Follow TV Tropes

Following

Light 'em Up

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_50d7ab8b_9caf_422b_b3c2_3b15fd805f03.png

"If thou wouldst pierce the shadows... make thee a blade of Light."
Hydaelyn, the Mothercrystal, Final Fantasy XIV

Want to show how good and just your hero is? Want to show the elemental forces of evil exactly why they need to Beware the Nice Ones? Then just use this counterpart to Casting a Shadow: Light! This frequently involves healing and divine powers, although this can mean literal light as well. This may overlap with Holy Hand Grenade if the powers in question are used to attack (and are explicitly divine rather than merely being light). Like most other types of elemental manipulation, the laws of physics give way to Rule of Cool. Users of light powers may be able to project Hard Light or fire Frickin' Laser Beams, or use a more subtle approach such as using Holograms to become a Master of Illusion.

Light has many similarities to fire, producing both illumination and heat. Thematically, however, fire is often presented as a primal or destructive force, whereas light is a protective force that literally illuminates the darkness. In some cases, light and fire overlap and sometimes intersects with electricity as well. All three of these powers may also possess qualities of purification or total destruction, depending on the work in question. See also The Power of the Sun, as, in fiction, a solar power is occasionally a mixture of the powers of fire and light.

The Hero is likely to use this, and if so, is likely to be a saint. The hero is likely to learn this from the Big Good or the The Mentor, who will be the master of this. Alternately, a work may instead use Light Is Not Good, in which case, this may be used by the villain. In that case, similar to how The Sacred Darkness illustrates a way to portray Casting a Shadow in a pure and holy fashion, a villanous or "corrupt" form of light may involve such lovely things as light so bright that it burns out the victim's eyes, causes his flesh to be brutally melted off, or making his light come with other harmful radiations etc.

A Sub-Trope of Elemental Powers. Usually trumps darkness, though the reverse is also possible. Or both, even. For double the fun, see Yin-Yang Bomb.

This trope is Light purely acting as its own element.

A Sister Trope to Holy Hand Grenade and Holy Is Not Safe (also overlaps with Light attacks when fueled by good).

Contrast with Power of the Void, Casting a Shadow. Has nothing to do with Fall Out Boy.


Example Subpages:

Other Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Licht from Black Clover uses Light Magic. He can use it for many uses, such as shooting Hard Light projectiles, creating a whip that can destroy a cave, and healing himself if he needs to. It was also the magic of the First Wizard King, Lumiere Silvamillion Clover.
  • The Light Card in Cardcaptor Sakura. She is a counter to her Half Identical Twin, the Dark Card, and must be sealed along with her Foil.
  • D.N.Angel features Dark's opposite who, in his very first appearance, uses what looks to be light-based magic. While having white wings. And glowing blond hair. Yet he is, by no definition of the word, good.
  • Angemon and Angewomon of Digimon Adventure. Angemon's "Hand of Fate" is his hand glowing with divine light which he proceeds to punch at the enemy. Angewomon has "Heaven's Charm" which works the same way.
  • Don't Meddle with My Daughter!: Being the Virgin Goddess gives Artemis the power to wield sacred arms made of light energy; including her bow and lance. But it's implied that she lost her powers after repeatedly being gang raped by Zenovia's minions, as she doesn't summon them for the remainder of the series.
  • Fairy Tail:
  • The closest to genuine light powers exhibited in Fullmetal Alchemist (not counting Father's acquired solar powers when he ate God) are the ones shown by Solf J. Kimblee, the psychopathic, Ax-Crazy Red Lotus Alchemist. His powers are explosions of intense, white light generated by the energy of combining the symbols he has tattooed on his hands, one standing for the Sun, fire, and gold and another standing for the Moon, water, and silver. In practice, it's more like throwing around magnesium on fire than firing lasers, but works just as lethally.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Hohenheim was able to transmute light, creating Hard Light things.
  • The Ripple from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure works like this. It's an ancient form of martial arts in which a person uses breathing techniques to envelop their bodies in sunlight energy, allowing them to manipulate it in a number of ways. It's also very useful against vampires.
  • In the My-HiME manga, Haruka is given control over light with her Element and CHILD, Koumokuten.
  • My Hero Academia
    • Throughout much of of the series, Toru Hagakure's Quirk seemed to simply be her body being invisible. The Provisional Hero Licensing Exam confirms that her invisibility also enables her to refract the light within her body, creating light bright enough to blind opponents. Given that Hagakure's invisibility does ''not'' extend to her clothes, this means that her power involves flashing people both literally and figuratively.
    • According to the narration, the first person born with a Quirk was a baby with the ability to emanate light.
  • Admiral Kizaru from One Piece is a light Logia, which means he can turn into light to avoid damage, travel at the speed of light, as well as using it offensively in the form of giant ass building destroying lasers.
  • Kei in Prétear is the knight of light. Also, Himeno, when she Prets with him, becomes Light Pretear. Her weapon is called Light Chackram.
  • Pretty Cure:
  • The Morph Weapon of Rave Master's hero Haru Glory has a light-aligned form called Million Suns.
  • In Sailor Moon, Minako Aino/Sailor Venus primarily uses light-based attacks. Her first attack that she uses is Crescent Beam, which is a beam of light.
  • Sunny Milk, from the Touhou Project official manga Eastern and Little Nature Deity, has the ability to control the refraction of light. Being a fairy, this is used mostly as a cloaking device in her trio's pranks.
  • Words Worth: Maria is the adopted princess of the Tribe of Light and an extremely powerful, high level Paladin. Meaning, this trope is her specialty. Her most powerful spell, by far, is her signature "Mystral Window", which is the light magic equivalent of a wave motion cannon!
  • YuYu Hakusho also has Divine Energy, whose primary signature is the golden glow that surrounds a user while channeling it. According to the manga, those humans who first wielded it were the inspiration for the stories of angels.

    Comic Books 
  • The Flash of Tangent Comics (no not that one) had the superpower of projecting light.
  • The Rays from The DCU can absorb, store, and process light, and use the energy to fly and create bursts of light. They're also capable of manipulating external light, allowing them to create illusions and solid light constructs, and to render themselves invisible.
  • Dr. Light from Justice League of America can manipulate light, originally thanks to a suit he stole, but afterwards, said ability became natural to his body. While there is a good Dr. Light (a Japanese female scientist) in the comics, the original one is the ultimate form of Light Is Not Good, afterwards turning into a rapist.
  • Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics):
    • Monica Rambeau can generate and turns into any form of electromagnetic energy, including light.
    • Although Carol Danvers was not able to do it at first, after she was experimented on by the Brood, she became capable of absorbing energy and projecting it, as well. Nowadays, being able to use photon blasts is one of Carol's signature powers. Her Spear Counterpart, the original Captain Marvel, gained the ability in a similar fashion although he had volunteered for experiments from a helpful human scientist rather than being an unwilling test subject.
    • Moonstone, a.k.a. Lloyd Bloch and Karla Sofen, have photon manipulation as one of the abilites granted to them by their Kree gravity stones. They can light up dark rooms, blind people by shining really brightly and push around concentrated photons using their fists, with enough density and force to rend iron. The original Captain Marvel and his son and daughter were all Kree by birth and thus could shut off the gravity stones of their human opponents at will. Later Captain Marvel's of human origin like Monica Rambeau and Carol Danvers have considerably more trouble dealing with them.
  • Radiance from The Invaders (Marvel Comics) can manipulate the light spectrum to create offensive blasts, as well as holograms and hard light constructs.
  • The twins Northstar and Aurora from Alpha Flight are capable of flight and superspeed, and originally, if they came into contact with each other, they could generate bursts of light. Since then, their powers have been revamped so that the two are capable of doing so individually.
  • Also, Dazzler of the X-Men is able to convert sound into light for various purposes, including Frickin' Laser Beams, holographic images, and blinding flashes of light.
  • Cloak and Dagger (Marvel Comics): Tandy Bowen a.k.a. Dagger is capable of creating daggers made of light for offensive purposes and can even purge addictions from people. Dagger also uses these light daggers to satiate her partner Cloak's hunger for light when he uses his Teleport Cloak.
  • Runaways gives us the light-powered Majesdanians, who look exactly like humans when powered-down (or when they're wearing a certain type of metal), but look like rainbows in their natural state.
  • The whole Green Lantern franchise is more or less based on this, with various factions being able to manipulate light of different colours of the emotional spectrum.
  • Big Bang Comics features the Beacons, Captain Ersatz versions of the Green Lanterns whose powers are even more directly light-based — different colored beams of light from their prisms have different effects. The Golden Age Beacon had his prism in a mining cap, even.
  • Starlight from The Boys, usually manifested as blinding flashes.
  • Snowflame from The New Guardians, who can generate light and white flames... from cocaine overdose.
  • Wonder Woman and the Star Riders: Solara generates light, and uses concentrated extremely bright beams of it for attacks.
  • Shard from X-Factor can absorb ambient light particles from her environment to create a variety of effects like concussive force, laser beams and illumination.

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): During the battle at Berezniki, the benevolent Queen of the Monsters Mothra uses her blinding god rays to burn through Ghidorah's flesh.
  • Anything for Family: Since the Big Bad, the Masked Shadow, fights using darkness, the first Cures to properly throw him off are the light-based Shiny Luminous and Cure Etoile, using bright beams of light. The Masked Shadow's ensuing confusion allows the other Cures to beat him senseless.
  • In Child of the Storm, there's the typical Patronus Charm example. Separately, Harry and Magneto are notably capable of this, the former via magic, the latter via manipulating electromagnetic energy (meaning he can manipulate light, and teaches Harry how to do so rather than just generating it). This culminates in a spectacular moment in chapter 58 when, with Magneto's help, Harry manages to channel a vast amount of reflected sunlight into a beam of energy that flows into him, and then, modulated by him to manageable levels, into Clark to give him a super-charge, saving his life.
  • The character Helen Bennett has the power of light in the Rise of the Guardians fic Guardian of Light. Her name also means 'light'.
  • Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality takes the patronus example from the original and exaggerates it in the form of True Patronus Charm. Unlike the regular version, this spell draws from the user's determination to defeat death and its light is blindingly bright, even when not used at its full power.
  • Sailor Moon: Legends of Lightstorm: Sailor Mercury suspects that Lightstorm was like this before he lost his powers. Assuming his name is more literal than metaphorical, this would seemingly indicate a light-based powerset. Lightstorm himself refuses to confirm or deny this speculation.
  • The Magic Knight, dwarven, noble protagonist in Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns. While he is a Guile Hero, he fulfills the necessary good/heroic requisites. The fact that he can cast a white battle aura which can get bright enough to illuminate corridors perfectly is just a side effect of the fact that he can never really control the tear in the Veil he has anchored in his body, with said light being just extra magical power that automatically takes the shape of the Spirit of Honor, the DN's not-spirit-advisor, when he uses magic to perform extra-badass feats.
  • In the Turning Red/Futari wa Pretty Cure crossover fic Maple Sugar Pretty Cure, Cure Panda's proper powers are revealed to be light powers.
  • Thanks to a light spell he learned early on, Paul in With Strings Attached and The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World can make part or all of his body glow via his hair, teeth, and nails. This proves to be extremely useful and is the power he uses the most after his invulnerability. Once, in a rage, he generated some kind of laser blast from his fingernails. When at high strength, he can pump extra power into the light, to the point where he explodes. (In Keys he discovered that he could also do this at "low" strength and generate a lot of heat, though he didn't explode.)
  • The party's resident priest in Warriors of the World: Soldiers of Fortune proceeds to do this with a powerful healing spell that simultaneously hurts anything demonic during the Geffen Ten Guilds Raid. He repeats this with an exorcism spell, though it also has the unfortunate side effect of destroying anything desecrated - including unholy ground beneath their feet.

    Film 
  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): Mothra, who is the most benevolent of all the monsters, can emit brilliant rays of beta-wave bioluminescence through the multicolored patterns on her wings. She can also weaponize this bioluminescence to produce blinding god rays which are powerful enough to blast King Ghidorah's storm clouds out of the sky.
  • In Hellraiser: Bloodline, a Magic Versus Science version of this is employed. The iconic Pinhead is destroyed by a brilliant 22nd Century scientist, who summons him to a space station that is designed to harness the Power of the Sun to create an intricate pattern of light that consumes even the ruler of Hell.
  • In The Last Witch Hunter, light seems to be general anathema to Dark Magic, as the Witch Queen dwells in darkness and is physically repulsed by light, while Belial's teleporters work only in shadows. Kaulder exploits this in his final fight against the Queen.
  • The Lord of the Rings: This seems to be Gandalf's main attributenote . He can conjure a shield of light, enhance the sunrise to disrupt the Uruk-hai, and use white light to drive away the Nazgûl. It's shown in The Hobbit trilogy, particularly in his battle with Sauron, where he conjures protective light fields.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): Groot is capable of releasing spores and flowers glowing in a bright golden light, which he uses to illuminate the darkness.
    • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Ego has more obvious light-based powers, a blue energy he describes as "light" when talking to Peter. However, unlike Groot he is evil.
    • Captain Marvel (2019): Carol Danvers' powers are centered on photon manipulation, usually into her iconic photon blasts. In her binary mode she is completely enveloped in golden light, and is a Physical God.
  • Stardust's anthropomorphic star can shine. Quite useful when lit up to full power in the witch's abode.

    Literature 
  • Clockpunk and the Vitalizer has Purple Quetzal, whose main power is light control/manipulation. It ends up not being displayed, however.
  • Everyone who lives in The Divine Comedy's Paradise can generate light relative to their proximity to God. It doesn't take long before the saints are so bright they resemble dancing fires and wheeling flames.
  • Kendra, from Fablehaven, glows — blindingly — to most mythical creatures, after becoming Fairykind in the third book. She also takes possession of a talisman of light, which casts a large umbrella of light around her and her friends as they go to do what they do best — fight evil.
  • Sam from the Gone series seems to have the power of light. When not using it offensively, he can use it to provide light. Bette was also able to make her hands glow, until Orc killed her.
  • Alina Starkov from The Grisha Trilogy is the Sun Summoner, allowing her to create light and use it as a weapon. These powers also lead to her being worshipped as a saint.
  • Harry Potter:
    • The Lumos charm and subsequent derivations, which cause a person's wand tip to light up.
    • The Patronus Charm — a powerful spell which uses a person's happiest memories to summon an animal guardian made of light, used to great effect in the movies.
    • The film version of the first book has Hermione casting a spell to replicate sunlight to drive off the Devil's Snare.
  • Stephen King's universe has a spell called Dead Lights, which is summoning intense orange light from the macroverse. This light is an evil spell, capable of causing insanity and death in the victim if it stares at it. They are used by the Crimson King in The Dark Tower and are the true form of Pennywise.
  • Light And Dark The Awakening Of The Mageknight: This is Syndil's awakening. Ironic in that he betrays the Order of the Light.
  • Alice in The Magicians specializes in phosphoromancy, a magical discipline focused around the manipulation of light. You know how kids will burn ants with a magnifying glass? She creates a magical "lens" a mile wide to focus sunlight into Frickin' Laser Beams.
  • In Teresa Frohock's Miserere: An Autumn Tale, only good guys can cast the light spell. It is not very powerful, but very useful for establishing yourself.
  • RWBY: Fairy Tales of Remnant: In The Warrior in the Woods, when the hero encounters the owl Grimm, he's grown into a young man. While he has a crudely made blade, he's not skilled with it and only manages to kill two of the three birds. Just before the bird can kill him, the clearing lights up with a brilliant white light that destroys the third owl. The light heralds the appearance of the Warrior, who is noted to possess silver eyes. Although the hero asks her what the light was, she refuses to answer him. The reader recognises that the Warrior is a Silver-Eyed Warrior, a concept introduced in the main show when the main character learns that possessing silver eyes gives her the power to weaponise the power of Light against the Creatures of Grimm.
  • In the second arc of The Saga of the Noble Dead, the sage Wynn wields a magical staff that generates sunlight, which is capable of destroying the undead.
  • In Smoke and Shadows, the heroes call upon "The Light of Yeramathia" to destroy the Shadowlord.
  • In A Song of Ice and Fire has the priestess of the Fire God, though Light Is Not Good is in effect. Interestingly, this is also the source of her ability to birth shadow monsters, since shadows can't exist without light to cast them.
  • In The Stormlight Archive, while only two of the ten Orders of Knights Radiant had power over literal light, all use the titular Stormlight as the fuel for their powers. The aforementioned two orders, Lightweavers and Truthwatchers, can use the Surge of Illumination to bend light, as well as a few other wavelengths such as sound, to create illusions.
  • Vienna Ritz-Carlton's main power in Suburban Senshi Rise Of The Magical Girl is the ability to transform herself into a being of living light, allowing her to move across a room like a laser beam, fire blasts of light, among other things.
  • Zeddicus from The Sword of Truth makes light "webs" (spells) these are epically destructive often manifesting in the form of large explosions.
  • Tolkien's Legendarium:
    • The Lord of the Rings: Gandalf claims at the bridge in Moria to be "servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor." Anyone who's read The Silmarillion knows he's essentially saying, "I'm an Angel of God. Mess with me, and I'll drop sunfire on you."
    • In The Silmarillion, it seemed to have been the main power of the Vala Varda, and to a lesser extent shown by Morgoth (in his earlier days, his eyes emitted a light that drove Maiar insane). The two trees of Valinor emitted a strong light, and afterwards the Sun and Moon were made from what was left of them, which became property of Ariën and Tilion, respectively. Part of their light was also encased in the titular Silmarils, giving them Holy Burns Evil properties but also making them Artifacts of Attraction.
  • In The Traitor Son Cycle, the Fiat Lux spell is a weaponized light burst, and is an almost Signature Move of the main character.
  • In The Zombie Knight, Harper has the power of light alteration.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The 4400: In "The New World", Philippa Bynes, who disappeared in 1994, has the ability to create light from her hands.
  • As a Light Fairy like her mother, Stella from Fate: The Winx Saga has the ability to control light, with which she can create and multiply spheres of pure light, create rainbows or northern lights in her hands, or emit rays of light that can blind permanently. Later, she becomes able to use light to make herself invisible.
  • The Gifted (2017): Marcos Diaz, aka Eclipse, has light powers that he uses to fire laser beams, emit lights so bright they can permanently blind people, and make very small rooms darker. He treads the line with Light Is Not Good, as for much of his life he worked as an enforcer for drug cartels before reforming.
  • Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Saber has Yuri, who is not only the Swordsman of Light, but is also the Sword of Light, Kougouken Saikou, which also doubles as his go-to Rider form.
  • Lexa Pierce of Mutant X manipulates light to blind her foes, generate lasers, and become invisible.
  • Powers: Zora has the ability to shape light, mainly by creating a number of purple-ish cubes. This also allows her to fly somehow.
  • Red Dwarf: Rimmer, while a Hologram, only gets true light powers in "Red Dwarf: The Promised Land", thanks to upgrading to his ridiculously awesome Diamond Light form, AKA "Mighty Light". In this state, Rimmer can use both soft and Hard Light in "quantic harmony", carry solid objects through walls, travel at incredible speeds as a ball of light, and shoot lasers from his fingers, although unfortunately, like every good thing that happens to Rimmer, it doesn't last long due to draining his light bee. Mighty Light, however, does return in the climax thanks to the power of the Anbus Stone and gloriously saves the day.
  • Shadow and Bone has Alina Starkov, the legendary Sun Summoner, who can summon and manipulate light, a rare ability. She is destined to destroy the Shadow Fold which splits Ravka in two. She can manage quite a bit with it once she has a bit of training under her belt, including using it to blind (temporarily or perhaps permanently, in the case of the guard) opponents and create shields against General Kirigan's shadows.
  • Castiel, an angel from Supernatural, generates white holy light to burn out his enemy's eyes (and brains).

    Music 
  • DJ the S' "Disciple of the Light" is a compilation remix of Light-based themes from video games.
  • The Rammstein song "Sonne" is supposedly about a boxer friend of the band's nicknamed "Der Sonne" (The Sun). Some lines in the song roughly translate to light shining from Der Sonne's hands that can burn and blind you, and when the light breaks out of his fists, it hits you hotly in the face, hard in the chest, causes a loss of balance, knocks you to the ground, and that the world will then loudly count to ten, implying Der Sonne had KO'ed his opponent. It's a more neutral take on this trope.

    Religion 
  • Most solar deities, but several mythologies have deities specifically associated with light:
  • Everyone according to Gnosticism; humans are shards of light trapped in human flesh that can reach their powers via enlightment, the Aeons live in greater realms of light, and the Yaldabaoth and his servants, in spite of traditional metaphors as "darkness", appearently are still capable of light powers, with the Archons Iao and Adonaios being associated with the Sun and Jupiter and the archon Horaios having a name that means "light".

    Podcasts 
  • Dice Funk: Anne is a cleric, so most of her abilities utilize radiant light, including Sacred Flame, Warding Flare, and Radiance Of The Dawn.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • White spells often involve the manipulation of light. The trope picture is the artwork of Wrath of God, which depicts a ball of light obliterating an area of land.
    • Red also has a few spells that involve using light beams, such as the iconic Cleansing Beam. Like most Red spells, they are extremely aggressive in nature, their purpose being to burn the enemies. White, still has similar spells, but they usually erase the victim completely instead of simply burning it alive. Puncture Blast in particular is interesting because flavorwise it seems to illustrate the "corrupted light" concept mentioned previously (the mechanic "wither" is flavored as, well, withering).
    • Dromoka and her draconic brood from Dragons of Tarkir have a ray of searing light for their Breath Weapon.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Light is one Attribute monsters can have, and most monsters of the Attribute seem benign (most Fairy-Type Monsters are Light, for example)... But not all of them. Light Is Not Good occasionally applies with a few archetypes of monsters, such as the Fiend-Type Fableds and the Lovecraftian-looking Arcana Force monsters.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Most good clerics and paladins live and breathe this trope, and the game also has spells such as searing light, sunbeam, and sunburst, as well as the various prismatic spells.
    • 4th Edition introduces the radiant damage type, which is used interchangeably for holy divine powers, for Eldritch Abominations from beyond the stars, and for illusory arcane magic. It is the common weakness of undead (which makes no sense for the abomination and illusion powers, but hey). The most common user is called the "laser cleric"; 5th Edition later gave laser clerics a fully focused option in the Light domain, which grants them both extra spells for fiery and luminous retribution and lets them Channel Divinity with a flash of searing light.
    • Crystal dragons' breath weapon is a flash of brilliant light that can leave other beings blinded. In 5th Edition this is updated to deal radiant damage, and they can also direct concentrated beams of searing starlight against foes.
    • The magic of mercury dragons mostly revolves around manipulating light. Besides having a laser beam for a breath weapon, they can cast color spray and prismatic spray — spells that create sprays of colored light, each hue inflicting a separate type of damage — as innate powers, and cannot be blinded or dazzled by intense light.
    • One of a moonstone dragon's two breath weapons is a beam of moonlight that causes radiant damage to those it hits.
    • Sunwyrms constantly radiate golden light, and can transform their claws and fangs into structures of searing radiance, breathe out laser-like light beams, and emit bursts of blinding light.
  • In Nomine: The Songs of Light allow their users to directly control light, with different uses at different levels. The Corporeal Song of Light simply creates a glowing light around the singer. The Ethereal Song of Light allows its user to shape and control photons in order to craft near-perfect illusions. The Celestial Song of Light allows its singer to strike anything in their visual range with a tightly-focused beam of burning light.
  • Mutants & Masterminds, being comic books incarnate, has Light Control as a power, and it has plenty of sub-powers available.
  • Pathfinder:
    • Shizuru, the Tian goddess of the sun, is strongly associated with light, and grants her worshippers the ability to magically manipulate light through spells like color spray, scorching ray, unbearable brightness and prismatic spray.
    • The grogrisant is a legendary lion whose mane blazes with blinding light, and it can cast sunbeam at will.
  • Warhammer: Hysh, the Wind of Light, focuses on the manipulation of radiance. Light-related magic generally focuses on Daemon fighting, healing of the soul and body, and illumination of the mind and darkness.
  • Exalted: The titular Exalted, in particular those of the Celestial variety, all begin to glow when they start throwing their powers around. While they do have plenty of benign powers, they were created to fight the creators of the universe...
    • The Solar Exalted, unsurprisingly, have a fair bit of light imagery - they glow like the sun when they exert themselves and have plenty of other light-based tricks. Their Hellish mirrors, the Green Sun Princes, have access to a few effects based on the Green Sun of Hell.
    • There are two Adamant Circle spells; Cleansing Solar Flames, which burns every "creature of darkness" within several miles, and Light of Solar Cleansing, which restores Shadowlands to normality by severing their connection to the Underworld.
  • Sentinels of the Multiverse: Dawn Cohen has the power to manipulate existing light sources, allowing such feats as mergig with the sun to give herself a Cast from Hit Points power boost, and, through Fridge Brilliance, pulling a Do Not Adjust Your Set. After all, both visible light and radio waves are more or less the same thing.
  • Haos-attribute Bakugan are the series' light elementals.

    Toys 
  • The Light element in BIONICLE, including Takanuva, Toa Of Light.

    Web Animation 
  • DSBT InsaniT: Bill has powers over light, namely his Light Beam attack.
    • Koden's Power Flash move, which involves him turning into a ball of light.
  • Dreamscape: Vladmare has a rather slow move where he connects an orange, blue, and green rope of light from his sword to his target, destroying their spirit in an instant.
  • RWBY: On Remnant, there's a legend about silver-eyed warriors that's so ancient, almost no-one has heard it and fewer believe it. It is said that these warriors were the best of the best, born to fight and capable of defeating the Creatures of Grimm with merely a glance. Legend states their eyes shone like mirrors, reflecting the light of the world onto darkness. Ruby first learns the significance of having silver eyes after light bursts from her eyes at the end of Volume 3 and freezes a Wyvern to stone. She inherited this power from her mother, who died in mysterious circumstances. She learns nothing more until she meets Maria in Volume 6, an elderly woman who was also born with silver eyes but was blinded when hunted down by a mysterious enemy that wanted the power of her eyes destroyed. Maria teaches Ruby that their Light is triggered by the need to protect life from the Grimm and that it appears to have come from the God of Light, something they learn when shown a vision of the secret history of Remnant's ancient past.

    Webcomics 
  • Despite its name, the Light Aspect in Homestuck is primarily associated with fortune and information, rather than actual light. Instead, that role goes to Hope, which is also heavily associated with angels. However, Rose, the Seer of Light, does as a god tier make use of occasional light spells.
  • Mr Spender from Paranatural uses this as his main power, not only in battle but also to turn off lights or illustrate a point.
  • Anpu of Godslave can summon giant bursts of light to use as flashbangs to cover his and Edith's escape.
  • Champions of Far'aus: Hyperion, a God of Light, and one of the main characters, can use light magic, although due to magical restrictions of some kind, he is usually stuck as a sort of magical Mission Control to the others, unable to help them with his light magic directly.
  • unOrdinary: Evie's power "Illumination" allows her to emit a bright light from her hands, which she can use to disorient bullies by activating it right over their eyes.

    Web Original 
  • Neopets' elemental system includes light — light-based weapons, Light faeries, etc.
  • New Life SMP: The Lightmancer origin, held by Scott in his fourth life, is said to harness light to exist and has the powers to go with them — they can fly for short periods of time by turning into a spark of light (with a short cooldown), shoot a deadly beam of light as a mode of attacking, create a different kind of light beam (an in-game lightning bolt) that can trap anyone in a five-block radius for five seconds; however, they also have Weakness and Slowness I when in environments under light level 1 (out of 15).
  • Whateley Universe:
    • Beacon can blast sunlight from his hands. He's on a team that hunt creatures of the night.
    • Also, Prism, who may be known more for his healing powers, but who can also fire energy blasts and is definitely solar-powered. Well, he is the avatar of Apollo...
  • Worm has a few characters who use weaponized light.
    • Most of the members of New Wave have some form of light based abilities, as does Purity, a neo-nazi supervillain.
    • There's the very creative use of short-distance time portals the indian villain Phir SÄ“ does: two linked portals, one slightly further in the past than the other. Then he takes advantage of the paradox-free nature of his power to loop the same photons over and over, until he has what he calls a time bomb with light brightly streaming between the two portals in preparation for Behemoth's attack. Said attack, charged up for a few hours, was said to be able to level the whole indian subcontinent. He had to cancel a previous attempt because he was getting too tired, and such attack he charged up for THREE DAYS.

    Western Animation 
  • Variation in Super Drags: gay people emanate highlight, a magical rainbow light that gives power to drag queens. Some of the Super Drag's powers are even light based and Donizete has an angel motif.
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, light is more of a concept than an element, largely expressed in the form of energybending. In the latter's Book 2, Raava, the spirit of light, is introduced — though she rarely displays actual photokinesis — and in the finale, Jinora acquires light powers as well. Strangely, the villains, which supposedly stand for darkness, can make use of light powers, Unalaq infusing water with light energy and Vaatu firing violet beams of light.
  • A rather unique take can be found in DOTA: Dragon's Blood. The dragon Orrak and her species are described as luminous and embodying light... except "light" in this context actually is the strong nuclear interaction, with photon manipulation being instead the domain of Indrak and other ion dragons (which embody electromagnetism). Not much of this take on "light" is seen, but in season 3 a Davion empowered by all dragon souls occasionally stops things with a multicoloured radiant effectnote , implying that this "strong force light" works this way.
  • Sunburn from Happily Ever After; as the name implies, she can control sunlight. Interestingly, she fits the fire archetype very closely, being Hot-Blooded, very easy to piss off and having red skin, unlike the usual "pretty and divine" light-themed characters.
  • The Gems in Steven Universe are essentially light elementals, their bodies made of Hard Light (sans Gem Heart). They do frequently use their gems as flashlights and produce blinding flashes, but the most direct example are the Diamonds, which can cause a blinding white light that corrupts other Gems.
  • Teen Titans (2003): Doctor Light. Actually manages to be more powerful than the Teen Titans themselves during his debut episode, except for Raven, who traumatizes him to the point that, by merely showing up, she defeats him instantly.
    • This becomes a Brick Joke later on.
      Raven: Remember me?
      Dr. Light: [weakly] I'd like to go to jail now, please...
    • And it's even worse for the poor sap in his last appearance in the series, when he decides to commit a crime in broad daylight while every Teen Titan in existence is in Jump City, having just defeated the Brotherhood of Evil. It's just too bad we never find out how that turns out.
  • Stella from Winx Club gets her powers from the Sun (mostly) and the Moon, and her attacks consist of casting beams of light. She can also concentrate her energy to make herself glow brightly in dark places. Stella can create streaks of solar energy and is able to create explosions of sunlight that can leave the opponent temporarily blind. She can shape sunlight into barriers and shields, which is extremely useful. She can conjure light in any area, no matter how dark.

    Real Life 
  • Nuclear weapons can be seen like this. Light is just another form of radiation, after all.
  • Bioluminescent organisms produce their own light.
  • Half the effect of a "Flashbang" stun grenade works like this.

Alternative Title(s): Light The Way, Photokinesis

Top

Roxas, "The Key of Destiny"

Each member of Organization XIII wields power over a specific element (be it classical or esoteric). Being a keyblade wielder and the nobody of Sora, Roxas wields the power of light.

How well does it match the trope?

4.54 (13 votes)

Example of:

Main / LightEmUp

Media sources:

Report