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alt title(s): The Magic Was Inside You All Along  
Character A is given a supposed magic MacGuffin that will give them special/exceptional abilities. The character does amazingly well, but then they either lose the item or finish consuming it. They go back to their mentors and it's revealed that it was just a useless placebo, and that "The Magic Was Inside You All Along" and they just needed the confidence.
Mostly a Discredited Trope, as most examples now are parodies.
In comic books, a retooled Super Hero Origin sometimes shifts a character's gimmicky power to being innate, with lampshading that the famous prop or incantation was simply a focus.
A supertrope of Placebotinum Effect. A common subversion of the Amulet Of Concentrated Awesome. May or may not be a character's Charm Point.
Examples
Anime
- In a first-season episode of Ranma 1/2, Nabiki gives aspirin to Ryoga in the middle of his first on-screen challenge fight with Ranma, and tells him that they're basically instant steroids. Ryoga, who is not the sharpest spoon in the drawer, believes her and upon taking them gets a psychosomatic boost to his already-monstrous strength, allowing him to pull telephone poles from the ground simply because he thought he was on steroids (which don't even work that way).
- In a much later episode, Happosai, ticked off at Ranma interfering with his undie raids, takes Kuno and offers him "Speed of Light elixir", which he claims will make him superfast. It turns him into a Lethal Joke Character, even upgrading his Razor Wind attacks, but it's implicitly at least as much due to the Training From Hell Happosai put him through (running into occupied women's bathing areas, locker rooms, and other places where they were nude, while trying to evade their attacks and survive being beaten to a pulp). Said "elixir" is revealed to actually be tap water and the scrapings from under Happosai's fingernails.
- Brutally subverted in the Vampire Princess Miyu episode The Red Shoes. The titular shoes are given to Miyu's classmate Miho (a Shrinking Violet and aspiring Idol Singer) by her manager, and stated to magically make her an unparalleled singer. And they actually do just that. But they do so by sucking her lifeforce, and worse yet, once Miyu has defeated the Shinma who gave them to poor Miho, they can never be removed again. Miyu has to bite her friend and exchange blood with her in order to save her life. In the end, the poor girl is confined in an hospital.
- This episode is in reference to a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, The Red Shoes, which is a semi-common reference in Japanese culture. The titular shoes are cursed and force the wearer to continue dancing forever, and cannot be removed — the dancer only stops dancing once she has a friendly knight chop off her feet — and the shoes, with the rotting feet, go dancing off into the wilderness on their own.
- Digimon. At the end of Adventure 01 when the Crests are destroyed by the final Big Bad, the kids need to figure out that the traits which powered their Digimon were part of them all along and they didn't need the Crests in the first place.
- "AMAZING HEADBAND OF JUSTICE IN PLACE. AMAZING ARMOR OF JUSTICE PROTECT ME." Urahara, you sneaky bastard you. Subverted in that after Ichigo says it to "activate" the protective gear he was wearing, Urahara snickers that "I can't believe he actually said it."
- Pretty much the most awesome example ever : in One Piece, for the Luffy vs. Foxy duel, Usopp hands Luffy a giant afro to give him strength... and then the entire crowd goes wild when he appears sporting it. And when he starts to show his Heroic Resolve, it was apparently because "THE AFRO POWER MADE HIM GO BERSERK!". In short, the Magic Feather that everybody (except Nami) believed. Even more confusing is that he effectively won because of the afro or rather the piece of glass that was hidden in it!
- In GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class, innocent protagonist Kisaragi was conned into buying what she believed was "God's pencil" from an old lady at a stationary store. Using the pencil on her exams did help her get into the school, but she was still conned into buying excess stock.
- The stuffed penguin used by Nodoka in Saki is obviously nothing but a psychological crutch to help her focus on her Mahjong playing.
- It's revealed towards the end of Fruits Basket that the head maid of the Sohma household tried to do this for Akito back when her father died and she was expected to take over leadership of the anti-Ren faction, giving her a box that the maid claimed contained her father's soul. The maid expected that Akito would realize the truth, but the fact that Akito knew so very little about the outside world's common sense helped destroy her self-confidence even further.
Comic Books
- In Asterix in Britain, after losing their supplies of magic potion, Asterix finds some herbs that Getafix had given him earlier, and declares that he can make magic potion from them. He boils them up and gives a cup to each of the British fighters, and of course they defeat the Romans. The chief of the Britons reveals that he had guessed that it wasn't proper magic potion, but declares that he will make it their national drink anyway. It later emerges that the herbs were tea-leaves.
- The Molecule Man in Marvel Comics fits the super-power version; he was originally said to be able to control molecules with a wand, but was later said to have the power innately.
- Which fits his character, as Molecule Man's one weakness is he is a high school drop out with the power to rearrange atoms on the sub-atomic level. He has absolutely no clue as to how his powers work, because he doesn't know any of the science behind it.
- The Marvel UK character Captain Britain used a costume and staff which he believed was the source of his powers, but merely focused his innate powers (his daddy was from Another Dimension, so powers kinda run in the family). Later, he was able to do without.
- The Flash once managed to nick Mr. Element's gun, only to find it useless. The bemused Element explained that the gun only focused his powers — it wasn't the source of them. We've recently learned that the Weather Wizard's powers are also innate, a fact which he himself didn't know (he thought his Weather Wand had the power— and so did
his original the last five decades worth of writers, apparently).
- The first Morlun story in Spider-Man had Ezekiel, another man with spider-based powers, explain to Spidey that he didn't get his powers due to the fact that the spider that bit him was radioactive, but that the spider gave Peter superpowers magically and was nearly killed by the radiation in the process. This retcon has since be re-retconned away again.
- Large swathes of the DC Comics universe were retconned with the metagene. Basically, random chemical spills or a radiation zap or looking into the core of an alien warp engine -doesn't- give you superpowers. The metagene, present in most humans, instead does an Instant Evolution bit to save you from the dangers. In short, most people do get crispyfried when zapped with the experiemental magic ray.
- Minor Marvel Universe villain The Wrecker was given godlike magical powers by a sorceress— but, since he had a crowbar in his hand at the time, now thinks of it as the source of his power and has to focus his power through it.
Film
- The trope name comes from the Disney cartoon movie Dumbo where Dumbo's ability to fly did not actually come from a magic feather.
- The Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan movie Space Jam, where Bugs offers his team-mates a bottle filled with "Michael's Secret Stuff" (really just tap water) to help them win the big game.
- How long before Bugs and Jordan are subpoenaed to testify by Congress...?
- The remake of Angels in the Outfield has this too, with the whole crowd at an Angels baseball game making wing flapping gestures to help their pitcher make a strikeout, without the divine intervention they've been relying on these past few months.
- Spaceballs: "Forget the ring! The ring was bupkis! I found it in a Crackerjack box! The Schwartz is in you, Lone Starr, it's in you!"
- In the over-the-top blaxploitation/Chop Sockey parody film The Last Dragon, the "magic amulet" that Bruce Leroy's Trickster Mentor gave him when he began his "great quest" turns out to be a belt buckle.
- It's more than that, when Leroy discovers that the master Sum Dum Goy doesn't even exist, and that The Master he's been searching for is Leroy himself.
- Slight variation in the film Hitch, where the title character eventually comes to realize that he himself is a Magic Feather- he gave clients advice on how to woo their dream girls, and his success rate is very high, but ultimately his advice didn't matter and the ladies all fell for the guys because of things they did naturally, in some cases completely contrary to Hitch's advice. All Hitch really gave them was the confidence to make the first move by believing that with Hitch's help, they actually had a chance.
- Krull. The hero can't retrieve his magic shuriken when the Big Bad revives himself, and is left weaponless until he and his beloved realize they can use The Power Of Love to destroy him instead. The Power Of Love, apparently, manifests as the ability to throw fireballs. Don't tell Dracula.
- In Kung Fu Panda, the trope is played with the Mirror Of Llunet twist. The heroes discover that the revered Dragon Scroll that is supposed to contain powerful secrets is really only a blank reflective surface. The difference in this story is that Po, possessor of this Magic Feather, is the only one to realize the true wisdom that his reflection in the scroll signifies, that he has had the power all along.
- Said film also has a literal (well, semi-literal) Magic Feather, used by the movie's villain and resident Bad Ass Tai Lung as a lockpick to break out of the super-secure prison in which he's being held. The resulting sequence has to be seen to be believed.
- Another example from the film is the "secret ingredient" used by Po's father, a cook, in his most famous recipes: the ingredient really was... nothing at all.
- Pootie Tang: Pootie's magical belt is eventually revealed to be a completely non-magical item purchased from a Piggly Wiggly for 95 cents.
- In The Spongebob Squarepants movie, Princess Mindy turns Spongebob and Patrick into "men" with seaweed mustaches with her "mermaid magic", which are then ripped off later by the villain. In typical manner, they still manage to make it through.
- Austin had his mojo all along!
- In one Harold Lloyd film, his grandmother gives him an afrtifact of great power (complete with a flashback of his grandfather using it to become a One Man Army during the Civil War). Using the artifact, he singlehandedly captures the big scary guy who had been terrorizing the town. Then his grandmother reveals that it was actually the handle off her umbrella.
Literature
- Played straight in the novel Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, wherein Harry tricks Ron Weasley into thinking that he (Harry) has just pour some "Felix Felicis" luck potion into Ron's drink to improve his Quidditch game (which had been suffering due to an extreme case of nerves). Hermoine saw Harry do it, and warned Ron not to drink it, as it would be cheating to use a potion in a Quiddich game. Ron drinks it anyway, and his game improves hugely. Then, when Hermoine confronts Harry again afterwards (once Griffindor has won with over 200 points), Harry shows both of them that he hadn't poured a drop; he faked it. Ron mocks Hermoine, who tries to compliment Ron/backpedal, but fails. (Harry had not forseen his play backfiring...)
- Unlike most examples of this trope, the real potion actually works, as Harry found out when he used it to convince Slughorn into giving him and Dumbledore a memory that contains information vital to defeating Voldemort.
- This is also seen in The Tales Of Beedle The Bard during the story "The Fountain of Fair Fortune". In the end, it turns out that the fountain is just an ordinary fountain, but the three witches and the Muggle knight who traveled to reach it have all had their lives changed for the better.
- The Talisman, written jointly by Stephen King and Peter Straub, has the novel's resident Magical Negro give the main character a drink that allows him to flip between worlds. After he consumes it all, it turns out that he always had the power; the stuff was just sour wine. It's hard to fault the main character not recognizing it for what it was, seeing as he was just a ten-year-old boy (talk about negligent spiritual guardians...)
- Played straight in Jack Vance's novel Lyonesse - the boy Dhrun is given a talisman to avert fear, which in fact means that whenever he feels afraid, he misinterprets the emotion as anger and is able to be brave. The talisman eventually gets broken and replaced with a regular stone, but it continues to work until he realises the replacement. The fairy-tale setting makes this an acceptable plot device.
- In Sylvia Louise Engdahl's SF novel ''Enchantress from the Stars", Elana gives Georyn a stone that she says will give him magical powers. It's intended to give him enough confidence to use his innate psionic abilities.
- In the short story ''The Fifty-First Dragon'', Gawaine, the nervous dragon slayer, was told he would be invincible to dragons upon the utterance of the word "Rumplesnitz". He was quickly able to shed his fear and became remarkably efficient at slaying dragons, but also cocky. After a night of heavy drinking, he faced his fiftieth dragon, and couldn't remember the word when the time came to use it, but was still able to kill the dragon, much to his confusion. When he was told by his headmaster that the word was just a placebo, he fell back into his old nervous ways, and died trying to kill his fifty-first dragon.
- In the Goosebumps book The Blob That Ate Everything, Zackie thought that his reality altering powers came from a magical typewriter, only to find when he couldn't get the typewriter to work was actually within himself.
- In the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's friends possess the qualities that they seek, but insist on getting a Magic Feather from the Wizard anyway.
- In You can do it Desmond Dragon, an educational children's book about an asthmatic young dragon, Desmond is given a 'magic' satchel to wear during a smoke-blowing contest. Of course, when he opens it after the contest it just holds a note saying he could do it all along if he believed in himself. And used his inhalers...
- The Lenses used by the Lensmen are usually your average Applied Phlebotinum, but for the more advanced characters (Kimball Kinnison and his children, among others) they become little more than a Magic Feather.
- In Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman, even though Captain Underpants' powers came from alien super power juice (It Makes Sense In Context), he's convinced they come from cottony soft underpants. When Captain Underpants is depowered by spray-on starch, the boys have to come up with a magical feather, so they Ret Con a powerful crystal he swallowed as a child on his home planet (even though Captain Underpants is actually the boys' principal).
- A large number of Wild Cards characters require a "psychological focus" to use their powers, most notably The Great And Powerful Turtle's armored Shells, to the point where he eventually becomes so cripplingly dependent on them that he loses his powers entirely when outside them.
- In Eva Ibbotson's book Which Witch, a young boy has a worm that he thinks is magical. By the end of the book, the worm has died, the boy's ability to do magic has not, and the witches have realized that he is a powerful warlock.
- In The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle the white explorers encounter a Native American tribe menaced by ape people. The Native Americans ask the explorers to use their modern weaponry to help fight the ape people. The explorers agree, but when the actual battle comes around they barely get to fire a shot. The extra confidence their presence gave the Native Americans allowed them to defeat the ape people on their own. Since there were only actually three explorers with guns that was probably for the best.
- In 'The Valor of Cappen Varra' by Poul Anderson the eponymous hero is able to face down a troll because he has a charm that negates magic and so renders him immune to her super strength. At the end he is told that trolls are just naturally very strong so the charm was worthless
- Terry Pratchett uses several of these in his Discworld Novels.
- Headology, the main branch of Witch magic relies mostly on the application of common sense with a light sprinkling of Magic Feathers, once handily supplied by the patient himself.
- In Thief of Time, Lobsang is wearing a protable procrastinator to enable him to continue walking around after time has been stopped. He panics after Susan tells him it stopped a while ago. Not a standard magic feather as the device would work as described, it just turns out that Lobsang doesn't need it, as he's the son of (or rather half of the son of) the anthropomorphic personification of Time.
- In Lords And Ladies Magrat finds the ancient armor of Queen Ynci the Short-Tempered, and believes that her spirit is with her and gives her an extra capacity for violence and determination. As it turns out, Ynci was completely made up, and her armor had been made a few decades ago to give the royal house a little more color.
- In On A Pale Horse, while fighting Satan, Death realizes that he doesn't actually need his scythe and cloak to use his powers, reasoning that if that had been true, Satan would have attacked him earlier while he was off duty.
- Brutally subverted in Mistborn, where the Magic Feather given to Yeden's army by Kelsier (a promise that his mistborn abilities could be channeled into others) leads Yeden to send out his still unprepared army prematurely out on a raid because of overconfidence, killing them all. Kelseir gets a serious What The Hell Hero by his entire crew for his efforts.
Live Action TV
- Unsurprisingly for the series, Power Rangers SPD has an example in "Samurai".
- On M*A*S*H, Hawk and B.J. give placebos to a shy, nebbish soldier, telling him they're Confidence Pills. They also give the same pills to Klinger, telling him they're a new drug that will help keep him cool — later, during a boiling hot day, he walks around in a fur coat, warning everyone else that they would freeze to death.
- More seriously, when the camp runs out of morphine, they pass the pills off as painkillers via psychology, telling the current batch of wounded soldiers they can only have one each of these "super-powerful" new wonder drugs. The scene is subverted on a somber note as the doctors discuss the results, noting that it didn't work for everyone.
- Played relatively straight in Heroes, with Hiro, who believes he needs a particular sword to recover his abilities. Of course, it turns out (and the viewing public finds out long before Hiro does) he never lost his abilities in the first place.
- A rather darker example is Isaac, who thinks he can't paint the future without heroin.
- In an episode of Mythbusters where the team is testing cures to seasickness, Grant, one of the guinea pigs, is given a supposed "wonder drug" that helps to combat seasickness greatly. It works outstandingly, and after the experiment the "wonder drug" is revealed to be a vitamin B12 pill.
- The TV show, Smart Guy, had TJ giving his idiot friend, Mo, sugar pills to make him smarter. When he found out that it was a placebo, Mo got his own sugar pills to continue replicating the effect.
- When TJ crossed over to Sister Sister, he enticed a high-strung Tia with his super-secret technique to get a 1600 on her SAT's...if she'd take him to Chuck E. Ch—er, Buck E. Duck. Turns out she just needed to relax.
- Inverted in News Radio, which showed Matthew being given a homemade "Smart Drink" by Joe and becoming super intelligent. Smatthew (for "Smart Matthew") later begins to lose his intelligence, but upon being urged to consume more of Joe's smart drink, concluded the drink was a placebo and only worked because stupid Matthew was so dumb he believed it would. He loses his newfound intelligence permanently.
- Parodied hilariously in the live action version of "The Tick," when the The Tick walks up to a stranger, hands him a hub cap and tells him "Remember, it was not a magic hub cap. The magic was within you all along."
- In one episode of My Wife and Kids, Michael pulls this on his son Junior, using grandson Junior Jr. as the "magic baby" and saying that holding him will make Junior smarter. Eventually, when Junior drifts into annoying territory, Mike lets him in on the truth, saying that his own father pulled the "magic baby" trick on him, using Junior.
- "Flight of the Conchords" did this with hair gel which supposedly made the boys look cool.
- In the episode of the original Star Trek "Mudd's Women", three women are supposedly given a "Venus drug" which made them irresistibly beautiful, but it revealed at the end that they didn't need the drug to make themselves beautiful - it was self-confidence all along.
- In the big crossover between Hannah Montana and The Suite Life On Deck Hannah's anklet acts like this. It's a keepsake of her mothers, and when she loses it everything goes wrong until Robbie Ray tells her that her mother is always with her, regardless of the anklet.
- This was brought up by Ruby in Supernatural when she tells Sam that his powers are not the result of the demon blood he'd been drinking, but they'd just been a tool to addict him and alienate him from the people who told him hanging out with Ruby was a bad idea.
- Wimzie's House has an episode called "The Lucky Pin" in which Rousso gives Jonas a special star pin to celebrate his dedication in practicing basketball. Afterwards, Jonas completes a tricky shot for the first time and is convinced that he's been given a "lucky pin." He then experiences a crisis of self-confidence after losing it, until Wimzie gives him another pin that she made herself, but tells him that it's the one he lost. He makes five basketball shots in a row, but another of the characters tells him it's not the original pin. He loses his self-confidence again until Wimzie points out that he made the shots even without his lucky pin. He realizes that his "luck" is all due to practice and he doesn't need a lucky pin.
Video Games
- The spirit monk amulet in Jade Empire was just a tool to focus the main character's innate powers. This, though, is probably just a Hand Wave as to how you can still use its functions, even though the plot requires it to be stolen.
- Final Fantasy Dissidia features a literal Magic Feather in the form of Bartz's good luck charm from his chocobo companion Boko. He gives it to Squall as part of a promise to meet up again - which the feather helps to facilitate. At the end of Bartz's storyline it turns out that the crystal Bartz had been searching for all along was in fact embodied by his Magical Feather.
- One of the characters from Tears To Tiara seduces The Hero using a magical Red String Of Fate she bought from the far east. While it did in fact have a functional, working Love Potion power, she tied the string to the wrong finger, meaning the two of them actually made out without its spell in effect.
Web Comic
- One strip from Dinosaur Comics has it all go wrong.
- Cheshire Crossing plays this straight with Dorothy's ruby slippers; however, the slippers do possess some intrinsic power, since other characters can use them normally.
- And this intrinsic power is actually the power to mimic the abilities of the last person to wear them.
- Parodied in the Bandwith Theater internet short entitled Kevin Smith and his Magic Feather. When Kevin Smith bemoans losing his magic feather to his friend Helpful Rat, he assures him that the feather wasn't magic at all, it just helped him to believe in himself. When Kevin then goes on to contemplate shaving his magic beard, Helpful Rat quickly assures him that the beard actually is magic: it makes his wife love him, and keeps the moon from falling.
- In PVP, Brent Sienna gives up coffee for health reasons. When the magazine is in crisis and desperately needs help, he insists on going back to coffee to give him his "edge." After his all-nighter, his girlfriend reveals that she has been bringing him decaf.
- In Angel Moxie, when Alex's staff was broken, she seemingly lost her magic. Miya tells that staff is only act like focus to get her started, while saying how cliched it is.
- Parodied in TheNonAdventuresOfWonderella. "See, this is why I don't do pep talks."
- At least for Marten initially, the Worry Hat.
- An interesting variation in Order Of The Stick. As part of his/her Deal With The Devil, Vaarsuvius is told that the three evil souls (s)he is now bound to may influence his/her actions if (s)he's not careful. Then (s)he proceeds to commit an act of genocide. The Fiends then reveal that the souls actually have no impact on Vaarsuvius' actions, and that (s)he did that all on his/her own.
- It's unclear whether the jester outfit that Maytag wears in Flipside actually causes her to become incredibly outgoing and self-confident, but if it doesn't, it's likely to be this trope.
- This◊ Erfworld page heavily implies that Thinkamancy, and to an extent Foolamancy work this way
Western Animation
- Played straight in the most recent Jonny Quest series, where one episode had Hadji's ruby (the one in his turban, which was supposedly a magic charm from his mentor in mysticism) turn out to be red glass.
- Subverted in three different episodes of Futurama:
- "The 30% Iron Chef": After Bender wins a cooking competition using drops from a crystal flask filled with "the essence of pure flavor", Professor Farnsworth runs a chemical analysis and announces the mystery liquid is "Water! Ordinary water!" Immediately after Fry concludes that all Bender needed to cook well was confidence, the professor adds, "Yes, ordinary water, laced with nothing more than a few spoonfuls of LSD."
- "I Second That Emotion", in which Bender is given the emotion chip, so that he feels what Leela feels. At the end of the episode, after Bender saved Nibbler due to his feeling compassion for him, the Professor removes the chip and says "the chip shorted out! That emotion you felt was your own... no, wait, I'm wrong. It was actually running at triple capacity." Bender responds "And I still barely felt anything! So long, meatbags!"
- "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings": Fry loses the robot hands that allowed him to play the holophoner so well. Dr. Zoidberg shouts, "The beauty was in your heart, not your hands!" Fry attempts to continue playing, but does horribly. Dr. Zoidberg shouts, "Your music is bad, and you should feel bad!"
- (And Zoidberg, having little to no social skills even considering his species' culture, is merely saying out loud what the rest of the audience is displaying on their faces.)
- South Park do this in the episode "Bloody Mary." Randy Marsh is diagnosed as an alcoholic, and is convinced it is a disease that only God can cure. He then goes to a bleeding statue of Mary to cure himself, and it works. However, the Pope reveals the miraculous statue to be fake/having its period, and Randy falls back into alcoholism until his son points out that these events show he has what it takes to beat the addiction himself.
- The Simpsons subverts this to the extreme in the episode Last Tap Dance in Springfield. In it, Lisa is part of a Shirley Temple Expy's tapdancing class, but is extremely clumsy. Professor Frink offers to help out by putting the motors from a sound-activated dancing toy in her shoes. At the recital, she does dance well, but the tremendous applause causes her to do things like Wall Run and even outdance her teacher. After the recital:
Frink: [looking at shoes] Jesus, Mary and glavin! These shoes are in the Off position!
Lisa: You mean I danced all by myself?
Marge: See, honey? All you needed was to believe—
Homer: [taking the shoes] What are you talking about, Professor Frink? They're clearly in the On position. [showing them to Lisa] See? "On".
Frink: I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod.
Homer: Oh - OH! Well, now that I look even closer-
- Happens in the second Ice Age movie, to an extent. The sabre-toothed tiger has a fear of water, but he needs to swim to save his friend. Said friend told him earlier that "Most animals can swim as babies," and he uses this to go after him. Once saved, the friend tells him baby tigers can't swim; he left that part out.
- An interesting subversion occurs in an episode of Kim Possible, in which the titular heroine uses an intelligent driving computer to pass a driving test. When something goes wrong, the computer can't control the car anymore, and Kim needs to drive the car she and Ron are in out of the villain's lair, she protests she can't drive, and the computer tells her that it never did anything - it was her all along. Kim, inspired, drives the car out of the collapsing lair, whereupon the computer tells her it lied - the computer had been doing the driving before, but needed to inspire her.
- Done a second time when Kim feels like she's lost her mojo when her signature costume gets shredded and is discontinued. However it was subverted in that it was less those specific clothes as having a distinct set of mission clothes, and with the help of some criminal fashion designers she's soon back to her ass-kicking ways.
- Played straight in the Powerpuff Girls episode "Cover Up" with Buttercup and a security blanket. Buttercup needs to be thoroughly convinced she can fight without the blankie after it's misplaced. Once she is, she gives it up and the girls' father Professor Utonium snatches it up claiming it had recently helped him create his newest invention.
- Used in an episode of Thundercats, when the mind-controlling villain Alluro acquires an amulet in a box that is supposed to ramp up powers. He then proceeds to easily mesmerize all the heroes except for Snarf, who manages to get the box away from him, and then defeat him, even using the powers of the Sword of Omens, which had previously only activated for its proper wielder. At the end, naturally, the box is opened, revealing that the amulet inside has been broken for some time. Probably a good thing nobody told the bad guy.
- Used several times in episodes of the children's animation Dragon Tales.
- Ord believes that he can only do aerial tricks with a lucky stone, but, upon unknowingly losing said stone, still is able to do the tricks. It turns out as expected.
- In a slight variation on the trope, Ord is afraid of a thunder storm until given a cape, which he uses to pretend he's a super hero, causing him to no longer be afraid of the thunder.
- In a fourth season story of Franklin, Bear is having trouble at basketball, so Franklin gives him a clover that he tells him is a "lucky" four-leaf clover. Not only do Bear's basketball skills improve, but other lucky things happen to him and he think it's all due to the clover, not knowing that it's really just a regular clover with an extra leaf taped to it. As Bear's luck starts to go to his head, he starts making risky moves and Franklin decides he has to tell him the truth. As soon as he does, Bear experiences a crippling lack of confidence, until Franklin reminds him that it wasn't really a real clover, so all of his luck was his own.
- In a first season story of Arthur, Arthur believes that he has a "lucky pencil" that helps him do well on tests. He seems to realize eventually that he did well because he studied, though that doesn't stop him from whining loudly when D.W. tries to claim the pencil for her own. The story of the pencil became the basis for a song on the original Arthur music album, Arthur And Friends: The First Almost Real Not Live CD.
- On Shelldon, an episode featured a series of flashbacks showing Mayor Yoko giving members of the community trinkets that he claimed were magic, but were really just Magic Feathers. When the community was threatened by an impending catastrophe, Shelldon and his friends traveled to his office to try to get some of his magic, and discovered the truth.
- In "Follow Your Nose," a Very Special Episode of PB And J Otter, Jelly's "Super Jellina Cape of Fearlessness" helped her to be less afraid of the dark.
Tabletop RPG
- In the World Of Darkness game Mage The Ascension, characters need to focus their magick through various means, but sufficiently high-level characters will realize that the magick comes from them and can cast spells without foci with no penalty. At this point, the mage starts becoming obscenely powerful and even Werewolves and centuries-old Vampires keep their distance.
- Some mages also use 'unique foci' for some of their magic, which if lost render them partially or wholly incapable of casting anything.
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