow to enormous sizes. It turns out later that it can also remove the Belial trance, and the endgame involves drenching the entirety of Planet Evany in the stuff to break the planet's curse.
• Healing magic in Suikoden games tends to be the province of Water Runes.
• In Super Mario 64, Mario's health meter is also his Oxygen Meter. If Mario is low on health, he can jump into a body of water and rise to the surface to refill his health meter to its full extent.
• Super Mario RPG: Mallow is a Squishy Wizard who's special abilities often have a weather theme. The animation for his healing spell HP Rain has a smiling rain cloud appear above the target's head and rain on them.
• Tales Series
  • In multiple games in the series, the Water Elemental Undine both heals the party and attacks the enemy when summoned.
  • In Tales of Destiny, Atwight was a powerful healer in life and also a master of water magic. As a Swordian, she shares this power with her wielder, Rutee.
  • In Tales of Eternia, all healing spells are derived from Undine.
  • The Healing Stream spell in Tales of Symphonia is a bit of an odd case. Its animation shows a wave of water and bubbles healing allies in the area, but its prerequisite spell is earth-elemental. Its users' offensive water spells were Dummied Out.
  • In Tales of Rebirth, Annie's ability to heal is an affect of having the Force of Rain.
  • Tales of the Abyss
    • Tear can use Water Fonons to change her First Aid spell into the stronger Meditation, which also heals status effects. She can do the same with her Resurrection spell to change it into the stronger Regenerate, which can heal multiple allies at once.
    • Each of the Fonic Hymns combine the seventh fonon with one of the six standard elements. The ultimate healing spell, Revitalize, combines it with water.
  • Tales of Innocence features Illia Animi, who uses Water-elemental magic, and is one of two healers in the party (with the other being Light-elemental White Magician Girl Ange).
  • In Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, all of the standard single-target healing spells influence the battlefield towards water.
  • In Tales of Vesperia
    • The water elemental Great Deluge and Dispersion passive skill are frequently the key to unlocking stronger healing spells, such as Estelle turning Resurrection into Regenerate and Flynn turning First Aid into Cure.
    • One of the random results of Patty's Gamble Cast spell is the unique Marvelous Fountain, which deals water damage to all enemies in the area before healing the entire party.
  • In Tales of Xillia, Rowen's Diffusional Drive spell simultaneously causes water damage in the target area and heals the entire party for a small amount.
  • In Tales of Xillia 2, Milla can summon Undine to heal allies in the area around her. Diffusional Drive also returns as a spell for Rowan and Muzet.
  • In Tales of Zestiria, the Water Seraph Mikleo is the party's strongest healer, and when Armitized provides the ultimate healing spell, Elixir Vitae.
  • In Tales of Berseria, Magilou's Fairy Circle spell heals all party members in its AOE while simultaneously causing water-elemental damage to enemies in the same AOE.
• In Temtem, Sanative Rain is a Water technique that heals all Temtem on the battlefield.
• Trails Series: In the first two story arcs (Liberl and Crossbell) installing blue quartz into battle orbments provides the character with both Water/Ice combat spells, and healing "Tear", "Thelas" and "Curia" arts series. In later games each spell needs to be installed separately, but blue quartz still includes both single-target healing and Water-based attack spells.
• In Unleash the Light, Lapis's Tidal Wave can be upgraded twice so that it can heal any ally it hits and also cure their negative Status Effects.
• A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: In the first dungeon, the party heals by drinking water.
• Wanderers.io: Rain not only restores a meadow's groundwater and thus regenerates trees, mushrooms and grass, but it also causes rocks (which can be mined to get coins) to form again. In Castle Mode, groundwater can be accessed with wells, and water can be transferred to other wells to restore the water of its adjacent meadow (which aids in growing plants, only rain causes nature to regenerate instantly).
• Wild ARMs 2: It has no bearing on gameplay, but Lilka's healing and reviving spells are both shown to be a combination of Water and Earth elements, as can be seen in Magic Guilds.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Shamans use water to restore their mana and help them heal. As of Legion most of their healing spells have water effects.
  • Monks use healing mist for most of their healing spells, which is a kind of water.
• Xenoblade Chronicles series:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Melia Antiqua's Summon Aqua has healing-over-time properties in battle. In one cutscene the dedicated Combat Medic Sharla asks for water-type Ether Crystals so she can heal Melia.
  • In the sequel Xenoblade Chronicles 2, while Blades of any element can be healers, Dromarch (the first-obtained healer Blade) and Nia (the most powerful healer Blade, both gameplay- and story-wise) are notably both water element.

Webcomics

• Unsounded: Waterwomen can heal from any injury if they're submerged in water so long as their small core isn't destroyed.

Web Original

• The Healing Spring in Neopets is run by a water faerie named Marina. Water faeries in general have tears that can heal.

Web Videos

• The water elementalists of Noob are healing-oriented, but also have token offensive spells.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Of the four classical elements, Waterbenders have the unique power of Healing Hands. It is the only form of water bending that women in the Northern Water Tribe are allowed to learn. Katara spontaneously manifests the ability when she dips her burned hands in a stream and later trains up to become such a Combat Medic that she can use water from a sacred spring to basically bring someone Back from the Dead. She later teaches her daughter, Kya, and Aang's successor, Korra, how to heal others, and is even outright stated to be he greatest Waterbender healer in the world.
• In Captain Planet and the Planeteers, clean water is one of the things which can revive Cap if he's had his powers drained by pollution.
• In Steven Universe, Rose Quartz possessed the ability to heal the gems of the soldiers in her rebel army with Swiss-Army Tears. This power is passed along to her son, Steven, although this is done through his spit rather than his tears.

Real Life

• A number of patent medicine and New-Age "cures" rely on this trope, being essentially water with a few properties that are claimed to have healing power. Examples include Radithor (radioactive water) or the more recent trend of alkaline water, both of which have been claimed to have miraculous health benefits.
• Flushing with large amounts of water is a common first response to chemical burns, and drinking lots of water may be recommended to treat certain types of internal poisoning (Do Not Try This at Home without consulting a doctor first).
• Cold water and ice are common treatments for fresh burns.

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