Pillar Of Light - Television Tropes & Idioms

When an event of great celestial, magical or ultratech power occurs, it is often heralded by a beam of light — usually blue or white — that shoots straight up into the sky from ground zero, often evaporating whatever clouds are unfortunate enough to be in its path. Sometimes it starts out narrow and expands in diameter as it climbs.

In the case of more disastrous events, the Pillar Of Light is just an extension of the Pre Explosion Glow; in other cases, it can be part of a truly cosmic Battle Aura. The rest of the time it is relatively benign, if exciting to watch.

It should be noted that a Pillar Of Light usually travels upwards. A Pillar Of Light that comes down, more often than not, is a Kill Sat, which tends to be far less benign. See also Sphere Of Destruction for the globular variant.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

When Belldandy grants Keiichi's wish in Ah My Goddess, a beam of light blasts from her forehead up to heaven (coincidentally blowing a hole through all the intervening floors of the building they're in at the time).
Generator Gawl.
Bastard!!
Dragonball.
The Silent Moebius movie.
The Escaflowne TV series uses this as the special effect for Hitomi's teleportation power - which, besides being central to the plot, came up pretty frequently.
In Futari Wa Pretty Cure, the protagonists' Transformation Sequence is performed within a Pillar Of Light, and is one of the most pyrotechnically impressive transformation sequences known.
A cross-shaped version is often seen as the results of Angel attacks in Neon Genesis Evangelion
The Harmonium Organ in Mai-Otome.
In The Big O, a pillar of light effectively triggers the end of the world.
Gasaraki has an inversion — when Yushiro performs the ritual that is at the center of much of the Gowa family's attention, the pillar comes down out of the sky to him.
Haibane Renmei has one for the Day of Flight.
In Trigun, Vash The Stampede gets puppetmastered into firing his weapon at full power against an enemy. He manages to redirect the aim to the sky, and when the weapon fires a huge Pillar Of Light rises up to the planet's moon and bores a large crater in it.
The Spirit Bomb in Tokyo Mew Mew uses five pillars of light, colour-coded to each girl. Ichigo's, of course, is the biggest, and right in the middle.
The Pokemon anime did this in the first episode—Pikachu's final attack on the Spearow caused a pillar of electrical light to appear.
Near the end of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, the return of Hayate and her Wolkenritter was accompanied by one of these.
- This also happened in the very first episode of the original season of that series, when Nanoha first activated Raising Heart.
In the anime version of Sailor Moon, Chibi-Usa frequently emits one of these from the moon mark on her forehead when she's frightened or upset due to the Silver Crystal being inside her body.
In an episode of Beyblade, Ray beats his rival with a move which is accompanied by his beyblade emmitting a green beam of light that smashes through the roof of the arena, causing one of the Combat Commentators to quip "That's probably going to take down a couple of satellites!"

Film

The "God" in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
Leeloo in The Fifth Element, at the end where she releases the titular element.
Minas Morgul Produces one of these in the Return of the king movie.
In Iron Man, overloading the large Arc Reactor results in this.
At the conclusion of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the Phantom Gaia, having been countered by the Spirit Wave, leaves Earth in the form of a pillar of light that stretches from the Leonid Crater and into outer space, taking its Phantoms with it.
"I/O Towers" in Tron

Tabletop RPG

In Exalted, there is a Solar-Circle Sorcery called Total Annihilation, which results in a pillar of light that is five miles high.

Video Games

Copy X from the Mega Man Zero games uses a big blue pillar of light to heal himself, if the player's rank is high enough to warrant it.
Frog earns one of these in Chrono Trigger (complete with Theme Music Power Up) by attuning himself to the Masamune blade, just before the party's assault on Magus's castle. Watch!
Occurs in the opening animation of Jedah Dohma, the Big Bad of the third Darkstalkers game Vampire Saviour, except the pillar is made of blood instead of light. He appears from the top of the screen, slowly hovering down into place, before the pillar dissipates.
Terry Bogard's Power Stream from The King Of Fighters is one of these, though it was probably inspired by Geese Howard's Raging Storm, which is a cage of light.
One of the death animations from Scorched Earth.
The American superweapon from Command And Conquer Generals fires one of these... which is then reflected off of the Kill Sat in orbit and back onto the battlefield, where it acts like a huge cutting laser.
One of the finishing moves of Squall's limit break in Final Fantasy VIII involves a Pillar Of Light that's visible from orbit, which is impressive since it's generated by his gunblade.
Metroid Prime: When Samus finally places all the artifacts, a beam of light shoots up from the central structure. What does it do? I don't know, Meta Ridley comes along and breaks it. Presumably, it would have done what the pulse afterward does, which is teleport Samus into the Impact Crater.
- In the sequel, restoring the energy to all four temples and gaining the Light Suit allows Samus to teleport between the temples by riding their Pillars of Light.
The World Ends With You: When Neku levels up.
- Also, Pillars of Light of varying magnitudes are Joshua's secondary attack method after a certain plot point. It's more this than Beam Spam, because they come out of the ground instead of from Joshua.
Half-Life 2 Episode 2's superportal beam might count, other than that it is not in the straight line.
In Halo 3, a giant Forerunner artifact left buried in Africa emits one of these when it's uncovered and activated.
Nowel of Magical Battle Arena calls down four of these for her super move, which is then followed by four massive, highly-damaging explosions. If you see her preparing these, for goodness sake, run!

Webcomics

Inverted in Breakfast of the Gods. It is always nighttime at Castle Chocula.
In Erfworld, after Jillian attempts to persuade her to switch sides and promises to find and croak Stanley, Wanda responds by unleashing a massive attack spell, complete with a Pillar Of Light as wide as Efdup Tower.

Western Animation

The title character of She-Ra, Princess of Power drew her power from a living Pillar Of Light.
In the Over The Hedge movie, the De-Pelter Turbo unleashes a Pillar Of Light that obliterates a passing satellite, roasts marshmallows and pops popcorn a few feet away, and can be seen from outside the galaxy.
Avatar The Last Airbender: In the series premiere, Prince Zuko guesses that the random Pillar Of Light that suddenly appears in the South Pole signals something of great, powerful significance, like the return of the Avatar.
- Way later in the Grand Finale when Aang takes away Ozai's bending a similar looking one occurs.