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My armor glows with sheer POWA!
"This hand of mine glows with an awesome power!"
"Might makes light. And I feel mighty!"
— Doom Guy, Doom Comic
Power glows. The more power, the more glow. So, anything that glows is automatically presumed to be superior to otherwise identical things that don't glow, and more glow is better. This is closely related to the Rule Of Cool because glowing is cool, so things that glow automatically get more Willing Suspension Of Disbelief, allowing them to be more unrealistically powerful. They're often Colour Coded For Your Convenience, too. For example, evil glows bright red, good glows blue or gold, and radioactive materials glow green.
Glowing Eyes Of Doom? Inherently superior to ordinary, everyday, garden-variety eyes. Glowing Battle Aura? Opponents who don't glow won't stand a chance! Any physical object that glows will also be powerful somehow. Glowing sword vs. boring sword? Glowing sword wins, every time. Explodey things that emit a glow first are bigger, louder and/or do more damage, and if they were Sucking In Lines first, they're even more so. The most powerful magical potions will also glow to signify their superiority over ordinary, non-glowing magical potions. And don't forget the inherent awesomeness of the Pillar Of Light, which is Glow going to Heaven just to show how overwhelming it is.
Super Trope to Battle Aura and Holy Halo. See also: Power Crystal, Power Echoes, Power Floats, Pure Energy and Where Did They Get Lasers. Pre Explosion Glow Star Spangled Spandex, and Sucking In Lines are special cases of this trope.
If only certain people are aware of the glow you could be looking at Editorial Synaesthesia or even Aura Vision.
Examples
Anime
- In Akira, at the moment of the greatest release of energy, everything is reduced to a bright white. Maximum glow for maximum power.
- Gourry in The Slayers has an extremely powerful Sword of Light, much better than any other regular swords. He can chop through trees with his sword, and we're not talkin' fist-width saplings, either.
- Everything that has some sort of spiritual nature in Earth Maiden Arjuna gives off an awesome glow. Including Juna's Magical Girl transformation, as well as her energy bow Gan Deeva.
- Fate Stay Night has Excalibur, the "ultimate weapon of humanity", able to convert the user's Mana into light energy and fire it as a destructive wave. Since it takes in the user's own power, it also changes color according to alignment.
- Some Initial D characters can tell roughly how good another driver is by the glowing aura around the driver and by extension, his car when the person is driving it.
- Many attacks in Pokemon glow (insert color here) before making things explode and blast off (Iron Tail, Focus Punch, Bubblebeam, etc).
- The 2003 series of Astro Boy justifies this by giving the titular robot a kind of surge-protector that somehow converts excess electricity into photons.
- Used in the Suzumiya Haruhi Brigade-movie "The Adventures Of Mikuru Asahina", just like any other cliche-trope. When Koizumi's power is released, he glows blue-ish. Interestingly though, it does not appear to be the comically used Special Effect Failure, like with the Mikuru-Beam.
- If you notice yourself being bathed in a soft, pink light in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, that is your signal to run fast, and run far, as that soft light won't stay soft for long for it comes from the massive pink glow that precedes Nanoha's Starlight Breaker.
- If you find yourself in a similar situation in Dragonball Z, you're about to be blown up by Majin Buu. Generally speaking, soft, pink light is best avoided in Anime.
- Performing alchemy causes stuff to glow in Full Metal Alchemist. This is actually use as a small plot point when Ed realises that he and Al cant use alchemy to sneak into the fith laboratory as the gaurd would see the glow.
- In the first few story arcs of Bleach, Ichigo's eyes/body glow a faint blue when he's harnessing a particularly high amount of 'spirit energy'. He later acquires a black/red glow upon achieving bankai. We see a few other characters with an aura as well, including Kenpachi (yellow) and Yachiru (pink). This seems to have been largely dropped by the Arrancar arc, however.
- Getter Robo has this for Getter Rays use. Most designs of Getter-1 even include several clear panels on the face and some on the chest and limbs so they can light up when it's time to kick ass.
- Dragonball Z may not be the oldest example, but it might be the definative one.
- Actually subverted in the Android saga. The titular androids - cyborgs more powerful even than Frieza - are shown as extreme threats, despite their lack of any glow at all. In fact, Androids 17 and 18 are for a short time the two strongest beings in the DBZ universe, the latter totally trouncing the very glowy, newly Super-Saiyan Vegeta.
- The finale of the third arc of Robotech and during Robotech The Shadow Chronicles, where Ariel glows whenever she's using creepy Invid powers.
- Luffy's Gear Second gives his body a bright red glow. Yeah it's high-pressure blood in his body but it's still glowing. Also, Sanji's Diable Jambe (Devil's Leg) makes his foot glow a bright red.
- The "Shining Finger!" attack from G Gundam.
- Once every 22 years in Mahou Sensei Negima, the World Tree in Mahora glows with a brilliant light. This is from the magical energy within accumulating to the point where it overflows. When it's like this, it could grant wishes of the heart, from something as simple as making someone fall in love with you to convincing the entire world that magic exists.
- The Rebuild of Evangelion movies introduce this in spade. The most obvious example is what happens to Unit-01 at the end of the second movie: it starts going berserk and gets the usual Glowing Eyes Of Doom. But so does its pilot. And the mecha's fluorescent green parts starts glowing sickly red. As well as the inside of its maw. Then it rebuilds its amputated arm as a glowy, proteiform appendage, grows a halo, shoots Eyes Beam left and right and lose its armour only to reveal glowing white patches beneath it. By the time the credits flash, it has become a giant glowing figure of pure white. Unsurprisingly, its opponent is unable to resist such a brilliant display.
- Darker Than Black is rather fond of this trope. Contractors using their powers glow blue, and their eyes start shining red. Even more extreme when Hei gets a bit upset near an Amplifier Artifact, which makes the entire neighborhood glow.
Comic Books
Film
- The lightsabers in Star Wars are the logical conclusion of this phenomenon. No other weapon can beat a sword that's actually made out of glow!
- In the 1985 film The Last Dragon, there is The Glow: when a fighter's hands glow, he is among the best in the world - when his entire body glows, he IS the best. Sho'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, demonstrates the former towards the end of the movie, but Leroy "Bruce Leroy" Green demonstrates the latter after a beatdown.
- Not sure about the comics, but Tony Stark's miniature arc reactor in the Iron Man movie glows very blue. Justified in that it is producing visible electricity.
- In Pulp Fiction, the suitcase that serves as Mac Guffin for much of the movie, seems to actually CONTAIN Glow.
- In the Lugia themed Pokemon movie, to save him, the three legendary bird pokemon, and resolve all conflict, one of the main charecters had to play a tune on what looked like some sort of ocarina. The stones she played it next to glowed depending on what note she used, and then glowing water came out from nowhere and entered into the sea.
- Inverted in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where the actual Holy Grail is the most mundane-looking wooden cup. Although the gold-colored lining of the True Grail makes it appear to glow from the inside.
- And before that, played straight in Temple Of Doom with the stones of power that glow when they are together. (And get very hot, by the way)
- This happens to Cartman in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut once he harnesses the power of his malfunctioning V-chip.
- The reagent in Re Animator is not only a fine example of Technicolor Science, but also glowy.
Literature
- In The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant magical Power Glows Colour Coded For Your Convenience.
- JRR Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings: orc-hating elvish swords and entire tower of Minas Morgul.
- Mocked in A Song Of Ice And Fire when Stannis gets Lightbringer, a literal glowing sword, but despises it because it doesn't do anything else better than most swords.
- It is speculated that this is because it isn't the true Lightbringer, which would probably glow, but would actually be hot as well. So Power Glows, but so does a cheap glamour. Although it's worth noting that so far none of the actually superior swords have glowed.
- In the Whateley Universe, Tennyo's 'sword' that can cut through anything glows a bright blue, but it ought to since it's anti-matter. Still, when Tennyo really gets mad, sparks fly off her and her eyes glow a fierce red in a 'run for the hills' warning.
- Subverted several times in the Discworld series. Because of the world's narrative causality, mundane items wielded with true conviction are often stronger than fancy magic weapons.
- Justified in the case of Death's scythe and sword, since these are so sharp, they cut up the air molecules that happen to bump against them. This, of couse, causes lightning-like ionization.
- In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Blood Angels novel Deus Encarmine, the Spear of Telesto.
- And then the tomb of Sanguinius in Red Fury.
Live Action TV
Videogames
- In Super Smash Bros Brawl, characters will obtain a glowing aura, along with yellow eyes when they break a Smash Ball, an item that gives them the capacity to perform a personalized Finishing Move.
- Lucario has a constant purple glow around his hands, representing his Aura powers. And he glows more as he takes damage, representing increased power.
- In Ultima 6 and 7, every single magical item glows brightly, using palette cycling. This is spoofed in various fanfics.
- In Neverwinter Nights magical weapons are also good light sources.
- The player of Deus Ex gets a glowing nano sword. It is otherwise perfect for sneaky silent kills, but the bright glow tends to draw attention.
- In World Of Warcraft, enchanters can put a glow on any weapon. Typically, the more powerful enchants glow brighter, and the color of the glow determines the type of enchant.
- This troper was excited to learn she could eventually put glow on her weapons... until she realized that some 100% of the higher-level characters have glowy weapons. Kinda like finding out that every kid in school bought that same cool hat.
- In the Burning Crusade expansion to WoW, Blizzard one-upped themselves by enabling enchanters to apply a glow to weapons that's actually a complex graphical animation. The Mongoose enchant causes your entire weapon to crackle with lighting, while the Savagery enchant makes your weapon drip blood.
- While the primary theme of The Burning Crusade was "WoW In Space!!!", the secondary theme was "glowing stuff is really awesome. Seriously. Just look at most of the new areas - they're glow-tastic. Also, both of the new races have glowing eyes.
- Burning Crusade? The multi-colored glowy-Lite Brite-Crystal cave in the original Un'Goro Crater was simply power-glow-tastic.
- In Dragon Quest 8, Once a character reaches maximum tension, that character will glow until they attack or use magic that has a quantifiable effect, be it damage, healing or a stat buff. They'll also stop glowing if a boss nullifies their tension with a wave of ice.
- In Final Fantasy, any place with a constant glow to it (such as the Mako Reactors in VII and Bahamut's hideout in VIII) is very important place with lots of either magical or technological power hidden from mortals. An interesting example is in VI, where Kefka is surrounded by a sphere of magic before the final fight. In addition to showing his immense magical powers, this sphere shows his emotions. When he gets angry, it turns red. Emotion Glows.
- In Final Fantasy VI, Terra has a pink glow in her esper form, which boosts her power in battle.
- City Of Heroes (And Villains) doesn't shy from this, either. By hitting Level 30, characters gain the ability to attach an Aura of his choice to every costume. Most of these simply Glow (although some get creative and crumble instead), and none of them does anything other than being awesome.
- Even without the lvl 30 auras, most melee characters have a set of glowy auras from a variety of defensive powers (and even being able to run fast causes your feet to glow)
- In Fable, your tattoes and hands glow with high enough magic levels.
- In the first Mega Man Battle Network game, Mega Man glows when his program is being rewritten after Hub.bat is installed.
- The anime also does this with Program Advances. Especially the first few times they're used.
- Later games in the series implement Full Synchro as an effect you can get in battle if you're skilled. It's depicted by Rock glowing (his color becomes light) and a pink halo spinning about his body. Very powerful NP Cs and enemies in cutscenes also flash with light, notably Gospel in the second game, Proto (Alpha) in the third game and the Cyber Beasts in the sixth.
- Every version of Megaman who can charge up usually glows while doing so. X was the first to glow different colors depending on how much he's charged. With the double-shot and Zero's Z-Saber in X3, he glows blue, yellow, pink, and finally green to indicate he can fire two fully-charged shots and the Z-Saber. Zero glows these same colors when he charges up his Z-Buster, but X3 is the last game where Zero can use his Buster the same way, and X one-ups him for once by launching an energy wave when he swings the Z-Saber, assuming he has the double-shot.
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind tried and failed to utilize this. The glowing magical items came off looking like they were covered in plastic-wrap.
- The old Magic Knight game Spellbound for the ZX Spectrum featured the spell Armouris Photonicus, which if cast in the right place would make your armour glow sufficiently to traverse two darkened rooms safely, making this Older Than The Nes.
- "Your sword is blowing glue! Wait, let me try that again."
- Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2: low-ranking characters might glow faintly when summoning ki; high-ranking characters glow with intense brightness at all times, and even the simplest moves look like a fireworks display crashing into a laser light show.
- Any Sonic The Hedgehog character with a super form when in said form.
Webcomics
- As Questionable Content reveals, even bourbon whisky will glow
 if it's good enough.
- In Sequential Art, Art asks, "Why is it that big, ominous tomes always glow so bright?!" Good question.
- Because they're illuminated texts! Ha!
- Gunnerkrigg Court: One of Eglamore's BFSes glows; presumably this makes it more effective against Shadow men. Also, antigravity glows purple.
- As demonstrated here in Nip & Tuck, particularly sexy lingerie glows, too. (Obviously a reference to the Pulp Fiction example mentioned above.)
- In Sluggy Freelance Gwynn tends to glow and float when she starts really channeling her witchy powers.
- Also happens to Horribus when he's getting ready for his grudge match with Torg. And, of course, Torg's sword glowing is the sign that it's awakened its sentient, kill-anything-in-one-strike mode.
- Order Of The Stick takes this to its logical conclusion; if one high-level spellcaster's power glows, then the combined effects of four of them glow even more.
- In El Goonish Shive, magic and Ki users can glow to indicate that they are using their powers. For Nanase's Fairy doll spell, this has practical uses. For martial arts, it's Rule Of Cool.
- The river Dyne glows blue, of course this might be because it is Radioactive.
Western Animation
- In Beast Wars, Sparks glow, which makes sense because they are powerful. So do many of the things belonging to the aliens.
- In Transformers Cybertron, when using great amounts of power a character will glow. Used most dramatically in the Final Battle of Optimus Prime and Galvatron
- In Transformers Animated, the AllSpark glows. So do all its pieces, and Sari's key when it's near them.
- In Avatar The Last Airbender, Aang's eyes, mouth and tattoos do this when he activates the Avatar State
- "You see this, you see how my body's glowing like that? Yeah, a lot of people can't do that."
- In Kim Possible Shego had glowing gloves that were sharp, that was it. Then it was retconned into being her own super-power, with the rest of the Team Go family also displaying the "Go Team Glow" . And she started firing "plasma" from her hands.
- The human members of the titular Saturday family each have a weapon with some sort of glow, and then Zak's eyes glow when he uses his powers.
RealLife
- Unlike the ones in TV, real nuclear reactors glow blue.
- The popular idea of green radioactivity dates back to radium paint, which was used for clock dials and glow-in-the-dark signs in 1920s. Later when the hazardous effects of radiation were discovered, the green glow got its new meaning. Oxidising white phosphorus, also quite nasty material, glows green too.
- Tritium, a hydrogen isotope, has replaced radium in all applications of Real Life Power Glow. It is still radioactive, but emits relatively harmless beta particles, helium-3, and faint green glow.
- For the record, credit for the ubiquity of the idea that Power Glows must be given to the two most primal sources of glowing power: the sun and fire. Honorable mention goes to lightning.
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