History Main / ElementalBaggage

* In ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'', Hama reveals to Katara that using the water in the air is very doable, and when Firebenders imprisoned the Waterbenders from the Southern Water Tribe, they piped dry air into their cells to make sure they couldn't do anything. However, this is a more realistic instance; when they're pulling water from the air, Waterbenders only receive small portions. And when they're pulling it from living things, things tend to wither and die for quite a large area for a relatively small amount of water. Also averted with Earthbenders to the extent that keeping refined metal between them and any earth or stone is considered sufficient to imprison them... and only two have proven common wisdom wrong (one by commanding nearby stone with his exposed face, the other by figuring out how to control impurities in the metal). Though they're sometimes shown pulling boulders out of the ground without making a hole or noticeable mark in the ground [[FridgeLogic (closing said hole is also likely the result of Earthbending)]]. However, Firebenders play this (more) straight, though still not completely: whereas other benders use their ki purely to manipulate their element, Firebenders essentially transform theirs into the fire itself by superheating it, which presumably ignites the air around it. Firebenders also draw energy from the sun, to the point that firebending just doesn't work during a solar eclipse.

* In ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'', Hama reveals to Katara that using the water in the air is very doable, and when Firebenders imprisoned the Waterbenders from the Southern Water Tribe, they piped dry air into their cells to make sure they couldn't do anything. However, this is a more realistic instance; when they're pulling water from the air, Waterbenders only receive small portions. And when they're pulling it from living things, things tend to wither and die for quite a large area for a relatively small amount of water. Also averted with Earthbenders to the extent that keeping refined metal between them and any earth or stone is considered sufficient to imprison them... and only two have proven common wisdom wrong (one by commanding nearby stone with his exposed face, the other by figuring out how to control impurities in the metal). Though they're sometimes shown pulling boulders out of the ground without making a hole or noticeable mark in the ground [[FridgeLogic (closing said hole is also likely the result of Earthbending)]]. However, Firebenders play this (more) straight, though still not completely: whereas other benders use their ki purely to manipulate their element, Firebenders essentially transform theirs into the fire itself by superheating it, which presumably ignites the air around it. Firebending is arguably the closest to the [[spoiler:original bending of pure energy]] since it involves controlling energy rather than matter.

* In ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'', Hama reveals to Katara that using the water in the air is very doable, and when Firebenders imprisoned the Waterbenders from the Southern Water Tribe, they piped dry air into their cells to make sure they couldn't do anything. However, this is a more realistic instance; when they're pulling water from the air, Waterbenders only receive small portions. And when they're pulling it from living things, things tend to wither and die for quite a large area for a relatively small amount of water. Also averted with Earthbenders to the extent that keeping refined metal between them and any earth or stone is considered sufficient to imprison them... and only two have proven common wisdom wrong (one by commanding nearby stone with his exposed face, the other by figuring out how to control impurities in the metal). Though they're sometimes shown pulling boulders out of the ground without making a hole or noticeable mark in the ground [[FridgeLogic (closing said hole is also likely the result of Earthbending)]]. However, Firebenders play this (more) straight, though still not completely, as they use their own [[KiAttacks ki]] to create their fire, though they can manipulate existing flames as well. Firebending also draws power from the sun (so much so that they are completely powerless during an eclipse), and somewhat from body heat.

* In ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'', Hama reveals to Katara that using the water in the air is very doable, and when Firebenders imprisoned the Waterbenders from the Southern Water Tribe, they piped dry air into their cells to make sure they couldn't do anything. However, this is a more realistic instance; when they're pulling water from the air, Waterbenders only receive small portions. And when they're pulling it from living things, things tend to wither and die for quite a large area for a relatively small amount of water. Also averted with Earthbenders to the extent that keeping refined metal between them and any earth or stone is considered sufficient to imprison them... and only two have proven common wisdom wrong (one by commanding nearby stone with his exposed face, the other by figuring out how to control impurities in the metal). Though they're sometimes shown pulling boulders out of the ground without making a hole or noticeable mark in the ground [[FridgeLogic (closing said hole is also likely the result of Earthbending)]]. However, this is played completely straight in the case of Firebenders, who are capable of creating fire without any fuel, either because the creators [[YouFailPhysicsForever fail physics]] or deliberately wanted to give them an advantage.
** Zuko and other firebenders can create awe-inspiring amounts of flame, and [[AllThereInTheManual The Lost Scrolls]] say they take the power from the sun and surrounding environment. However, the "flame" may actually be a form of KiAttacks; "The Boy in the Iceberg" features a scene where Uncle Iroh is instructing Zuko, and relates firebending to "the breath", which is often another term for Ki.
--->'''Iroh''': No! Power in firebending comes from the ''breath'', not the muscles. The breath becomes energy in the body. The energy extends past your limbs and becomes...fire!
*** The DVDCommentary mentions that bending is directly tied to nature, and that's why firebenders lose their power during the solar eclipse. From that you could conclude that the "Ki" is what's used to channel that energy.
*** Firebending does seem to be affected by the surrounding environment. Zuko's pitifully weak fire-bending in one episode was slightly less pitifully weak at a lower altitude, fire-bending is stronger during the day, fire-bending was greatly reduced for a prisoner stuck into a freezer, and on the DVD commentary the writers mentioned that Sozin's Comet greatly empowers fire-bending due to the heat and energy caused by the friction of its movement through the atmosphere.

** Firebenders are also mentioned to use their ambient body heat as a power source; the Boiling Rock prison even uses a freezer to cut off criminal benders' abilities even for a time after they are taken out. It's also shown many times that benders are capable of enhancing existing expressions of their element: Aang uses fans (or his own breath in one instance) to create wind which he massively amplifies, when sitting near a campfire Zuko expresses his anger by making the fire flare several meters into the air.

*** Same goes for your final rosary and glaive; Her rosary contains the ice element while her glaive contains thunder. As far as techniques that have you connecting two targets on screen with a line, this just leaves the water power (which was obsolete in just about every way at that point) and the vine power (which was incredibly circumstantial and was mainly used for transportation).

*** The energy for the fire

* Most ''{{Pokemon}}'' are capable of expelling ridiculous quantities of their elements from their bodies. One episode of the anime had Squirtle fill up a whole truck with water using only his Water Gun ability. In the games, a Pokedex entry mentions that Blastoise (about the size of a van) could fill an Olympic swimming pool. How did so much water end up inside the little {{Mons}}? Nobody knows. Then again, that creature the size of a van fits in a ball the size of a clenched fist (which in the anime can become ''even smaller'').

*** The energy for the fire is not necessarily from the food, it's possible that they swallow other stuff too, and that that produces methane, [[AWizardDidIt blah blah blah]]
* The ''Film/{{X-Men}}'' films tried to justify Pyro's power by stating he could control flames, but not create them, and thus always carried a cigarette lighter around with him for ammo. They failed to explain how he could summon enough fire from a cigarette lighter to blow up multiple police squad cars. In the comics, Pyro carried a flamethrower, making his pyrokinetic displays somewhat less implausible (though even there, he can create independent animated "flame sculptures" that last without fuel as long as he concentrates on them).
** This could be explained as him simply spreading the flames via the flammable gasses in the air.
** And then there are the cartoons where the flame creatures even have ''sound effects'' (birds roar, [[TheCoconutEffect horses gallop]] and whinny, etc.)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* {{Averted|Trope}} in one of ''{{The Wheel of Time}}'' books: Rand specifically notes how dry it is in the desert, and after expanding his search in the air for hundreds of miles, just goes underground to an aquifer.
** However, also used straight; while weaving fire is often used to set people and objects on fire, as well as projecting illusions, the most common use for it is creating fireballs out of thin air. (To be fair, these are supposed to be balls of hot air held together with magic. "Fireball" just sounds better.)
** The "water from a desert" thing is used similarly in ''{{Eragon}}'', where the title character can't get enough water from the air, and attempting to control the weather to get rain would [[EquivalentExchange kill him]], so he digs a pit and uses a spell to draw up water from deep underground.
* Averted in ''{{The Lord of the Rings}}''. Gandalf the Wizard is a master of fire, but needs fuel to work with, noting that he "cannot burn snow".
* ''WildCards''' Water Lily believes that she condenses water from the air, but to account for the amounts she makes, it's later speculated that she can actually subconsciously transmute air and other matter around her into water, at one point creating a large flood.
* {{Averted|Trope}} pretty reliably in the ''{{Circle of Magic}}'' books and sequels. Tris may be an incredibly powerful "weather witch" but in order to summon rain, she has to ''bring'' it from somewhere, and to get rid of it, she has to send it somewhere else; tampering with the weather has a high ecological cost in this 'verse.
** Similarly, Tris can absorb elemental power such as volcanic heat, lightning, earthquakes, etc.--and stores it in her braids--but not really generate it.
* Played with in ''[[Discworld/GuardsGuards Guards, Guards]]'', a ''{{Discworld}}'' novel. Swamp dragons, which are small pathetic creatures kept as house pets, ''can'' breathe fire but are obsessed with fuel and frequently explode from getting the mix wrong. 'Noble dragons', the series' name for the standard fantasy fire-breathing dragon, run on magic - whether this counts as fuel or not is debatable, although magical items are seen to crumble to dust once the magic is sucked out by [[spoiler:summoning the dragon]].
* So far averted in the WhateleyUniverse. Riptide, who can control water, has had enough water to really kick ass only once - a stormy, rainy day in Boston. (But she got knocked out before she could use her powers.)
** It depends on the person, lucky mutants play this straight.
** Also there are "Manifesters," who essentially create (temporary) matter, even things as complex as plants and animals, out of nothing/psychic energy. In some of the later stories Riptide is described as being a water manifester... specifically "creating" water to fuel an apparently steam/mist propelled flying board designed for her by a friend.
* ''DresdenFiles'' by JimButcher averts this at times. While it is entirely possible to create fire, solid objects (formed from ectoplasm, they collapse when magic is no longer sustaining them), and energy through the use of a wizard's personal will, they can also channel existing energy. Emotions can also be used to power spells. Harry has frozen water by drawing heat from it to create fire and channeled the energy of a storm, but has also just created fire and tossed it around, and [[spoiler: after becoming the Winter Knight, gains the ability to create cold.]]
* Averted five times out of six in the ''CodexAlera'' series, also by Jim Butcher. Everyone has powers corresponding to at least one of six elemental "furies" of earth, air, fire, water, metal and wood. The power of people with water furies varies greatly depending on how much water is around them. Same for aircrafters, earthcrafters, metalcrafters and woodcrafters: their power is almost directly proportional to the amount of that element within easy reach. The one exception is firecrafters. Their power is countered by water, but that's just because they are elemental opposites; it has nothing to do with physics or conservation of mass or energy. A good firecrafter can make something room-temperature burst into flame instantly, as long as both it and he are dry.
** On the other hand, firecrafters are in high demand because its apparently more difficult than other disciplines.
* In ''HarryPotter'' it is explicitly stated that you can't create matter out of thin air (explaining Mrs. Weasley's ability to conjure up food to cook). During the course of the books, Harry has used a spell to shoot a stream of water from his wand and conjure flame. However, it is never explained how exactly the fire is created. Of course, we're dealing with magic so you could just say AWizardDidIt.
** Hermione explicitly says that "You cannot create food. But you can make more if you have some". So think of it what you might. (After all, one famous wizard fed thousands from a few baskets of bread and fish.)
** More specifically, food is one of Gamp's Five Untransmutables. Anything not on that list is fair game for being instantly generated.
*** Which blatantly ignores the time [=McGonagall=] transmuted a desk into a live pig...''which is nothing more than unprepared bacon, after all.''
*** It just says you can't create food out of nothing. If you could turn it into something else, you should logically (despite the whole "magic" thing) be able to turn something into food, or as the case may be ''back'' into food. It could also be because food has to have undergone some sort of reaction (i.e. being ''cooked''). I'm pretty sure some raw carrots could be summoned, or something like that.
**** Well couldn't you turn air into food then? Or dust particles? Or create an uncooked food and then cook it with magic?
*** It wouldn't surprise me if the wizards don't actually know exactly how their magic works. Dumbledore is described as doing things no one had ever done before in his fifth-year exams. Voldemort made up the whole resurrection spell. Hermione and Professor [=McGonagall=] are the kind of people who like rules and will stick to them in spite of contradictory evidence. Face it, if you can make things bigger on the inside than on the outside, brew luck, and make brooms fly at extreme velocities without so much as a single case of whiplash, who knows what's possible?
*** Just guessing here, but the problem is likely something to do with biological metabolism having trouble processing magical matter--especially if it was digested and metabolised, then removed by some magic-neutralization thing. You'd be full of microscopic holes.
*** [[WildMassGuessing Perhaps the magical world is the result of an]] [[HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Infinite Improbability Device]]?[[hottip:*:The Infinite Improbability Device (or perhaps just a Finite Improbability Device) resulted in a highly-improbable mutation that allowed its carriers to control probability in certain predefined but as-yet undiscovered ways. The [[MagicAIsMagicA supposed rules of magic]] are entirely arbitrary, as they are the result of Infinite Improbability, so anything that goes...goes.]]
* Discussed in Stephen King's ''{{Firestarter}}''. An [[GovernmentConspiracy evil scientist]] muses how titular girl's talent to conjure up huge amounts of [[PlayingWithFire thermal energy]] with a barely noticeable effort is going to mess up the theories of physics.
* {{Averted|Trope}} in the ''TheRoseOfTheProphet'' trilogy. When a wizard travels to a desert environment he teaches some locals how to cast a spell to create mist and fog in order to allow them to help captured love ones escape. He fails to remember his teachers warning never to use the spell in dry conditions and as a result all the water has to come from somewhere. Specifically from the enemies guarding the prisoners who end up as dehydrated corpses. The wizard is understandably upset to find out he accidentally caused the deaths of a few dozen people who were just doing their jobs.
* A version of this appears in {{The Death Gate Cycle}}. The magic in the books is based on possibilities. So if a wizard is going to cast a fireball, he shapes the waves of reality to find a possible situation where a ball of flame could be hurled through the air. Or if he is being shot by an arrow, he can turn air into solid shield in front of him. No need to really know why, just that there is a CHANCE that the effect might be possible. Only limitation is that more complex spells take longer to prepare. For example in the books the main character prepares weapons with enhancement to kill with each hit. They take hours to prepare (scratching runes into metal) and even a small mistake in rune carving means he must begin everything from the scratch.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* In ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', Angela's sister Alice is able to control the weather like Storm.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In ''DungeonsAndDragons'', this is {{Hand Wave}}d through the Elemental Planes of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, from which these elements can be summoned, and which double as exotic adventuring locales. If you're actually ''on'' those planes, spells involving the plane's element get a free power boost, while spells involving their opposed element -- fire/water or earth/air -- are much harder to cast.
** Which, unfortunately, doesn't explain where the energy comes from to power sonic attacks.
*** Most sonic attacks are used by ''[[AWizardDidIt wizards]]''--that, or they just have tiny, powerful subwoofers in their wands.
**** Also consider 'create food' spells, does that mean there is a 'plane of gruel'?
* In ''{{Exalted}}'', the Dragon-Blooded don't ''need'' elemental baggage. They '''''are''''' elemental baggage, scions of a long line of elemental heroes, sons and daughters of the (obviously) Immaculate Dragons.
* ''ChangelingTheLost'' accounts for this with the Contract of Elements. Level 3 requires that the element actually ''be'' there before you can control it... but level 4 of the Contract allows you to summon a large quantity from elsewhere if there's none available.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Used heavily within ''{{City of Heroes}}'' and its sister game, ''{{City of Villains}}''. Superpowered characters and {{NPC}}s regularly toss lightning, summon fire in a variety of forms, create blizzards or jagged shards of ice, even generate radioactive material on demand. Made most obvious during Hurl, which picks up a chunk of rock off the ground and tosses it, even when used in the middle of an ocean or on top of an empty shipping container, or in ''mid-air''.
** Or Propel, which materializes things like crates and pool tables for you to (you guessed it) propel at the enemy.
*** This, however, is explicitly stated to be a form of teleportation; it's a Gravity Control power.
**** And [[ImprobableWeaponUser it]] [[RuleOfCool is]] [[RuleOfFunny awesome]].
***** Doubly so when you discover that no two players see the same object. "Nice lamppost!" "That was a desk."
* [=RyuKoOh=] in ''SuperRobotWars'' averts this with the "Mountain Pressure" attack. It drops a ''mountain'' from a few hundred feet over an enemy's head; but this is a specific holy mountain, which is returned after it's used.
** This is ''SuperRobotWars'', the game where under the right circumstances, a technique shown to be destroying the Universe does ''ten'' damage, in a series where unit health is usually in the ''thousands''. WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief is required when you start the game up.
* ''GoldenSun'' contains some pretty good examples of this, such as characters freezing small puddles of water into huge ice pillars.
** Don't you know? Water expands a billion times when it freezes in that verse.
*** If they were 'small puddles' you'd [[SuperDrowningSkills be able to walk through them]], making this more a case of 'who the hell put these boreholes everywhere?'
*** In a few instances in the sequel one must provide the water for the puddle by using a spell to fill a small indentation with water before it can be frozen, so it really is just a small puddle. However, since most of the magic in the game is situational (several of the cooler sounding magic will only work with certain terrain features, notably the "hover" and "teleport" spells), this is easily handwaved.
* The ''Game/MegaMan'' and ''MegaManX'' games partially avert this. The weapons and tools are fueled by their own energy reserves, but where do the heroes get the materials for things like giant scissor blades, ''a damn meteor shower,'' barriers made of jewels, homing missiles, tornadoes, etc?
** The meteor shower at least, is semi-Justified by it actually being a [[HardLight materialized hologram]].
* ''{{Okami}}'' also uses this one, where paintbrush techniques can pull various elements across the screen. It gets really bad when later brush techniques can pull these elements out of nowhere. Then again, we are talking about gods here....
** Interestingly, late-game weapons double as literal Elemental Baggage - if you need a stream of fire, you can just pull it from your flaming disc weapon.
*** Which uses up a whole lot less ink then making it appear out of thin air.
* In ''SuperSmashBros'', among other obvious examples, Charizard can always grab a boulder from just under his feet and smack someone with it.
** Ahem. Wario's motorbike. It's larger than he is, and while he can only have one out, he can get a new one instantly after it's smashed to pieces, falls of the stage or gets ''eaten'' by him.
* ''TeamFortress2'': Pyro apparently took night classes in this trope seeing as one of his taunts produces fire out of thin air.
** It's a [[StreetFighter hadouken]], so the "fire" is actually [[AmbiguousGender his/her]] concentrated ''chi''.
* Any ''FinalFantasy'' game, as well as most {{RPG}}'s in general, as magic usually allows you to make flames, ice chunks, etc. appear out of thin air. Although you do have to sacrifice some [[ManaMeter MP]].
* ''DungeonCrawl'' generally plays this straight, but makes an exception for summoning elementals and the Sandblast spell. Elementals require a large source of the element in question (Air and Earth are pretty easy; fire and water are tricky), and Sandblast works best if the caster is holding a large stone, or else it has to use the ambient grit
* ''MagicalStarSign'' does this with each character being able to manipulate a specific element, in order to put out a forest fire (On a [[PlanetOfHats Forest World]] the characters had to use their powers together in order to crush a rock, create a spring, and then spread the water.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'', Hama reveals to Katara that using the water in the air is very doable, and when Firebenders imprisoned the Waterbenders from the Southern Water Tribe, they piped dry air into their cells to make sure they couldn't do anything. However, this is a more realistic instance; when they're pulling water from the air, Waterbenders only receive small portions. And when they're pulling it from living things, things tend to wither and die for quite a large area for a relatively small amount of water. Also averted with Earthbenders to the extent that keeping refined metal between them and any earth or stone is considered sufficient to imprison them... and only two have proven common wisdom wrong (one by commanding nearby stone with his exposed face, the other by figuring out how to control impurities in the metal). Though they're sometimes shown pulling boulders out of the ground without making a hole or noticeable mark in the ground [[FridgeLogic (closing said hole is also likely the result of Earthbending)]]. However, this is played completely straight in the case of Firebenders, who are capable of creating fire without any fuel, either because the creators [[YouFailPhysicsForever fail physics]] or deliberately wanted to give them an advantage.
** Zuko and other firebenders can create awe-inspiring amounts of flame, and [[AllThereInTheManual The Lost Scrolls]] say they take the power from the sun and surrounding environment. However, the "flame" may actually be a form of KiAttacks; "The Boy in the Iceberg" features a scene where Uncle Iroh is instructing Zuko, and relates firebending to "the breath", which is often another term for Ki.
--->'''Iroh''': No! Power in firebending comes from the ''breath'', not the muscles. The breath becomes energy in the body. The energy extends past your limbs and becomes...fire!
*** The DVDCommentary mentions that bending is directly tied to nature, and that's why firebenders lose their power during the solar eclipse. From that you could conclude that the "Ki" is what's used to channel that energy.
*** Firebending does seem to be affected by the surrounding environment. Zuko's pitifully weak fire-bending in one episode was slightly less pitifully weak at a lower altitude, fire-bending is stronger during the day, fire-bending was greatly reduced for a prisoner stuck into a freezer, and on the DVD commentary the writers mentioned that Sozin's Comet greatly empowers fire-bending due to the heat and energy caused by the friction of its movement through the atmosphere.
** It's mostly averted though in that both Katara and Toph have been seen to run out of bendables, in one case leading to Katara doing some rapid exercise so she could sweat to make her own.
** Firebenders are also mentioned to use their ambient body heat as a power source; the Boiling Rock prison even uses a freezer to cut off criminal benders' abilities even for a time after they are taken out. It's also shown many times that benders are capable of enhancing existing expressions of their element: Aang uses fans (or his own breath in one instance) to create wind which he massively amplifies, when sitting near a campfire Zuko expresses his anger by making the fire flare several meters into the air.
*** An interesting example of firebending manipulating existing heat pops up in "The Avatar and the Fire Lord." During one of Roku's flashbacks, Fire Lord Sozin is shown drawing the heat out of a volcano's erupting lava and directing it into the air to cool it into solid rock. Interestingly enough, he is using the same stance and technique that Iroh would demonstrate a century later for redirecting a firebender's lightning.
** This also makes the titular Airbenders ([[LastOfHisKind the last one left anyway]]) quite formidable, as they effectively never run out of element to bend. [[FridgeBrilliance Likely why the Fire Nation wiped them out first]].
*** Actually, the Fire Nation chose to wipe out the Airbenders first because they knew that next Avatar, following the normal Avatar Cycle, would be born into the Air Nation.
** For the [[Film/AvatarTheLastAirbender live-action adaptation]], the rules for firebending have been refined and slightly redefined: most firebenders work from an existing fire source and the weaponry of the Fire Nation armies is build around the tactic of spreading fire sources onto the battlefield for the benders to use. Only advanced masters - Iroh, Ozai, eventually Zuko - can conjure fire using ki powers. Unfortunately, this runs into a problem when firebenders start using fire from nearby torches which could be easily extinguished by their opponents.
* In ''{{Chaotic}}'', the Liquilizer is capable of refilling itself with just the water in the air.
* Truly {{Averted|Trope}} in ''{{Captain Planet and the Planeteers}}'': The Ring of Water could only control existing bodies of water. Used straight with the Ring of Fire, though.
** And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire, the ring of fire. (Sorry)
** Looking closely at the rings, what is noticeable is that Earth, Wind, and Water are Gold rings while Fire and Heart are Silver. The golden rings require external sources, while the silver rings come from within. Since most of their battles took place on land, The Ring of Earth has plenty of Earth to tap into; and the Ring of Wind can tap into the Air practically everywhere. As fire requires several factors to come together in order to happen naturally, a person's inner fire better suits the Ring of Fire.
* Averted in ''{{WITCH}}'' for the most part. Taranee is shown to absorb and exert heat from the human body, which is the source of her fire as she is shown to be unable to conjure fire when the heat from her body was drained away from her in "S is for Self". Irma also needs moisture in the air to create water. Cornelia subverts this the most when her element is useless in "N is for Narcissist" where the fighting takes place in a floating fortress in the sky with no plant-life at all.
--->'''Cornelia''': Plants don't exactly grow in thin air, you know.
** And again in "V is for Victory" when she's resorted to using algae in the school's pool for her main source of attack, to which she is criticized for by her teammates.
--->'''Cornelia''': Hey, I'm working with what I got here.
** Hay Lin controls air, which tends to be in abundance everywhere. Will controls Quintessence, the mythical fifth element which can be forgiven for being conjured; though it takes the form of lightning, which comes directly from the static on her body as she is shown to be glimmering with static electricity, especially her hair which stands on end at times as well as shocking people randomly when they touch her.
** The way it works is that they're able to use the power of the Aurameres (or in their absence their own LifeEnergy) to amplify what they can naturally generate. So Will can turn a static spark into a lightning storm but can't use it if she can't start up the spark (like if she's wet) and Taranee can turn a small amount of her body heat/other heat released into a giant fireball but can't make one if she's too cold to release a little bit.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other]]
* In ''{{Bionicle}}'', each Toa wield an element. To control it, they need elemental energy that slowly recharges itself when not in use, or by absorbing their own element. This energy allows them to create their element out of thin air (shooting fire or water), or to control nearby supplies of it (earthquakes, wind, etc.). As soon as they run out, however, they can't do a thing.
[[/folder]]
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<<|HyperspaceIndex|>>
<<|SpeculativeFictionTropes|>>

* Captain Hitsugaya from ''{{Bleach}}'' and, [[spoiler:later on, Rukia]] can create massive pillars of ice around enemies. In one battle Hitsugaya explicitly states that he uses "water in the atmosphere" to do so.
** He only said he uses atmospheric water to regenerate his bankai. The huge amounts of ice don't really flood things when they melt, so perhaps they're just temporary.
** Dry Ice? What.

Related to ShapeshifterBaggage and the HyperspaceMallet. Often implied for SnowMeansCold.

->''Unbelievable! For him to be able to use such a water jutsu where there is no water.''
--> -- '''[-ANBU-] Captain''', ''{{Naruto}}''

** The "water from a desert" thing is used similarly in ''{{Eragon}}'' Eragon can't get enough water from the air, and attempting to control the weather to get rain would [[EquivalentExchange kill him]], so he digs a pit and uses a spell to draw up water from deep underground.

** ''UltimateFantasticFour'' had Johnny become a walking fusion reactor; his entire body has reconfigured itself to be as perfect an energy store as possible (which results in some bad effects on his health, as you might expect for someone who turns his stores of body fat into ''plasma''). WarrenEllis tried ''very'' hard to justify Johnny.

*** The UltimateUniverse manages to justify it...sort of. In this universe, Johnny excretes a chemical which combusts on contact with air (just like the original Golden Age Human Torch--that's right, the gritty, realistic(-ish) version of Marvel borrowed from the Golden Age). He also has a protective layer of microscopic scales to protect him from this flame. Though that still doesn't explain how he flies...

* Storm from the ''Comicbook/{{X-Men}}''. This was used to (sort of) explain that she can ''control'' weather, but not really ''create'' it. (For instance, when she makes it rain ''inside'' a room, it becomes much drier ''outside''.)

* ''TheIncredibles'' had Frozone using water that's either in the air or in his body, and one scene suggests that the air is too dry and he's short on body water so he's screwed, but after a single drink from a cup from a water cooler, he creates enough ice to entirely cover a man and ''stop a bullet''.
** To be fair, he was also in a situation where there was much more water in the air, being that the building he was in was not ''on fire''. Maybe he just needed to recharge ''himself'' in order to access the environmental resources?
** On [[FridgeLogic further consideration]], however, the primary waste produced by burning organic compounds is [=CO2=] and [=H2O=], so the burning building should have actually had ''[[DidNotDoTheResearch more]]'' water.
*** But again, he specifically points out that it's too hot for him to use any of it, because it evaporates as soon as tries.
**** But then again again, evaporated water is still water.
**** It may still be water, but his powers aren't general water manipulation, they're specifically ''freezing''. So it makes perfect sense for the fire to make this difficult or impossible.
**** True, there was water, but it was too hot. This is why he drank the water. By using the water, he cools ta small area of air giving him total access to all water molecules in that specific area. And when he uses up those molecules in that cooled air to cool down more air, you can see how this goes.
**** Its like a nuclear bomb! Splitting atoms is similar to Frozone's Powers! :D

* {{Averted|Trope}} in the ''TheRoseOfTheProphet'' trilogy. When a wizard travels to a desert environment he teaches some locals how to cast a spell to create mist and fog in order to allow them to help captured love ones escape. He fails to remember his teachers warning never to use the spell in dry conditions and as a result all the water has to come from somewhere. Specifically from the enemies guarding the prisoners who end up as dehydrated corpses. The wizard is understandably upset to find out he accidentally caused the deaths of a few dozen people who where just doing their jobs.

* ''MahouSenseiNegima'' often has characters summoning giant chunks of ice, balls of fire, pillars of stone, etc. out of nowhere. It's [[AWizardDidIt magic]], though, so no one seems to care.
** Just to show that the author did his homework on this subject, it is AllThereInTheManual that high level ice magic is harder than high level fire magic because [[ShownTheirWork it breaks more Laws of Thermodynamics]].

* A version of this appears in {{The Death Gate Cycle}}. The magic in the books is based on possibilities. So if a wizard is going to cast a fireball, he shapes the waves of reality to find a possible situation where a ball of flame could be hurled through the air. Or if he is being shot by an arrow, he can turn air into solid shield in front of him. No need to really know why, just that there is a CHANCE that the effect might be possible. Only limitation is that more complex spells take longer to prepare. For example in the books the main character prepares weapons with enhancement to kill with each hit. They take hours to prepare (scratching runes into metal) and even a small mistake in rune carving means he must begin everything from the [[Incredibly Lame Pun scratch]].

** Not so much in the manga. Almost at the end of the third arc, the day is saved because Blue's Blastoise had run out of water [[spoiler:and she filled it with flammable water from a mystical healing spring]].

** The manga actually says that he's using hydrogen. Hydrogen is highly flammable (although it doesn't burn very hot), which is why a room filled with water is actually a ''good'' thing for him. Provided he's got an alternative source of sparks, that is.
*** This still makes no sense if you know any chemistry. The Hydrogen in water and the Hydrogen in Hydrogen gas are completely different substances, chemically. It's like tripping and falling down three flights of stairs when you're already in the basement... there's no logic to it, if you understand gravity.
**** Well, it's still hydrogen, just hydrogen that's bonded to oxygen. Presumably, his alchemy circles break the molecular bonds and pull the hydrogen out, in the form of gas, pooling it into whatever shape he chooses.
** A much more ridiculous example is Basque Gran making weapons from ''the iron in his blood''. Besides that not being nearly enough for all the weapons he makes, removing so much from his body at once should kill him (or at least knock him out) since your red blood cells need it to carry around oxygen.
*** His name may be "The Iron Blood Alchemist", but it's never stated that he uses the iron in his body. In fact, he uses the iron present in gauntlets he brings with him. [[VoodooShark Although those gauntlets aren't big enough to contain the amount of weapons he usually creates...]]

** For the [[Film/AvatarTheLastAirbender live-action adaptation]], the rules for firebending have been refined and slightly redefined: most firebenders work from an existing fire source and the weaponry of the Fire Nation armies is build around the tactic of spreading fire sources onto the battlefield for the benders to use. Only advanced masters - Iroh, Ozai, eventually Zuko - can conjure fire using ki powers. Unfortunately, this [[{{Wallbanger}} runs into a problem]] when firebenders start using fire from nearby torches which could be easily extinguished by their opponents.

**** Also consider 'create food' spells, does that mean their is 'plane of gruel'?

*** Most sonic attacks are used by ''[[AWizardDidIt wizards]]''.