History Main / HolyHandGrenade

* In ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' there is a rather literal example of this trope where Castiel uses a molotov cocktail full of holy oil to take out Michael, if only for a few minutes. Many higher tier angels have this ability as well, the most predominate example being Raphael.

** While the exact limits and powers of [[spoiler:the other articles of Christ's Crucifixion, the Plaque bearing his name, the Crown of Thorns, the true Shroud of Turin, the Spear that pierced Jesus, and the Holy Grail]] are presenty undefined, when Harry discovers them he explicitly calls them weapons. They are so powerful, they have been guarded by Hades for a long time until people smart enough to bypass his gates make it inside.

*** Considering that the wielders are explicitly called "Knights of the Cross", they're a surprisingly eclectic bunch. The first wielder introduced, Michael, is a devout Christian (though very much of the "love your neighbor" variety rather than the take-no-prisoners KnightTemplar sort that might be expected). The ones encountered later ... well, one is sort of technically Christian by accident (when a missionary asked if he'd like to "meet the King," he thought it was a reference to Elvis), one is a self-avowed atheist, and one is Jewish. And Harry, whose attitude towards the Almighty can be summed up as "I'm reasonably sure He exists, but I'm not sure I like Him" is the guardian (though not the wielder) of a couple of the swords for a while.

* The Catholic icon of The Sacred Heart of Christ depicts a white-robed Jesus, holding the front of his robes open to reveal [[https://aleteia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/web3-sacred-heart-jesus-christ-shutterstock_243797071.jpg?quality=100&strip=all a stylised heart, radiating light, and surmounted by a cross]]. The problem is... this rather kitsch image, to the irreverent, has been likened to Jesus proferring a hand-grenade for use by the righteous. It may well have been [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail Python]]'s inspiration for The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

[-[[caption-width-right:300:Saying "Holy Crap!" would be appropriate here.]]-]

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy4 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/epic_fantasy_holy_bomb_6016.jpg]]]]

* OlderThanFeudalism: A plague here, a pillar of fire there, giant floods, and add a dash of killing every first-born not in a marked house, and you've got [[Literature/TheBible Old Testament]] Holy [[{{Metaphorgotten}} and a whole lotta spare water.]]
** Atypical in that half of those listed served to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the Egyptian gods (each of the Ten Plagues directly attacked domains central to the various deities of Egyptian polytheism), and that the most commonly referenced pillar of fire was never used offensively.
*** Sodom and Gomorrah on the other hand, got a first hand taste of Heavenly Fire. [[DoNotTauntCthulhu Do not displease Old Testament God]].
** While there certainly are Holy Hand Grenade moments in the Old Testament, they're actually not that common, especially not after the Exodus. Those who think the Old Testament is all floods and plagues clearly haven't read it.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah Elijah]] probably could have pulled off the title of [[BadAssPreacher Holy Hand Grenadier]]. He seemingly introduced [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Flame Strike]] as a combat spell, having called down columns of fire on two different groups of 50 soldiers each. He pulled the same stunt earlier on a sacrifice to [[GiveMeASign Show up]] the [[ReligionOfEvil Priests of Baal]] after mocking their ineffectual attempts to do the same.
*** When Elisha was mocked by a group of youth, he cursed them in the name of the Lord, resulting in 42 of them being mauled by bears.
** Also, the walls of Jericho were taken down by seven days of trumpeting and God's very own intervention.
** Not that it was ever used offensively, but TheArkOfTheCovenant had wooden handles because anyone that touched it directly was killed as though struck by lightning. This combines with the design of the Ark to make some think it was an electrical generator or something, possibly with sparks arcing between the two angel statues when in use.
** The Ark was once captured by Israel's enemies, who later ''brought it back'' because it was causing ... well, we're not sure exactly what the word used meant. Could be "tumors", could be "hemorrhoids". They even threw in some golden tumor/hemorrhoids as a bribe to convince the Israelites to take it off their hands.
** In the New Testament, two of Jesus' disciples, not having got their heads round the whole "love your enemies" part of his teaching yet, offered to call down a flame strike on a village which had rejected him. [[AvertedTrope Jesus rebuked them for suggesting it, and just went on to another village.]]

A SuperTrope to ReviveKillsZombie, TurnUndead.

A SubTrope of ElementalPowers.

* The Catholic icon of The Sacred Heart of Christ depicts a white-robed Jesus, holding the front of his robes open to reveal [[https://aleteia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/web3-sacred-heart-jesus-christ-shutterstock_243797071.jpg?quality=100&strip=all a stylised heart, radiating light, and surmounted by a cross]]. The problem is... this rather kitch image, to the irreverent, has been likened to Jesus proferring a hand-grenade for use by the righteous. it may well have been monty Python's inspiration for The holy hand Grenade of Antioch.

** Holy Word is a high-level spell that has various [[BrownNote damaging effects]] on non-Good creatures nearby. Unfortunately, going by standard D&D demographics, speaking a Holy Word on a busy street would probably strike three quarters of the crowd dead on the spot.

* Most of the weapons used by [[ChurchMilitant the Magdalene Order of Exorcists]] in ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' are some form of {{Holy Hand Grenade}}s. There's holy ammunition in the form of Sacreds (regular bullets with holy oil inside to act as a small explosive) and the more powerful Gospels (bullets made with alchemical silver, inscribed with holy runes, and packed with holy oil), a sword in which the handle is a cross and the blade is made out of some sort of holy energy, etc.

** While there certainly are HolyHandGrenade moments in the Old Testament, they're actually not that common, especially not after the Exodus. Those who think the Old Testament is all floods and plagues clearly haven't read it.

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* Shows up in the ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'' series as the Holy element. The page image is the cutscene from Natalie's Genesis LimitBreak in the fourth game, which blasts enemies for a ''lot'' of Holy damage, heals the party, and revives any dead members. Natalie also gets the Judgement spell, which is Holy-elemental and has the greatest damage output of any single-target spell.

** All of the Church Executors (among which Ciel is a member of the elite Burial Agency) in the {{Franchise/Nasuverse}} are capable of using weapons powered by faith, the most widespread of which are the Keys of Providence, who have the ability to impose natural laws on their targets (for a vampire this means their body is forcibly brought back to human. ''Dead'' human, with the additional effect of falling to dust if the vampire is old enough) and, in case of the blade-like Black Keys (the most seen type of Key of Providence), stopping them cold if they hit their shadows.

* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'':
** It's a Disney - Final Fantasy mashup with plenty of [[LightEmUp light-powered]] characters, so it does this a lot:

** Sunlight in a handkerchief is a potent, if limited battery, weapon against the Red Court. The catch is that you have to be genuinely happy to make it.

** This has been quietly ignored in recent years and as it happens, Thor can be hit with his own hammer, and very effectively too. However, getting it off him is no easy task, nor is lifting it, which (usually) requires one to be worthy.