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alt title(s): Power Of Friendship 
"I don't need a weapon. My friends are my power!"
Two are better than one: they get a good wage for their labor. If the one falls, the other will lift up his companion. Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up.
— Ecclesiastes
A major theme in all media. The villain or Ineffectual Loner mocks the idea of relying on others, insisting that friends make you weak and only fear brings servitude. Then he discovers to his shock and dismay that the hero's friends really do stand up for him, and this really does enable the hero to kick the crap out of the bad guy. The Aesop: Having friends makes you strong, being alone makes you weak. Even What You Are In The Dark can depend on your memory of your friends.
The moment at which The Power Of Friendship becomes clear is A Friend In Need, but beware the Apple Of Discord.
A Spirit Bomb attack is another perk of believing in said power. Heroes, especially the Magnetic Hero, usually spend the first few episodes building this group of loyal followers. Sometimes though, it can go too far. Heroes might fall prey to becoming a Martyr Without A Cause, and allies could be Poisonous Friends. However, In The End You Are On Your Own, in which case Friendship becomes a mite less helpful.
See also Team Spirit, Nakama, The Power Of Love, The Power Of Trust, Defeat Means Friendship, Fire Forged Friends, Dying Alone. Often results in a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming if done well. The risk of Tastes Like Diabetes or even Narm is present if done poorly.
Examples:
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Anime
- Amazingly, Lelouch of the otherwise rather dark Code Geass salvages a potentially disastrous situation by successfully pulling off a speech about friendship and The Power Of Love.
- He does this quite a few times. The most startling is probably when he tells the Chinese Empress that she can marry for love, instead of being forced into a political marriage with one of his Black Knights. Not to mention his motive for rebellion.
- Yoh Asakura in Shaman King manages to best the Tao family several times because they don't acknowledge The Power Of Friendship. Towards the end of the series, The Power of Friendship brings Tao Ren back to life and allows him to defeat half of the Quirky Miniboss Squad
- Almost every episode of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Fans eventually grew so tired of how much they hammered on it that they took to calling the inevitable recitation of friendship's virtues "the Friendship Speech" and instinctively hit the mute button whenever Tea started talking. This was actually lampshaded by Kaiba at one point late in the series (he even used the term "friendship speech").
- Dartz calls out Yugi for this at 3:55 in this episode for the English dub: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DePLcicgqs&feature=related
- Parodied in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, where Tea uses a several-hour-long friendship speech to turn Johny Steps into a zombie.
- And again, with the 'Yu-Gi-Oh! Drinking game', in which you had to take a drink every time anyone mentioned friends or friendship.
- Yugi and Jounouchi. Their friendship is the only thing keeping the universe in one piece. Case and point: The first symbols of their name, when put together, spell friendship. Yujo.
- This being, of course, the entire point of the series. "Battle" is a nice side theme, and Card Games are a ridiculous Plot Tumor but the whole thing is about friendship.
- Yu-Gi-Oh GX seems to be trying to carry on the tradition, while acknowledging that moving apart from your friends and doing your own thing is part of growing up.
- In the Waking the Dragons arc, Tea says "I've been giving this friendship speech for years! Hasn't it sunk in yet?"
- there is even a card based on it.
- A spoiler-laden plot twist in Read Or Die hinges on this.
- Likewise for the plot of the first Keroro Gunsou movie
- The climax and resolution of Fruits Basket revolves around this.
- Each character in Digimon Adventure has a "crest" that ties them to a particular virtue; Most of the characters had some kind of crisis related to their crests, where they started to doubt their own virtues only to pick up an Aesop just in time for a Big Damn Heroes moment. For example, Tai tried to force a digivolution and traded courage for recklessness and hubris, then ended up with the rampaging Skull Greymon, he learned to be somewhat less reckless before Agumon reached the true ultimate stage.
- Yamato's is "Friendship". Given they actually attack Tai and War Greymon at one point, he could perhaps use a few pointers. However, Yamato's crest didn't fail, in spite of almost making a Face Heel Turn, running purely the loyalty and friendshp of Gabumon had towards Yamato.
- Possibly lampshaded in the 02 episode "Storm Of Friendship" (Davis: "Maybe it's for the person who has no friends, like me.")
- Later in 02 this trope was played relatively straight, DNA digivolutions required the human partners of the digimon involved to be mentally and emotionally in sync, if they weren't getting along the meld didn't come together.
- In Naruto, one can derive a considerable amount of strength from the mere fact that you're using it to protect someone important to you (chiefly Naruto himself, but there are others). One strength-obsessed character actually gives up being a sociopath when he realizes that having friends is a more direct route to power. Allthough it doesn't sounds that nice, in part 2 he dies to protect his entire village, he does get better though.
- The Pretty Cure franchise has this as its premise. The power of every Precure is formed by their bonds with the others; the first two sets can't even transform separately. Of course, the yuri fanboys for that series have popularized the notion of "the power of Romantic Two Girl Friendship", which is sort of the same thing.
- Yes! Precure 5 also subverted this somewhat. When Rin and Karen were forced to work together to save the others, they were particularly effective — because they really rubbed each other the wrong way, and neither one of them wanted to get shown up by the other.
- And speaking of the power of Romantic Two Girl Friendship, that's how you "turn on" a Simoun.
- Most of the major battles in Sailor Moon are won via the power of forgiveness, and the friendship of the protagonists is a major source of power. (Marketing for the English dub of the anime emphasized this aspect of the series as much as it possibly could.)
- Duel Masters, as mentioned above, used this a lot, with Shobu's friends constantly helping him build and rebuild his deck, and regain his dueling spirit, among other things. Shobu's not the only one to take advantage of this... Hakuoh, the aloof Dragon of the first season, was subjected to Defeat Means Friendship, breaking through his shell, and he manages to defeat Shobu in their next game.
- The Evil General Durahan in the anime Monster Rancher specifically references this trope in an episode where the bad guys betrayed each other no less than four times in under an hour. Friendship has its benefits it seems.
- In Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, the Power Trio sticks together through sadness via pep talks and cake sharing, making it through everything thrown at them. In the series finale, Lucia and Seira reveal that, no matter what kind of pain Michal and Michel, respectively, have put them through, they still empathize with them and want to become their friends. The Power of Friendship is strong enough to actually make them waver, and Fuku panics and goes to try and take over their combined mind and body. He succeeds... but not for long, as the mermaids' friendship and forgiveness reach even him.
- Vandread pits giant killer robots from space against The Power Of Friendship. You do the math. Of course, it did help that the Nakama included a Sufficiently Advanced Alien.
- Wonderfully parodied along with many other Shounen tropes in the first episode of The Tower Of Druaga, where a Final Form Jil has been beaten by the Dark God Druaga... when the voice of a Goddess speaks in his ear, and every character shown so far, including the villains show up in spirit form to give support, including the Red Shirt who died early on of Retirony. Sadly, our hero cannot remember his name, despite remembering the correct names of all the enemies and bit persons he has encountered on his travels.
Jil: Fatina! Neeba! Kalli! And... I can't remember his name, but he's definitely one of my friends!
Utu: It's Utu!
- Fist Of The North Star plays it straight in the final battle, where Kenshiro draws power from everyone he cares about, but it's used before that when Rei, preparing to attack Raoh, yells "Everyone, lend me your strength!" before hurling himself at Raoh and using his Dangerous Forbidden Technique... and Raoh not only point-blank counters it, but hits him with an attack that kills him over three agonizing days.
- Early in the Inu Yasha manga, it's suggested that Tetsusaiga's full power can only be unlocked if it's being used to protect a mortal. This is less emphasized in the anime.
- The penultimate arc of Kinnikuman dealt with the "theft" of the heroes' Friendship Power with a number of curseddolls. This resulted in everyone abandoning our hero when he needed a partner for the tag-team Tournament Arc. Thankfully, he manages to get some help from his unaffected Obi Wan. In this troper's opinion, it was not overplayed too terribly, and made for good storytelling by showing two of the villains also had a tight-nit friendship.
- The final arc returns to the issue. Kinnikuman, stripped of the Kajiba Kuso no Djikara, his Heroic Resolve in a can, early on, is constantly shown unable to perform his old tried-and-true techniques simply because he's fighting at barely more than 1% power. His first major fight after losing the KKD is one he only starts winning when he taps into a similar, though inferior, force known as "Shin Yujo no Power", literally "Genuine Friendship Power."
- In the answer arcs of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, the protagonists believe The Power Of Friendship to be the key to Screw Destiny. In that light, the question arcs can be seen as examples of what happens when the Nakama are broken up by suspicion and distrust.
- Also used for darker purposes. See the page picture? That's Higurashi.
- The answer arcs of Higurashi do show that the power of friendship can help overcome anything...especially if one of your friends is the heiress to a family of Yakuza, a couple others are moles for the conspiracy, and a few more are cops who are incredibly skilled at hand-to-hand combat.
- The tagline is even "Higurashi is a series about "friendship"! Friends help you move...Real friends help you move bodies!"
- Magic Knight Rayearth is built entirely on this trope, but Hikaru in particular has it really bad. The OAV is even more explicit.
- Although the series is more focused on individual empowerment, Saint Seiya often indulges in The Power Of Friendship. More often than not, combining everyone's Cosmo through their friendship is the only way to overcome the current arc's Big Bad.
- This is a major theme of the Headmasters and Powermasters in Transformers. In the American continuity, the Transformers and his/her organic pilot must cooperate extremely closely in order to be an effective fighting unit. Transformers Headmasters has a technique called Head Formation, which allows the Autobot Headmasters to share energy between themselves and power up. The first time it is used, the narrator helpfully notes that we're seeing the power of friendship in action.
- Not the mention that they can literally use 'the power of friendship' to fire a great big DEATH RAY.
- Parodied in Soul Eater:
Black*Star: Now you'll get a taste of our Power of Friendship!
Soul Eater: That's right! An unfathomable, endless power!
- More to the point, they lose the fight. Horribly.
- This also demonstrates the fact that being friends is not enough on its own. If soul wavelengths don't match, you're stuck no matter how much you want to win. An exception to this seems to be the black blood, which allows the power of insanity to over-ride bad soul resonance (Maka and Soul in London), albeit by causing injury and hallucinations into the bargain.
- However, this trope does get played straight later on: Crona's Heel Face Turn, Chain Resonance, etc.
- Fushigi Yugi. Specifically, Nakago scornfully mentioning it and declaiming that it won't defeat him. And then, of course, it does.
- One Piece. Not only does the entire series practically run on friendship, Luffy sets the stage early on with an epic speech to Arlong (while beating the living daylights out of him), in which he includes all of the things his nakama can do that he can't:
Luffy: "Of course I don't know how to use a sword! I don't know anything about navigation, either! I can't cook! I've never even told a lie! I know that I can't survive without people around me to help!"
- The second favorite trope of the namesake mage guild from Fairy Tail, the first one being Nakama. Not only the characters must rely on each other to win in this manga, hurting their friends pushes Berserk Button for more than one of them, resulting in Unstoppable Rage, directed at the villain responsible. Asskicking for justice usually ensues.
- In Tokyo Mew Mew, Ichigo's Power of Friendship with Masha ups her Ribbon Stawberry Check to Ribbon Strawberry Surprise. More kickass sparkles, anyone?
- Subverted in Bleach, during Orihime's 'six hearts beat as one' speech.
- Parodied in the Karakurizer fillers.
- Taken literally in Mahou Sensei Negima, as Negi's artifact allows him to use all of his partner's artifacts, meaning that he gets stronger as he aquires more allies.
- The central plot of Twentieth Century Boys is more or less based on this trope.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann demonstrates that with friends as determined as you to Screw Destiny, anyone can destroy a force rivaling divinity...with a machine as big as a galaxy.
Comic Books
- W.I.T.C.H. also relies on this: its tagline is "The Magic of Friendship". The heroines occasionally split up to tackle a problem, and don't always suffer for it, but are explicitly weakened when one of them actually quits.
Commercials
- A set of Commercials ("Belong") for Carling lager show a group of mates in fantastic situations sticking together despite the fact they're losing out on something if they didn't. For example learning the meaning of life.
Film
Literature
- In Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40000 novel The Brothers of the Snake, the Space Marines in Damocles squad confess to Priad, their leader, that they have all pulled off a forbidden stunt: diving into a sea trench. Although they knew he would feel disgraced by it, they hoped he would not risk his life at it. (It doesn't work.)
- In the Gaunt's Ghosts novel Sabbat Martyr'', this is what saves Rawne from being subverted by Chaos.
- In Edgar Rice Burroughs's A Princess of Mars, what Tars Tarkas learns from John Carter.
"I would scarcely recognize you, John Carter, but there is no other mortal upon Barsoom who would have done what you have for me. I think I have learned that there is such a thing as friendship, my friend."
- In Ben Counter's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel Galaxy In Flames, when Tarvitz is trying to warn the betrayed Marines on Isstavan III, he invokes The Power Of Friendship to get Garro to believe his word, because of their Fire Forged Friendship.
as my honor brother I ask you to trust me like you have never trusted me before. On my life I swear that I do not lie to you, Nathaniel.
- A major theme in many of the works of Stephen King, particularly IT.
- In William King's Warhammer 40000 Space Wolf novel Wolfblade, Sven stays with Ragnar while his case is being considered by the Wolf Lords, and fumes about the injustice of its even being considered something to be tried, until Ranek shows up to send him away. Ranek admits the support does him credit, but the Wolf Lords will be angry with him if they discover it.
- A major theme in many of the works of Dean Koontz.
- In Lee Lightner's Warhammer 40000 novels:
- Sons of Fenris: Ragnar arrives at the mess hall feeling demoralized and isolated; his old company is eating, and his fellow Wolfblade, Haegr, is sitting alone. When they realize that he is there, one raises a toast, and they all pounce to talk and commiserate so eager that Haegr comes to reclaim him. Ragnar proclaims that his old company are still his battle brothers.
- Wolf's Honour: Ragnar goes to a cold and isolated spot on the Fang to think. Torin and Haegr track him down; Haegr deduces his location because whenever Ragnar is in a black mood, you can find him in the most unpleasant place where he could put himself. Ragnar admits to not telling where he was because they would have dragged him out of it as soon as they learned.
- In Graham Mc Neill's Warhammer 40000 Ultramarines novel "The Killing Ground", Leodegarius tells Uriel that Pasnius has been fiercely loyal to him. Uriel tells him that Pasanius is his friend, and that's what friends do.
- In Rick Riordan's The Last Olympian, why the Ares's cabin campers followed Sirena; they didn't guess it wasn't Clarisse because they wanted to go fight next to their friends.
- JRR Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings emphasizes this trope, particularly with the friendship between Sam and Frodo. Frodo would not have been able to make it through Mordor without Sam's help.
- A significant theme throughout the entire Harry Potter series; Word Of God has even stated that Harry, Ron, and Hermione's bond is the chief reason for Harry's success and continued survival, and that they are a case of the whole being more than the sum of its parts.
- Battle Royale where Shuya and Noriko feel that the power of friendship will get them through the program. Shogo disagrees and is proved right when the rest of their classmates betray each other and play to win. In fact in the end Shogo pretends to betray them (I'm sure more than one person thought he really did) in oreder to get the three of them out.
- The Star Wars Expanded Universe gives us a slightly lame scene wherein Jaina tries to save Zekk from The Dark Side with The Power Of Friendship. It manages not to be completely lame, but only just.
Live Action TV
- It is specifically stated in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, both within the show and in interviews with writers, that the reason Buffy has lasted so long as a Slayer compared to her predecessors is that she has friends — the so-called "Scooby Gang" — who look out for her. This is why Faith fails; she's unable to trust people and form lasting friendships.
- Oh ye of little faith... Sorry.
- Played for darker twists when it's revealed that many Slayers end up dead, not because they make physical mistakes which lose battles, but because constantly fighting demons cuts away a Slayer's ties to the world until everything she fights to protect has either died or abandoned her. With nothing they appreciate in the normal world, these Slayers become Death Seekers, and Buffy is forced to fight against her own suicidal feelings through seasons 5 and 6.
- In the Season Four climax, the Scoobies use a spell that combines all their powers into Buffy's body - becoming, in other words, The Power Of Friendship given corporeal form. They proceed to demonstrate this power by curbstomping the previously unstoppable Adam.
- This also works in Firefly. It's what Mal tries to beat into Jayne's head throughout the show, especially in "Ariel," and it's how the crew gets the better of Saffron twice.
Saffron: Everybody plays each other. That's all anybody ever does. We play parts.
Mal: You got all kinds a' learnin' and you made me look the fool without trying, yet here I am with a gun to your head. That's 'cause I got people with me, people who trust each other, who do for each other and ain't always looking for the advantage.
- Angel, like Buffy, tends to play it pretty straight (although it's generally more subdued), but lightly parodied it at least once:
Angel: You may have the attitude, and you may have the power. But there's one thing you don't have and never will: friends. Four of 'em, standin' behind you with big, heavy things.
- The "Power of Three" in Charmed relied on The Power Of Friendship to work. At one point the sisters intentionally used their powers on each others in a heated argument, which immediately caused the loss of their powers.
- Pretty much the theme in season 5 of Hercules The Legendary Journeys. In the episode "Descent", Hercules defeats D'muzi simply by screaming out Iolaus' name.
- The basic premise of Black Hole High seems to be that, at least within the Applied Phlebotinum field of the school, character flaws trump physics. In the second episode, it makes perfect logical sense that realizing that your friends care for you can cure invisibility.
- Parodied in the comedy show Stella, in which the three main characters literally use the power of friendship to create an invisible forcefield to trap a rival group of evil paperboys that have been bullying them throughout the episode. They then threaten to use the power of friendship to crush the bullies to death if they don't cut it out.
- Stella's Aesop is ALWAYS the power of friendship. ALWAYS.
- Star Trek features a lot of this; especially in The Original Series and in The Next Generation. Many episodes revolve around one of the crew being kidnapped, threatened, or otherwise in danger, and having the rest of the crew band together to save them. Has resulted in plenty of Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming and Big Damn Heroes.
- Heroes also features a lot of this, but taken to almost anvilicious (but still enjoyable) levels concerning Hiro and Ando.
- The A-Team.
- In the Doctor Who series 3 finale, Martha escapes the Master's takeover of Earth and spends one year traveling the world telling everyone about the doctor and how they're supposed to say (and believe!) "doctor" over and over during an onconming countdown. When said time arrives, everyone in the world doing this (even the Master's human followers and his own freaking wife) gives the Doctor the strength he needs to overpower the Master and undo all his evil.
- Even though they're often at each other's throats for one reason or another, the "non-judging Breakfast Club" of Gossip Girl always band together when one of them is in trouble. As Gossip Girl herself puts it, "With friends like these, who needs armies?"
Mythology
- The tyrant of Syracuse was so impressed by the friendship between Damon, who volunteered to be a hostage for Pythias's return and be executed if he did not, and Pythias, who not only returned to his execution to spare Damon but did so in spite of being captured by bandits and having to Breaking The Bonds to escape, that he pardoned Pythias for conspiring against him. Thus this is Older Than Dirt.
Video Games
- In the final battle of Jade Empire, your allies weaken the enemies that the Big Bad sends at you before you face him. The game's Karma Meter system results in a mild and possibly unintentional subversion: the only difference between being a messiah who believes in the power of friendship (Open Palm), and a tyrant who just killed all the followers who disagreed with him (Closed Fist), is you have to fight a few more enemies... It seems the power of friendship and the power of a ruthless, brutally evil martial artist are about the same.
- Mega Man Star Force harps on the importance of relationships almost constantly. In fairness, the "Brother Band" system that underpins this emphasis on relationships also confers very practical benefits. Brother Banding with NP Cs (or actual humans over Wi Fi) gives the player (or both players) bonus HP and the option to share their "favorite cards" for use in battle. This, of course, doesn't stop the game from also using it somewhat Anviliciously in other contexts, including when the main character is Lost in Space and his friends direct him back to earth using the awesome power of friendship. And not all of them are even really Brothers with him.
- Wait, it gets better! The Power Of Friendship can also apparently bring the dead back to life!
- Also, a possible subversion: in the second game, The Stoic Solo is revealed to get his own powers from being alone, and you can duplicate his powers by having no brothers and doing a special sidequest. The mode has its own set of advantages and disadvantages compared to the normal friendship bonuses.
- In another Mega Man series, Battle Network, Mega Man gains power by fusing with the "souls" of his friends, and some powerful items are only available by playing link games with other players (ostensibly, friends).
- In the later Fire Emblem games, units that spend significant time battling near each other can have what are called "Support Conversations" wherein they develop their relationships, causing them to have a boost to their offensive or defensive ability when within a short distance of each other. You heard that right: Shipping provides a strategic advantage.
- In Mario Baseball, come characters have good chemistry with other players. Moves involving two players (eg one throws the ball to the other), they are improved if those players have good chemistry with each other. This kind of friendship is represented visually by music notes.
- In Breath Of Fire II you're told that the only way to get the final dragon form to beat the Big Bad is for one of your friends to give their life. They're varying degrees of willing. It turns out that the real way to unlock it is to ignore the requirement and refuse to choose a friend, choosing to sacrifice yourself rather than others.
- Subverted in the "bad" ending of Breath Of Fire IV, in which the main character was absorbed by the villain who then proceeded to summon an enormous dragon to fight the remainder of the party. Said party spouted something about friendship, but it was quickly snuffed out by the fact that the dragon had infinite HP, which regenerated every turn, counterattacks that did thousands of damage, an attack that reduced everybody to 1 HP, and was controlled by the player. The game then proceeded to end with all of humanity being destroyed.
- In Sonic Adventure, the power of friendship unlocks the Chaos Emeralds' real power: the power to turn Sonic into a Super Saiyan as long as he maintains a supply of rings. If he runs out, though, it fails and he demonstrates instant Super Drowning Skills.
- Also Sonic Heroes. Just... Sonic Heroes.
- Also Sonic Rush, where the power of friendship allows Blaze to access the power of the Sol Emeralds and...well, see the Sonic Adventure entry.
- Part of the point behind The World Ends With You is getting Ineffectual Loner Neku to open up and cooperate with his teammates in order to survive "The Game" being played around Shibuya. Keeping close ties (or, in game terms, a high "Sync" ratio) with them increases their fighting effectiveness, since the Noise also fight in tandem.
- In Persona 3, the strength of your fused Personae is dictated by how strong your relationships with other people are. These relationships are usually platonic, but five of them are romantic, and several are of the surrogate family variety.
- In Persona's defense, however, it does not appear to be linked to "friendship". Interacting with people of a given personality type (represented by an arcana) allows the protagonist to create stronger personas of that arcana. That remains true even when he has a fight and is no longer in good terms with the person in question! This troper's take is that the heightened ability represents the protagonist's greater understanding of what makes that arcana/personality archetype tick. Might fall apart when Broken links no longer provide any benefit whatsoever, though.
- This troper believes that both the game's final battle and its ending are prime examples of this. In the former, the protagonist is forced to go up one on one against the final boss Nyx, who throws out attacks that should logically wipe him out (9999 damage in a game where the HP caps at 999) but he withstands the attacks. As his friends cheer him on from elsewhere (even the late Shinjiro) the protagonist recovers HP, and goes from surviving the attacks to dodging them to ignoring them entirely before sealing Nyx away. At this point the entire cast forgets about all their adventures - but it comes back to them all on Graduation Day thanks to a promise they all made to each other before the final fight.
- The Social Link system returns in Persona 4, with a greater emphasis placed on Friendship. In Persona 3, you are encouraged to adapt your personality to better match each personality type.. In contrast, Persona 4's social links are less about getting the other characters to like you, but more about working other characters through their problems, allowing them to face themselves and become a better person for it. Many of your social links are with party members, and having a stronger social bond with them will improve their combat abilities to the point where their Personae are upgraded to an improved form. During the game's True Final Boss fight Izanami-no-Okami attempts to use One Thousand Curses on the protagonist, only to be blocked by each active party member in turn. When the Protagonist is finally hit with the attack, every completed social link appears before him, telling him about the impact he's had on their lives and offering their support. The final social link (should you have completed it) is Nanako promising she'll be good if you wake up. (If that doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you have no soul.) The power of all these social links transforms your starter Persona into Izanagi-no-Okami, allowing you to break free from the attack and lift the fog of deceit once and for all.
- Crucial to the Kingdom Hearts series. Sora's Keyblade, and indeed all keyblades, seem drawn to individuals with strong hearts and emotions, including — and especially — friendship. But magic and normal combat also seems to operate under this trope; Donald and Goofy and all of Sora's various friends triumph repeatedly through their bonds with each other.
- In Final Fantasy IV (II in its first western release), the player's party is about to be wiped out right before the final battle, when the camera switches back to Earth, to show people sending "their prayers" to the characters. After that, several of the protagonist's friends (some dead ones too!) materialize briefly by his side with words of encouragement. Each such speech heals the members a bit, until they're at full strength again.
- The same game also turns it against you with the Four Fiends. After taking down the final Fiend, Rubicant, he realizes that you beat him because your party fought him as a team. The next time you encounter him, he's brought his fellow Fiends together and you have to fight all four of them at once.
- In Final Fantasy VI, upon reaching the Final Boss, the party responds to his nihilistic revelations by talking about all of the individual bonds they've made with one another, what they've learned throughout their individual experience, and why real love is worth risking their lives and fighting to preserve. The villain's response? "This is sickening. You should like chapters from a self help booklet!"
- In Final Fantasy IX, after a particularly distressing revelation, Zidane turns into a zombie-like Jerkass and tries to go it alone. His friends gather around him and convince him that they need each other, helping him turn back into a nice guy.
- Zidane's jerkass phase was caused by Garland apparently ripping out his soul. Before that, while he was a bit freaked out, he instantly proclaimed his allegiance to Gaia and his friends and tried to turn on his creator.
- Final Fantasy XII pulled this one twice: once when the main cast is getting ready to fly off to destroy the source of the game's Applied Phlebotinum, and again when they're just getting ready to fight the Big Bad.
- In InuYasha: Secret of the Cursed Mask, depending on which character you spend your rest days with, you gain more powerful combination attacks with said character as your in-game friendship grows (and character-specific endings, but they just follow simmilar formats).
- An argument could be made for this trope's inclusion in The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Link and the imp Midna increasingly learn to trust and rely upon one another; there's even a screencap after one battle they fight together where they look like they're posing for some kind of friendship poster. Additionally, the first item Link receives in the game is a fishing pole handcrafted by his young friend Colin; if Link pulls the fishing pole out during his final fight with the Big Bad, his enemy actually stops moving and stares at it, giving Link the opportunity to get in some hits without retaliation.
- Done at the end of Earthbound in possibly the most heartwrenching, most powerful, most incredibly meta way ever.
- Rival Schools thrives on this. The students (and teachers) in this game usually gain their strength from their bonds with their friends, and are able to triumph over loner villains in each game. It's so powerful that in each game, a mole sent by the villain (Kyosuke in United By Fate and Yurika in Project Justice) ends up switching over to the good guys because of the friendships they've developed.
- Not only do characters in Super Robot Wars get bonuses when they're next to a friend (Or rival or romantic interest), but two of the abilities a pilot can have, Trust and Faith, replenish an ally's HP - That's right, you're repairing physical damage to a Humongous Mecha through The Power Of Friendship.
- A similar system applies to Jump Ultimate Stars. If you place friends next to your playable characters in your deck, the friend will give the playable character a boost to their maximum HP.
- Done in Left 4 Dead as game mechanic. Going Rambo and your chance to die is
100% 99.999% (solo runs are being attempted, but no one yet seems to have bagged 'em all) from Smoker and Hunter. Only your friends can help you out of that.
- In the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney series, this trope is, thankfully, subtly, invoked, and called 'trust' by Detective Gumshoe. In the first game (especially the DS-exclusive 5th case) Phoenix unintentionally shows this to Edgeworth. When Edgeworth returns in the 4th case of the second, he either reminds Phoenix of this or shows it to him directly. Through the combined efforts of Wright, Edgeworth and Von Karma, Engarde is found guilty, which is called a 'miracle' in the end.
- Mia also mentions in the 2nd game that friendship is "the strogest weapon in the world and you have it in abundance". Mostly to cheer Wright up though.
- Friendship equals literal psychic power in Psychonauts—while absolutely no one will help you save the world, when you save someone's brain, they thank you by adding their psychic energies to yours, making you stronger. (Which in this case means more health.) If you reach a certain level, all of your friends start focusing their positive energies on you to cheer you to victory, and you slowly heal as you go.
- The Paper Mario series has this, and not just because switching between your immediate partners is what allows you to overcome the obstacles along the way. In each game, the climactic battle with the Big Bad begins with you getting in a few hits before he makes himself invincible somehow. Then the wishes or prayers or feelings of the friends you've made in all the places you've been enable the breaking of the barrier, so the fight can begin in earnest.
- Tales Of Hearts uses this constantly in its themes. Then it starts measuring it about a third into the game. Then, your characters start sharing abilities when their Soma Link gets high enough. And then you find out that one of the Limit Breaks has an extension which is unlocked when the character's total bond is high enough. All while never forgetting to bring it up in every other line of dialogue.
- In Disgaea 3, during the final battle. Subverted, in that while idealistic hero Almaz calls it this, Mao categorically denies that it has anything to do with friendship, claiming it's some sort of cosmic energy he was hiding in his body.
- The main character, Edge, of Star Ocean: The Last Hope will repeat the same sappy, sugary lines about the power of friendship until the player gets diabetes.
Web Comics
- In RPG World, the main character Hero's power is derived from his bond with his friends. Or at least, the two main female characters.
- This is probably the chief reason that Davan from Something Positive is still hanging in there. Granted, in this case it's the power of dysfunctional friendship, but they're nevertheless the strongest force in his life.
- Terror Island, of all comics, had this: the entire plot revolved around roommates Sid and Stephen trying to make the other buy the groceries. At the end, they report having found a grocery store. When asked which of them bought the groceries first, they say that they both did. They're asked how that's possible, and they respond "friendship". Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming.
- In Flipside, this is Blithe Spirit Maytag's entire modus operandi. She can defeat otherwise implacable villains by refusing to treat them as villains. To truly understand this, she manages to befriend a Nigh Invulnerable, cursed monster girl while that girl is eating her.
Web Original
- Survival Of The Fittest brutally subverts this every time it gets the chance. In a story where the goal is to the the last one left standing and the main moral appears to be "don't trust anybody", friendship has no place and SOTF has no qualms with showing the reader exactly why. Version 0 ends with Sydney Morvran and his friends hiding in the school building. An accidentally dropped flashbang causes them all to go insane with paranoia and butcher each other, Syd using one of them as a human shield. Groups and friendships both tend to collapse in a dramatic fashion, especially once suspicion of killers starts to go around, and people often end up being slaughtered by others who were their closest colleagues before the game.
- Of course, Battle Royale, which SOTF is based on, used this trope.
- Subverted in The Black Void
- Wyn from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes refuses to team up with the other Dimensional Guardians until he falls under the control of a monster and is subsequently freed by them, realizing that the only way he'll be able to defeat the forces of darkness is to team up with them.
- Played darkly straight in Sailor Nothing. The usual tone of this trope's use in Sailor Nothing: Himei wakes up everyday and stops herself from slitting her wrists open by reminding herself that she has friends to live for.
- When Himei is ready to lie down and die at the hands of her own Yamiko, Aki gets her up by saying, "Himei! If you die, you can't go on your date tomorrow!"
Western Animation
- Used several times in Avatar The Last Airbender. Such as shutting off an Aang's Berserk Button before he destroys the world. Also Azula's isolation and Villainous Breakdown is largely due to her inability to inspire loyalty through trust and friendship instead of fear. It was also implied that friendship can withstand generations—as in, they last lifetimes through reincarnation.
- The whole point of Barbie And The Diamond Castle.
- The Boondocks makes a Spoof Aesop out of this, with Flonominal and Thugnificent stating that the only reason to ever have friends is so that you never have to deal with your own problems like a man, instead relying on other people to take care of your problems for you.
- In the fourth season of Teen Titans, Raven, after becoming her father's portal to Earth and being transformed into a powerless, younger version of herself, is able to regain all of her powers by drawing on The Power of Friendship and cause a complete Snap Back of the global destruction Trigon caused.
- Rocket Power: Part of Reggie Rocket's pep talk in the later part of "Race Across New Zealand": "We're not just another team out here. We're friends. And that's what makes us better."
- In The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, this is lampshaded in the Show Within A Show Dinobonoids where one character boldly exclaims how useful their friendship was to destroying their enemies.
- Disney seems to like this trope a lot:
- It's never explicitly mentioned, but the theme of friendship and teamwork as key to the heroes' success underlies many of the plots in Kim Possible. Actually, in the first movie "A Sitch in Time" Shego mentions not understanding this phenomenon between Kim and Ron, but acknowledges it, and specifically made efforts to separate the two of them in order to counter it
- Mildly subverted in Recess; When playing kickball against a team of weirdly similar kids from a neighboring school, T.J. tells his friends they can beat their doppelgangers because they have The Power Of Friendship... and the camera cuts to his counterpart telling her team the same thing.
- Disney also plays this trope straight as an arrow in many of it's live stage productions, often in combination with The Power of Imagination. This troper happened to catch the end of a live show in front of Cinderella Castle last time she was in Disney World and half expected Mickey to recite the Tea quote showcased above. (And that would have just about been the most adorable thing ever.)
- Rhino the Hamster from Disney's Bolt completely believes in this trope.
- Three words: Care Bear Stare.
- Wonder Pets: What's gonna work? TEAMWORK!!
- Pretty much the major theme in Once Upon A Forest.
Truth In Television
- The relationship between Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill helped save Britain and the world from Nazi Germany. Indeed, one could easily imagine a dialog between Churchill and Hitler much like the one between Luke Skywalker and Emperor Palpatine.
- Oh man that would be so EPIC if that happened.
Churchill: Your overconfidence will surely be your downfall, (sarcastically) "Mein Führer".
Hitler: Ha, Herr Churchill. Your faith in those wretched Americans and your pitiful allies will be yours!
- Hoplites in battle, whose main strength was in trusting that they could depend on each other. Not least when They Were Spartans.
Close Truth In Television
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