"The war is not over. And I promise you, friend, the true enemy won't wait out the storm. He brings the storm."
— Jon Snow, Game of Thrones
Some characters don't just summon bad weather out of their own will. They will be always accompanied by rain, snow or even drought wherever they go and the only way to bring the sun (or just the normal weather) back is to kill them outright or, in non-lethal cases, imprison them for good. Because of the nature of this trope, characters having this power are perceived by most as extremely destructive and their arrival triggers a Mass "Oh, Crap!".
A Sub-Trope of Weather Manipulation and a possible source of Perpetual Storm. If said person is a ruler, the result is a variant of the Fisher King. See also Personal Raincloud and compare Walking Wasteland.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Fairy Tail: Juvia always brings rain with her whenever she goes, without any control over it. She has not seen the sun in years. It turns out the perpetual rain was the result of her feeling lonely and depressed this whole time, and once she becomes friends with the guild it ceases. It starts again after the Time Skip after Grey — who she is in love with — becomes withdrawn himself.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Walpurgisnacht is a Witch so powerful that instead of producing a labyrinth she produces storms powerful enough for her to toss skyscrapers around. This essentially makes her a living Weather-Control Machine that levels any city that happens to be in her way.
- In the Medabots anime, during the International Tournament Arc, a Canadian Robattler arrives in town to challenge Ikki, at the same time a massive snowstoom hits. He claims that he brought the storm with him, causing Ikki to briefly question if such a thing was possible. The challenger then admits that, no, he didn't cause the storm, people can't control the weather.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: Dungeon Keepers can influence the weather above their dungeon, and Ami wants storms, because she wants water.
Films — Live Action
- In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), once Ghidorah is awoken, he generates a perpetual hurricane filled with yellow lightning around himself which follows him wherever he goes and gets more powerful the longer he's active. And when Ghidorah takes over as the ruling alpha from Godzilla and leads the Titans toward creating an extinction event, his Weather Manipulation begins spreading offshoot storms around the globe, and it's overall suggested that if Ghidorah hadn't been stopped he would've enveloped the entire planet in endless storms. Only his death at the hands (and mouth) of Godzilla brings the storm to an end.
Literature
- The Belgariad:
- The Mad God Torak brings oppressive cloud cover wherever he goes because the sun itself refuses to shine on him.
- Vordai the witch cursed the mob that attacked her to be surrounded by endless rain wherever they went.
- Rob McKenna, a minor character in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, claims that it always rains wherever he goes, and he has a weather journal to prove it. The narration reveals that he's actually a rain god who is completely oblivious to his own divinity, and as such he compels the clouds to "be near him, to love him, to cherish him and to water him."
Live-Action TV
- Game of Thrones: This is the reason why the land beyond the Wall is perpetually covered in snow. The very existence of the Night King keeps the land frozen and devoid of life (except for the living dead). In the episode "The Long Night", the Night King uses this ability to disorient the forces of the living and freeze the trench which was supposed to keep the undead at bay. Three seasons earlier, in the episode "Hardhome", he starts a surprise attack on the Wildling settlement by enveloping the outer territory with a thick fog to cover the arrival of his forces. Upon his death, it is heavily implied his influence starts fading away for good.
- The X-Files: The "villain" of the week in "The Rain King" turns out to sit somewhere between conscious Weather Manipulation and this trope, in that he can control the weather quite well when he is calm and focused, but whenever he is emotionally distraught (such as due to unrequited love), the weather around him goes out of control (such as when he inadvertently summons a massive thunderstorm at the end of the episode, which immediately dissipates when his crush agrees to go out with him).
Mythology & Religion
- Some versions of Native American Mythology hold that the thunderbird actively creates storms as it flies. The flashing of its eyes makes lightning and the beating of its giant wings causes thunder.
Sports
- A common idiom in baseball is a ball hit so high (home run or not) it could bring rain. New York Yankees' Josh Donaldson is quite prolific at hitting homers with such towering azimuths that he has the nickname "The Bringer of Rain."
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Third Edition: The Xixecal, a Semi-Divine abomination of elemental ice, emanates deadly cold that keeps its surroundings in Endless Winter.
- Fifth Edition:
- Some dragons are powerful enough that their presence alters the environment around their lair. Black dragons cause Ominous Fog; blue dragons cause perpetual lightning storms; and white dragons cause snow and hail.
- The Storm Sorcery subclass of Sorcerer is this, summoning weather events wherever they go. They can harness these innate abilities for flight, resilience against storms, and even grant these abilities to their allies. They're an invaluable resource to any ship's crew.
- Promethean: The Created: The Divine Fire that animates Prometheans begins to corrupt the environment if they stay too long in one area. Frankensteins cause lightning storms, Galateids cause unnatural calm, and Nepri cause drought, to say nothing of their effect on humans.
- Warhammer 40,000: Njal Stormcaller passively makes the weather around him get worse every turn, at first slowing movement or reducing visibility until every enemy in range is getting pounded by lightning bolts every turn.
- Warhammer The ancient dragon-ogre Kholek Suneater made a pact with the Chaos Gods so terrible, that it is said the sun has refused to shine upon him ever since — wherever he goes, storm clouds gather, earning him the epithet "Herald of the Tempest". However, it's not exactly a drawback, as dragon-ogres are sustained by lightning.
- Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: The Beastclaw Raiders are a collection of Ogor Mawtribes who are cursed and harried by a neverending, brutal blizzard they call the Everwinter. No one is really sure what causes the Everwinter either, with some saying it's a punishment from their god, Gorkamorka, while others think it's the physical manifestation of some Sealed Evil in a Can their ancestors unleashed. Either way, they're culture has evolved to become extremely mobile, even more so than the already nomadic Mawtribes usually are, in order to stay one step ahead of the storm.
Video Games
- Final Fantasy XIV:
- Garuda, Lady of the Vortex, brings twisters and tornadoes wherever she goes. In fact, the heroes struggle to reach her lair at all because of the enormous wind storm that would tear apart any airship short of Cid Garlond's Enterprise. The cutscene preceding her fight also has her descending from the sky as the winds pick up around her before the battle opens in the eye of the storm.
- The coming of Susano, Lord of the Revel, instantly turns clear blue skies into a rain storm. The rain escalates into a torrential downpour as Susano assails the party with thunderbolts and gushing waves in the final phase of the fight.
- Monster Hunter: a handful of Elder Dragons with mastery over the Wind element have enough power to summon storms:
- Monster Hunter 2 (dos): Kushala Daora, a wind manipulator that is capable of casting a downpour in the tropical areas where it appears, as well as a dense snowstorm in the cold mountains.
- Monster Hunter 3 (Tri):
- Alatreon, which is so elementally unstable it directly screws up the weather for miles around, with far-reaching knock-on effects.
- Dire Miralis in 3 Ultimate is a powerful Elder Dragon with volcanic humps that boil the local ocean even when it isn't sinking entire islands.
- Monster Hunter Portable 3rd: Amatsugamatsuchi (whose name can be translated as "Heavenly God of Calamity") lives inside hurricanes and only its death brings back the sunshine in the wrecked landscape where it's fought.
- Monster Hunter: World: Zorah Magdaros, a monster that completely disrupts the tides in a wide area thanks to a combination of being a living volcanic vent and sheer size.
- The Pathless: Fiery thunderstorms follow the corrupted spirits everywhere they go, at least until it's time to fight them to unlock the next area. These storms can appear various places in the game world and move wherever the corrupted spirit does. Getting too close results in the player being engulfed by the storm and entering into a Stealth-Based Mission.
- Pokémon: Some legendary Pokémon have this ability:
- Lugia. According to its Pokédex entry, Lugia sleeps on the bottom of the sea to avoid this trope. For instance, a Pokédex entry states that it can unleash a 40-day storm by flapping its wings.
- Groudon and Kyogre. Being the creators of the landmasses and the seas, both Pokémon can be considered living forces of nature. Kyogre's awakening brings not just a storm, but the Pokémon equivalent of The Great Flood. This power is backed up by its in-game ability, Drizzle. Conversely, Groudon's presence intensifies the strength of sunshine to the point of provoking droughts. As in the case of Kyogre, this power is proven by its in-game ability, properly named Drought.
- Thundurus and Tornadus. According to their Pokédex entries, the former constantly fires off lightning bolts and leaves nothing but charred remains in his wake, while the latter zooms through the sky so fast it blows away everything in his path. The tails of their Incarnate Forms generate thunderstorms that can be tracked in-game (by land in Pokémon Black and White and in Soaring Mode in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire). Their power is further referenced in the folktale of "the Great Landorus", according to which the two Forces of Nature wreaked enough destruction across Unova that their leader, Landorus, had no choice but to stop them.
- Skylanders: The Darkness, as well as many of the characters empowered by it, are constantly surrounded by storm clouds, meant to symbolize how dangerous it is and why it's so feared.
- As you'd expect from the title, the villain of the 8-bit game Stormbringer has the power to attack using the weather; a cloud follows the player and will strike her with lightning if she stands still for too long.
- Tokyo Afterschool Summoners: Chernobog is known as the "Dark Lord of Bald Mountain" for the countless heroes he's slain; once an intruder steps foot on his mountain, they're frozen solid and entombed in ice. Should he leave his mountain's slopes, any place he goes becomes part of the mountain and engulfed in a terrible blizzard that kills the inhabitants... which is a bit of a problem as he's actually suffering from Power Incontinence and is a genuinely nice person who's metaphorically trapped by his power as well.
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Gleeoks are perpetually surrounded by weather that reflects their element; Fire Gleeoks make the ambient air hot enough to cause heatstroke, Ice Gleeoks the reverse, causing hypothermia, and Lightning Gleeoks are surrounded by perpetual thunderstorms. In all cases, the only way to remove the harmful weather is to slay the Gleeok in question.
