Occasionally, you get a hero with such personal magnetism that he is capable of persuading others, usually the Badass Normal, to join him in his quest. Of course, the companion has no qualms about killing or even dying for the hero, despite knowing him briefly and there being many people who want him dead.
This is a staple of fiction that may well be Older Than They Think. Many epics and legends chronicle the process by which a hero gathers a band of motley friends and allies of dubious background but doubtless courage and nobility. Even if the hero has no special quality compared to his subordinates, this is often his implied "power", Heart.
There's a few variants of this:
Beat them up. Because Defeat Means Friendship, anyone the hero beats up on the way to the supermarket will become a lifelong friend and ally.
Conversely, beat up their enemy along with them. Fire-Forged Friends are always ready to come along.
Tell them your quest. Who knows? Maybe they too are out to put a stop to Doctor Demonica? A particularly idealistic or persuasive hero can pull this off with gusto on even the most jaded.
Naruto - The eponymous hero has used most of the tactics above.
Beat Them Up: Gaara, Nagato, Neji.
Fight With Them: Sai, Sakura, Sasuke, Lee.
Being kind to Inari (an orphan) in the Zabuza Arc*
Although it should be noted that Naruto accomplished this with a Quit Your Whining speech
indirectly wins him a whole village who believes in him.
He saves Konoha and gets their respect and adoration.
Telling his goals tends to overlap with beating them up, as both Gaara and Nagato are persuaded after they hear his plans.
This has actually become so common that forum goers have given it the name 'Talk No Jutsu', 'Therapy No Jutsu', or 'Jesus No Jutsu'.
One Piece: Luffy. It's even directly acknowledged by Mihawk.
It's not some kind of special power, but he has the ability to make allies of everyone he meets. And that is the most fearsome power on these high seas!
The Dragon Ball series uses this with The Atoner to have a Badass Crew full of reformed bad guys. Oolong, Yamcha, Puar, Tien, Chaozu, Piccolo, and Vegeta started out as Goku's opponents, though not all of them turned face immediately after being defeated by Goku.
In the first Dragon Ball story arc, Bulma is the Magnetic Hero on a quest and Goku is one of companions she picks up.
Shaman King (virtually all of Yoh's team, especially Ren Tao),
Yusei of Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds, and even more naturally than Yugi. He grew up with Kiryu's True Companions, formed one of his own that we meet at the start of the series, then quickly gets separated from them to form an entirely new one. We also see he recruits using all five methods.
How has Yu-Gi-Oh! GX 's Jaden/Judai been left out? Every single character he ever disputes with is converted, seemingly by the sheer force of his personality, either to a friend or a hardcore devotee by the end of the episode/duel/season.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha - Nanoha is apparently at her best accompanied by former foes she's thrashed to within an inch of their lives. Of course, she's very nice about it.
Subaru also has this quality, befriending not only the Tsundere Teana, who initially dislikes her and tries not to bond with her, and the initially socially awkward Erio and Caro, but also the reformed Combat Cyborgs, four of whom become her adopted sisters. She also manages to befriend Ixpellia and change her worldview. Lampshaded by Teana.
Teana: (to Erio and Caro) You don't have to become friends with everyone like the Stars' front attacker.
Sagara Sousuke from Full Metal Panic!. He actively tries to discourage people from becoming his friend, and is generally verybusiness-like and unfriendly, disliking chit chat. Yet somehow, he always manages to attract a bunch of people to him. And all of them really like him (many times, to the point of being willing to die for him). Even his enemies are attracted to him. In the novels, as Lemon puts it, "even though he is so expressionless, he's oddly charming."
Tsuna from Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, anyone? He's quickly building up a gigantic harem of incredibly loyal underlings (99% of which are male) whose main purpose in life is apparently to protect him. And most of his enemies / rivals, after being defeated by him, become... very friendly and affectionate towards him. In a creepy way though, since they're normally rather Ax Crazy.
One of the more... interesting examples is Spanner's sudden decision to switch sides and become a part of Tsuna's family. This decision was reached after the two spent a long, undisclosed amount of time alone together. With Tsuna naked, unconscious, and handcuffed to Spanner's bed. You figure out the reason and method of how Tsuna unwittingly managed to convince him to join.
Negi Springfield of Mahou Sensei Negima!. He starts out working pretty much on his own, but by this point he has a troop of around 15 or so primary allies (mostly various students) in addition to an absurd number of secondary characters. He has tried on many occasions to ditch his True Companions but that just starts fights and he sees himself as the Papa Wolf now since they keep hanging around.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that most of his group (which tend to be female) find him attractive the usual way.
Haru slowly accumulates buddies in Rave Master. Elie by the power of love, Musica (more or less) by uniting him with his grandfather, Let with an impressive display of belief, Celia by pulling her out of a rock, Lazenby by showing him he was working for the villain, Shuda by motivating him to live (and also some stuff with his dad), Julia by his determination, Julius by... *cough*, and Belnika by being cute and friendly.
Ash of Pokémon always has unbelievable luck in finding traveling companions.
Not just humans. Most of the Pokemon he captures he does so by getting them to like him and follow him.
Touma from To Aru Majutsu no Index even if they don't fight alongside him all the time, many people would rally to his cause, something that a magic cabal took note of and tried to have someone use magic to pose as someone in the group to assasinate him and split it up even though there is no real group. Others he's beaten take new paths in life.
Monster Rancher has Genki who is able to see the good in the most evil-seeming enemies, and then get them to see it. Notable examples include Pixie and Big Blue as well as a large number of mooks and lesser villains as well as Tiger and Hare (Maybe even Golem if you think about it).
Sengoku from Cage of Eden starts off as another goofy schoolboy, but begins to come into his own as he pulls more of the survivors into his group.
Jacuzzi Splot from Baccano! has a natural ability to draw people towards him, unconsciously forming his own street gang largely off of this tendency. The Light Novels point out that this has less to do with any extraordinary amount of charisma so much as he gives people the impression that he'd be helpless on his own and is in constant need of coddling.
He wasn't especially charismatic, but he had a strange way of gathering people about him — or, to be more specific, it was like they gravitated to him. His appeal didn't spring from any sort of trustiness, but instead from the feeling that, if left to his own devices, he'd probably end up walking off a cliff somehow. He evoked a strange sort of protective instinct in people.
A villainous version comes from The Claw in Gun X Sword, where nearly everyone he meets considers him to be a kind man.
Beat them up (and get kicked in the face) - his "friendship" with L while it lasted.
Kill their enemy - Misa
Save their life - his promise to save Misa eventually wins Rem's loyalty.
Beat up their enemy along with them – the conclusion of the Yotsuba arc he has won the trust and loyalty of the Kira taskforce.
Tell them your quest - Mikami and Takada
Comic Books
Superman is at, or near, the forefront of nearly every major event in the DCU since he began his career of heroics. If not just because of his incredible power, then for who he is as a symbol, and the sheer number of other heroes he's befriended and/or inspired through the years.
John Constantine of Hellblazer attracts friends with his charming and magnetic personality, but they all eventually either get offed by the many Cosmic Horror villains or screwed over by Constantine himself. He gets called out on this many times, but despite constantly flirting with the Moral Event Horizon, he's never quite passed it in 20 years of stories.
Nightwing is a huge one too, to the point where some believe his superpower is charisma. When he sowed up to a fight with multiple generations of Teen Titans, Superboy noted how everyone instantly followed his lead.
He also once convinced every hero on Earth, without question, to jump into a parallel dimension (saving them all).
Batman even said it's one of the reasons he's proudest of Dick—unlike Bats, he can gain and keep allies.
So essentially he's "Batman with social skills"
Fan Works
In Rurouni Kenshin and Star Wars crossover Shadowsin Starlight by Vathara Kenshin has an ability to easily form force-bonds, which means he can inspire Undying Loyalty and quickly make friends. It’s one of the reasons his former employers fear him so much and will do anything to either eliminate or have him under their control.
In Star WarsFan FicBy the Grace of Lady Vader Padme inspires fanatic loyalty in her subjects and wins allies for her case with astonishing ease. This later leads her to become a new Empress, when Palpatine is overthrown. It is deconstructed later, when she goes down the Sanity Slope and her fanatic subjects lose their moral compass.
In Gods Of This New World a Death Note fic Light is a Magnetic Villain. He already had the loyalty of Misa (killed the guy that murdered her parents), but he also wins over the allegedly neutral Ryuk (give the Shinigami an apple), his Arch-Enemy L (because Defeat Means Friendship), and later Near, L's successor.
Film
Played remarkably straight (along with several other tropes) in the movie Krull. Prince Colwyn got an Ergo The Magnificent, a group of escaped prisoners intent on robbing him, a Blind Seer and a cyclops to join his party.
King Arthur in most of his incarnations in film, but most notably John Boorman's Excalibur. If you're fighting a fully-armed knight, get the better of him, and demand he swear faith to you with your sword at his neck, you generally don't ask him to knight you and hand over your Infinity+1 Sword to him when he objects to giving you his allegiance because you're a squire and thus he outranks you. On the other hand, if you're the knight in question you generally don't use said sword to knight said squire when he kneels before you to accept your knighting and then kiss his hand in fealty ... unless the squire, of course, is a Magnetic Hero.
The 1982 Conan the Barbarian film. Conan releases Subotai from chains in exchange for his companionship. The two of them meet Valeria while robbing a temple of Thulsa Doom. Conan later runs into the wizard on his journey to assassinate Thulsa Doom. The sequel, Conan the Destroyer, relies more on Avengers Assemble, but Zula's recruitment is an example of this trope.
Literature
Tortall Universe: Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan. Seriously. This Badass Normal girl makes friends with EVERYONE (except the bad guys) and those that don't befriend her at least respect her (save the bad guys). Kids, Commonfolk, pages, birds...Kel will never be one of those hereos that fights alone in dark places, because while she may not be a Wild Mage or have the Gift, she's got the superpower of building one of the most loyal band of True Companions in a few hundred pages. They won't let her go off and do anything stupid without them.
Cohen the Barbarian has this sort of power. As Rincewind explains it, when you interact with him for long enough, you see the world the way he does... and want to be part of it.
Carrot is the driving force behind the expansion of the City Watch, and its large presence of non-humans.
Carrot is something of an aversion, as it is mentioned by many others that he could get people do to just about anything but possibly does not because of the negative consequences of this trope.
Speaking of, Corporal Nobbes is probably an inversion. He's so horrible, he's fascinating, and people are drawn to him just to see what he might do next.
Moist Von Lipwig has traces of this as well, as evident by how he gradually rebuilds the postal service in Going Postal.
Lord Asriel and Marisa Coulter of His Dark Materials are both imbued with an uncanny ability to persuade people over to their side, to command and convince them to obey. Their daughter, Lyra, is nothing if not more so, as almost everyone who meets her takes an immediate liking to her and wants to help her.
The Chosen: Rebbe Saunders. Not only is he a charismatic and beloved "Rabbi Man" but the BackStory shows Hidden Depths that reveals he is more then just the demanding father we see. In Russia during the many excesses of the chaos there he had led his people to immigrate to America. Reuven finds it odd that a rabbi would have such autocratic power and it is; Danny's sect is odd in that respect. In a way though Reuven is Completely Missing the Point that Rebbe Saunders was also the first one in his community to think of a good idea about how to get out of their difficulties.
In The Hunt for Red October Russian officers and men had once competed to get berths with Ramius and he was accused of forming a "cult of personality". Once the Americans board his sub there is a sense of him recuiting them!
In the Dragonlance novels the elven princess Laurana is a remarkably charismatic figure whose incredible beauty, charm, and courage inspires thousands to join her army.
In the Belgariad novels, Ce'Nedra becomes this trope as well, albeit that it's much more consciously manipulated by those supporting her, and she actually feels some remorse over being the Magnetic Heroine to her army.
Um... Jesus? (Makes Robin Hood look positively recent!)
Judge Dee - Three of Judge Dee's trusted lieutenants are criminals who abruptly reformed after their first encounter with him. He occasionally has trouble getting shut of attractive young women who've assisted him too. Magnetic is definitely the word.
Harry Dresden of The Dresden Files, although a very powerful wizard in his own right, one of his most valued assets might be the staggering number of allies he has acquired/known/converted over the years.
Jim Eckert, the Dragon Knight, is surprised to find a band of Loyal Companions coalescing around him in The Dragon and the George.
Live Action TV
In Star Trek: Voyager, Janeway does this, first getting Chakotay and the crew from his ship to join, then Neelix, then later Seven of Nine, then even later, they pick up several children who were assimilated by the Borg. Most of them return to their various homeworlds, but one remains on Voyager.
Definitely happens on Farscape, but it's hard to say exactly which attribute it is that draws people to John Crichton. It's probably a mix of all of the above, and a just general lack of what to do without him.
The Doctor in Doctor Who. This is how he picks up nearly all of his Companions. Also how he picks up the majority of non-companion allies. People usually start doing what he tells them within minutes of meeting him, however batshit insane he may have been acting. The trope is subverted occasionally, particularly in the disturbing episode Midnight.
"Journey's End" provided a decontruction then a reconstruction. The Doctor is called out on this by Davros of all people (see the above quote), who asks how many have died in the Doctor's name. Cue flashbacks of nearly every Mauve Shirt in the revived series.
"Vampires of Venice" - Rory: "It's not that you make people take risks, it's that you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves!" This is Foreshadowing: in spite of his concerns about Amy, Rory's the one who sacrifices his life to save the Doctor's. He gets better.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs in NCIS. His whole team says so. But he only uses his powers for good. Ask Abby.
Merlin is highly magical, but also seems to possess the innate ability to make every man, woman and child that he comes across fall hopelessly in love with him. With the exception of Prince Arthur and King Uther, Merlin has made immediate and life-long friends with cast regulars such as Guinevere, Lancelot and Gwaine, as well as guest stars such as Freya and Gilli. Most, if not all, are willing to die for him within mere moments of their meeting. At least one has come back from the dead in order to aid him on his quest.
Steve McGarrett in the re-imagined Hawaii Five-O recruits his team in the pilot by basically going to each of them and saying "Come work for me". In the second season premiere after being framed for murder, even characters like Dr. Max who he's only ever interacted with on a professional level, are willing to put themselves on the line to keep him out of jail and help him prove his innocence. Even ne'er-do-well informant Kamekona offers to invoke Bolivian Army Ending on his say so.
Gentaro Kisaragi from Kamen Rider Fourze makes it his personal goal to make friends with everyone at his high school. So far, he's living up to that promise as he has saved some of his new friends' lives from Monsters of the Week, as well as getting to know the personal issues of some of them as well.
Tabletop Games
In Forgotten Realms Cormyrean dynasty Obarskyrs are born charismatic. Once very young princess Alusair slipped from her guards while in Waterdeep. The city watch found her in Dripping Dagger—a mercenary hangout with door covered in blood stains and weapon marks. During this time patrons played with her, let her taste local beverages and taught some tricks with weapons. The watchman who had to dodge a dagger she was throwing at the door marveled no one here knew who she is. Her father was amazed only by amount of salty language she learned in about one hour. Of course, adult Obarskyrs in their land are even more popular—no wonder they remained in power about millennium and half.
One of the main points behind the charisma stat is to turn you into one of these.
A Deconstructed Trope in Knights Of The Old Republic II. The main character is (in)famous for creating bonds like this subconsciously by using the Force, sometimes creating bonds strong enough for a Synchronization. Further deconstructed when it's revealed that you're regaining your connection to the Force by basically pulling the Force into yourself through said bonds.
Also deconstructed in Planescape: Torment, which KOTOR II took many notes from. The Nameless One's allies are drawn to his torment by torments of their own. Furthermore, with the exception of Annah, Nordrom and Fall-From-Grace, their torments are mostly your fault.
Likewise, subconsciously attracting allies is a semi-divine power of Breath Of Fire IV's hero.
Every Lord in a Fire Emblem game. Enough so to attract more allies than your party has room for. Regrettably, this includes at least one Crutch Character per game.
Commander Shepard of Mass Effect has natural talent for influencing other people. Whether that talent is for charm or for intimidation — and to what uses Shepard puts it — is up to the player. Paragon Shepard even recruited from supposedly Always Chaotic Evil races. *
Hackett himself even notes that this is exactly why he essentially made him/her the Big Good to the other species. Because he knew that s/he could get them to believe in the cause and follow him/her, no matter what the cost or odds.
In Chrono Cross, only a few of the 40+ characters join Serge because their own ambition drives them to seek the Frozen Flame (and even then, they become subservient to him instantly.) The others join up simply for the reasons described above, or Because Destiny Says So.
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. The protagonist has no problem whatsoever in recruiting people to cheerfully abandon their livelihoods and trudge along, carrying crateloads of gear into dangerous situations and swinging weapons at all manner of ungodly foes and beasts, and not even say anything when you're announcing your plans to go to the next "no-one-ever-came-back-alive" destination, such as the Vendigroth Wastes, Island of Despair, ultra-secret enclave of the dark elves, or the Void. (Those are Names To Run Away From, people.) The protagonist will also usually inform the latest recruit that they're hunted by an ancient order of assassins who want them, and everyone associated with them, dead. This fails to deter anyone. I guess living in Dernholm must suck majorly if this is the preferred choice.
The Legend of Zelda - Link is made of this trope. All sentient characters except Ganondorf are required to help him in some way.
Fei of Xenogears falls into this, since he recruits quite a large party of people from all over the world, including at least a couple who try to kill him at first.
The MC of Devil Survivor can become one, depending on dialogue choices and in some paths, end up recruiting more humans than the player can deploy in battle.
Yuri from Infinite Space seems to have natural air of leadership that draws people to him... or have him to do dirty work for them.
Reimu and Marisa from Touhou Project are extreme examples of this trope - every game introduces about 8 new characters, and the series is a dozen games long, not even counting the Gaiden Games leading to roughly a hundred characters (117 named characters as of this writing), and Defeat Means Friendship is practically ironbound law in Gensokyo, leading to them having massive numbers of Superpower Lottery winners to call on for allies. Although only a fraction of these characters actually wind up fighting directly alongside the heroines in any of the regular games (doujin games like Labyrinth of Touhou that have real party systems being an exception), and often are more friendly rivals in function, the sidestories like Silent Sinner In Blue feature essentially half of Gensokyo teaming up in a massive jumble to take on the Lunarians.
The Gray Wardens of Dragon Age have far less clout in Fereldan then they enjoy in other countries, so they rely on this for their recruitment. Duncan and the player are two such examples. Arl Eamon also owes his political influence to being one.
Cloud Strife in Final Fantasy VII. Despite the fact that he's a former soldier for Shinra, not to mention a jerk, AVALANCHE accepts his help and eventually admit him as their leader. It gets even harder to swallow when they find out that his memory of certain important events is *wrong*, and even when they discover that he can be mind-controlled by the Big Bad they still trust him!
It's observed early on that the protagonist of Exit Fate has a knack for this. After he defects to the opposing army, his superiors don't even bother assigning troops to him, since he's so good at finding new recruits. At the end of the game, your crew count will be somewhere between 40 and 75.
Tactical RPGs love this. In Ogre Battle, your hero does it with main characters, and you can also do it with neutral encounters, and occasionally you'll get an item called Love and Peace that lets you do this to enemies.
Up to Eleven for the eponymous character of the Rance series. By the time of Rance Quest (Rance VIII) and its expansion, he has three (out of four) major human countries, the largest religion in the world, the most technologically advanced city, the richest person in the world, one of the Four Holy Monster Girls, the current Demon King (though to be fair, she is still unawakened.), and the Kalar Tribe as his allies. If one man could unite the world, it would be him.
In the spinoff game, Kichikuou (Brutal King) Rance, he does exactly that.
"Sparks" of Girl Genius have this as an explicit power; it was described as "a strange charisma".
Mr. Rovainen: Ah—it is part of the power of the gifted. Those around them wish to aid them. To serve them. Even when we know them to be monsters. Heterodyne Sparks are alleged to be even more charismatic than the average Spark.
Axe Cop is all over this like an axe on a bad guy's neck. His recurring sidekick (variously Flute Cop, Dinosaur Soldier, Avocado Soldier, Uni-Avocado Soldier, Viking Cop...) is secretly his brother, and I don't think there's been an explanation for Wexter yet, but any time anything bad happens, Axe Cop announces "we need to have more try-outs" and people pour out of the woodwork to join him. Examples: the Moon Ninja Brothers, Sockarang, Uni-Man and his family, Chihuahua Soldier, that cyborg lion, the King of the Mermaids, "a wrestler", Leaf Man, Mr. Wilkins, those various aliens from the Bad Guy Planet Two arc...
Web Original
There are people in the Global Guardians PBEM Universe who would follow Global Guardians team leader Achilles into the fires of Hell just because the man said it might be necessary.
Rob from Dimension Heroes brings a group together, not because he has any particularly appealing qualities, but because he unintentionally put them under fire from the enemy, thereby forcing them to become involved as part of the group.
Sasha Hunter in Greek Ninja, although shown and claiming to not like people and even being rude to them a lot of the time, somehow manages to gather a group of capable fighters around her. The twist is, most of them join her on her quest even though she was unwilling to accept them. The only character she actually asked to join her on her own accord was Electra.
Chaka of the Whateley Universe seems to have this. She pulled Fey and Lancer along in her wake when they first met, and then helped pull Team Kimba together. Since then, she's also pulled in more boyfriends and girlfriends than any fourteen-year-old could possibly handle.
Recently, her team-mates have begun pointing out that this is not a good thing, as far as her relationships go. Ayla does not expect it to end well, if/when Chaka's significant others all find out about each other, and has had to explicitly forbid Chaka from bringing both of them to his birthday party.
Western Animation
Metalocalypse - Although we don't know much about how the band was actually formed, Nathan Explosion seems to be capable of getting virtually anyone to do anything purely by his personal magnetism, at one point even convincing the most homophobic of his bandmates to attempt autofellatio in front of the others with a brief pep talk. Even the villains often comment on his so-called Stalinlike ability to galvanize the masses, and how dangerous that is.
Any great leader fits this trope. No leader can be great without it.
Innumerable ordinary heroes. You probably know a couple personally.
Both Churchill and Hitler were Magnetic Heroes, in the eyes of their followers. Hitler was not heroic in any other sense. They had tens of millions of followers. Both managed to array great world powers behind them on the issue of the largest war in human history, based largely on the force of their personality and oratory. Hitler was a decorated soldier in WW 1, Churchill fought as a soldier/reporter in the Sudan and Boer Wars.
Several people who met Hitler said he was magnetic. Of course, really, you should wonder about the testimony of someone who was granted an audience with Hitler. One of the chief appeals of Nazism was to give people a way to try to live fantasy in Real Life . That was one of the main points of the torchlight parades and the hocus-pocus. Thus if one is to convince factory workers that they were Proud Warrior Race guys, they need to have a Magnetic Hero just like the ones in poems did. If Hitler didn't foot the bill, the Ministry of Propaganda could easily enough pretend he did.
Horatio Nelson. The man was heavily into self promotion, but he earned ever accolade, and his ability to inspire men was even termed 'the Nelson effect'.
Stonewall Jackson. This is a man who, when his men are outnumbered 10 to 1, turns a full rout into a counter-attack through sheer force of personality.
Canada had Isaac Brock in the War Of 1812, a savy general who was able to persuade the Aboriginal leader, Tecumseh, to join forces with him so effectively that the Native Leader stood up, patted Brock on the shoulder and proclaimed, "This is a man!"
