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Well, here's hoping that fire is for barbecue.note 

"Good old Hellfire. For when regular fire simply won't do."

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Hellfire is usually presented as an upgrade to normal fire. How it's created/conjured varies from work to work. In some stories, it's summoned from the bowels of Hell itself or created by a creature that was born/spawned in Hell, such as demons and the like, including Demonic Dragons. In other works, it may be normal fire that's had Black Magic or the dark powers of a nether-realm alloyed to it. The point is, Hellfire is not physical in origin, and doesn't have to play by the same rules as normal fire. Ignition without a source of oxygen? Sure! Scorching things that are supposed to be fireproof or made of fire? You bet! Incinerating ghosts and other things that normal fire can't touch? Oh, hell yeah!

Since Hellfire is often explicitly magical in nature, it may also have other effects or the way it does what it does is different from conventional fire. While normal fire might melt something with heat, Hellfire may just disintegrate it entirely. Maybe whatever normal fire affected will be hot after, but eventually the heat will die down, but with Hellfire, the object may stay hot or even feel cold. More than that, when used on a living creature, Hellfire might not hurt it the same way as normal fire. Instead of burning the body, Hellfire may burn the soul, and physical injuries are the result of a wounded spirit that may never heal. This is especially dangerous for characters with a Healing Factor or who are Immune to Fire because, if they are caught off guard and take a serious hit, they could die as Hellfire can bypass immunity to natural fire or negate a healing factor (at the very least, the Hellfire-induced injuries might not heal). In Japanese media, it's often called "Gokuen" (獄炎 "hell flame" or "prison flame").

Notable when it comes from a story without any references to Christianity.

Not to Be Confused with the Hellfire laser-guided missile, the expansion to the original Diablo, the Toaplan shmup, or the Villain Song from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

This is a Sub-Trope of Magic Fire. Contrast Holy Hand Grenade and Faux Flame, as well as Holy Water, Hellfire's opposite number in both elemental and sacred terms, and Sacred Flames, its opposite in just the latter. See also Greek Fire, a non-magical example known for properties commonly attributed to this trope, in particular being able to burn underwater. Not related to Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce. Evil Counterpart and sometimes a foil to Sacred Flames.

For a similarly-named story written by Isaac Asimov, see Hell-Fire (1956). For a similarly-named video game by Toaplan, see Hellfire (1989).


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Hiei from YuYu Hakusho has two attacks that are comprised mainly of hellfire. The first is Fist of the Mortal Flame, which uses the fire from the Human Hell to pummel the opponent. The other, much more dangerous attack is Dragon of the Darkness Flame, which is an enormous dragon made of flames from the Demon Hell.
  • This is Ioryogi's signature power in Kobato..
  • Theories that it summons fire from hell aside, Amaterasu from Naruto doesn't have any connection to hell, but exhibits many traits of hell fire: special color (black), extremely hot (supposedly as hot as the sun), has impossible properties (can burn non-flammable objects, even underwater & can cause even Bijuus who shrug off lesser attacks to cry out in pain), and is very hard to put out (can't be put out unless you wait for a week, seal it, or the user snuffs it out).
    • Zetsu actually says at one point that Amateratsu is supposedly "black hellfire". It's real nature is never clarified.
    • The tailed beasts' chakra isn't really fire of any sort, but when a Tailed Beast's host put out enough of the chakra, it can incinerate anything it touches... even the host himself.
  • In Slayers, there's a distinction: for example, Fireball is Shamanism spell — it calls upon fire spirit. Gaav Flare, on the other hand, was Black Magic using the power of Chaos Dragon, one of Dark Lords. Defunct after Gaav's demise, of course. Reflecting Gaav's nature and power level, it's much nastier and burns through the first target, then whoever was behind it...
  • In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, one of Negi's Black Magic techniques is called Incendium Gehennae, which can be loosely translated as "Flames of Gehenna."
  • In Bastard!! (1988), Dark Schneider's ultimate spell Halloween/Helloween/Harrowing summons fire that is hotter than the sun, completely obliterating an Efreet MADE of fire.
    • Unless this is a variation between manga and anime, he used Exodus to take out Efreet. And he created a fire that was hotter than the sun by harnessing the heat of Efreet's own fire spells. With a nice middle finger to Convection Shmonvection, the room made of stone is actually melting. BEFORE this "fire hotter than the sun" was created. And the actual proper name of his ultimate spell is "Helloween", after the band. The anime changed some of the spell names for fear of copyright issues. Such awesome spell names included are "Poison, Megadeath, Guns & Roses, etc". It's a post apocalyptic fantasy manga with a LOT of rock references thrown in.
  • In Blue Exorcist, blue flames are the sign of Satan. Rin, a son of Satan, tends to erupt into them. This is a problem due to Fantastic Racism and also a boon; there isn't much that can handle them after they are the only demonic flames that attack the physical and the spiritual.
    • Shima can summon a demon that uses black hellfire.
  • In Fairy Tail:
    • Zancrow summons and controls pitch-black flames that can burn and injure Natsu. Natsu is normally immune to heat and eats flames. Natsu eventually manages to eat Zancrow's flames, giving him the power boost to defeat him. This is an inversion, however, since these black flames are actually divine flames since Zancrow is a God Slayer.
    • The dragon Atlas Flame describes his flames as hellfire, with Fairy Tail (2020) even giving him the Red Baron of the "Hell Flame Dragon". Natsu tries to eat him too for a power boost. It might have worked too, if Natsu and Atlas Flame hadn't instead joined forces once they realized they were both close to Igneel.
    • God Serena uses Purgatory Dragon Slayer Magic as one of his eight different elements. The one move that he's shown using with this magic is referred to as "Blazing Hell", implying this.
  • Implied to be the nature of the mysterious Adolla Burst in Fire Force. According to the White-Clad, the realm of Adolla from which it originates is literal Hell.
  • Jigoku No Gouka De Yakare Tsuzuketa Shounen: The flames of Hell are so hot that people are instantly turned to charcoal within seconds of being consumed by it before having their souls burned away. Flare's soul miraculously survives a thousand years of it and he somehow makes a new flesh and blood body out of the flames. As a result, he's able to produce and manipulate hellfire at will.
  • Samurai Deeper Kyo, Hotaru/Keikoku is a fire user and his strongest attack summons pitch black, supposedly scorching hot black flames which aren't explicitly called hellflames but are called "Devil's Breath" (in Gratuitous English) and features named techniques such as "Lucifer's Coming" and "Hell Crush".
  • In Buster Keel!, during the Necropolis arc, the normally unassuming Pig Devil Mippi is able to shoot a stream of dark-colored flames strong enough to destroy the body of Jack, one of the Shikyou (the four strongest evil monsters), which the latter identifies as "Hellflames" (Gokuen), recognizing Mippi as the reincarnation of an S-Class monster, the Hell Pig.
  • Rave Master, one of the Four Demon Kings and the first to be introduced is Megido "of the Magma", a giant lion-like demon who can control Hellfire. Unfortunately for him, his Hellfire loses to Shuda's divine sword.
  • Rei Ogami of Code:Breaker can call upon demonic flames that embody and are derived from the Seven Deadly Sins using his Special Power, "Flames of Purgatory". He primarily uses them in order to punish those who do evil, burning them to ashes with a fiery Facepalm of Doom.
  • In 3×3 Eyes:
    • The Hyoma clan royal family can use the fiery powers of Agni Maya (Fire God Power) to summon and control magical flames of great power, which can also be used to seal demons. At one point Galga uses Agni Maya to turn his entire body in a solid mass of blazing fire and is able to survive even a point-blank shot from an admittedly sealed Sanzhiyan spell.
    • Ampral, one of Benares' Nine-Headed Dragon Generals, is a humanoid demon who can summon the "Eternal Flames" which can burn forever and imprison monsters and immortal Wu inside them. Said flames though lose to Koko's supernatural corrosive water.
    • The Bao Yan Long (Explosive Flame Dragon) was a Juuma so powerful and destructive that not even Benares managed to tame, choosing to seal it in a cocoon instead. When released, it turns into a truly humongous multi-headed fire dragon with four eyes on each head and incredibly hot flames. It takes an entire bombardment with foam-producing magic missiles to finally extinguish the flames.

    Card Games 

    Comic Books 
  • The DCU:
  • Marvel Universe:
    • Anyone with a Hellmark, such as Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, is capable of using it. The mark is bestowed upon those with the potential to become a Hell Lord, and in addition to being able to use Hellfire, it also grants the ability to command lesser demons, though both powers come at the cost of the bearer's soul becoming corrupted over time.
    • As befitting a Satanic Archetype, Mephisto can summon hellfire at will.
    • Weapon of choice for Ghost Rider. It burns hotter the more sins the target has, but Johnny Blaze at least was able to make it burn 'cold' (i.e. without physically damaging anything) and only affect a person's soul. Dan Ketch (Ghost Rider 2) rarely used Hellfire itself, preferring his Penance Stare, and Robbie Reyes (Ghost Rider 3) initially doesn't possess this ability but unlocks it some time later.
      • Johnny Blaze learnt how to use his Hellfire by the Witch Woman, one of his Rogues Gallery members. It can take any form as long as the user has the will to maintain it, making Hellfire a Swiss-Army Weapon. Johnny uses it to make his motorcycle.
    • There's an artifact that's been floating around for a while known as the 'Hellfire Shotgun'. It's a (usually pump-action) shotgun loaded with Hellfire that never needs to be reloaded. It was created by Johnny Blaze during a confrontation with Danny Ketch, infused with the Rider's power (thought to be from Danny first, later revealed to be from Johnny himself). It's had a habit of landing in the hands of weakened magical heroes in need of a new edge, starting with a depowered Johnny Blaze and the Scarlet Witch during All-New Doctor Strange's 'The End of Magic' arc.
    • Blade has a natural resistance to Hellfire as a benefit of being a Dhampyr. Dukes of Hell like Plokta and Spirits of Vengeance like Ghost Rider can still burn him with it — lesser entities are out of luck, though.
    • Spider-Man, in his cameo role, lampshades this in Runaways.
      "Ah, good old hellfire, when regular fire simply won't do."
    • Fantastic Four:
      • Doctor Doom opens a portal to Hell, and Johnny and Franklin are pulled inside. Johnny gets out, but not without being badly burned; especially notable considering he's the Human Torch, master of flame in all forms, who hasn't suffered a burn in, like, thirteen years. Yeah. Hellfire. It'll mess you up.
      • Johnny later finds out that the holy flames of an archangel's Flaming Sword are even more painful.
    • In All-New X-Men (2016), the heroes literally have to wade through hellfire when the Beast inadvertently creates a Hellgate in the RV by mixing magic and science.
  • Transformers: The Fallen is permanently Wreathed in Flames after joining Unicron. According to his TFWiki article, these flames are the manifestation of his Chaos powers, and have the bonus effect of ridding him of any goodness still within him.
  • In The Sixth Gun, infernal blazes are the Third Gun's power.
  • Zatanna (2010): The fire demons that attack Zatanna in issue #4 use hellfire, which can't be easily be put out. Zatanna then resorts to finding a priest and having him bless the water so she can use it to defeat the fire demon trio.

    Fan Works 
  • In Children of an Elder God, Asuka wields supernatural fire that consumes anything and everything.
  • In Harmony Theory, Nightmare Umbra controls Ashfire. One touch and it consumes you until nothing is left but ash, and it is almost impossible to extinguish. It feeds on magic. Star Fall is able to survive it by redirecting her internal magic away from it, so it goes out from lack of fuel.
  • In The Night Unfurls, Olga's flames are said to be this, described as "hotter than hell itself". We don't know if some sort of "Hell" exists in the Kuroinu 'verse, though.
  • Poké Wars depicts Will-O-Wisp in this form. It is a sinister dark purple/blue flame that ignites anything it touches and cannot be extinguished.
  • Maledict from Sonic X: Dark Chaos can manifest himself in a tongue of smokeless hellfire that does not consume its surroundings. Most of his powers also use a combination of this trope and Chaos Energy.
  • Rather unsurprisingly, Daemon from the Tamers Forever Series uses this as his primary technique. He seems to enjoy immolating people a bit too much.
  • Thirty Hs grants Harry Potter the power to wreathe his fists in "Holy Fuckfire" with which he punches the heads off astral vampires, sending them into the past of Mars, or... something. Notable for being evidently a holy force rather than an infernal one, and... powered by swearing, or something.
  • Skylanders Academy: New Horizon introduces Cyrus, a dragon with Hellblaze breath. This fire is green and tinged with black, and has the ability to inflict painful burns on anyone, even Spyro and his impenetrable scales. The only way to cure said burns is with Healing Elixir found only in the Underworld. However, the flames aren't evil on their own, and Cyrus is an Infernus purple dragon, "those whom no evil could stand against", and Spyro and Cyrus's mother Silver was Infernus herself, one who became a hero among dragonkind.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Constantine (2005), the title character visits his armorer and is surprised to see ammunition founded in "Dragonfire", as in, "I thought you couldn't get this anymore." Beeman evasively says he knows a guy who knows a guy. When he actually turns it on a demon, he laughs it off and says, "Fire? I was born of this!"
  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): A metaphorical case with Rodan. This bloodred turkey is called the Fire Demon for a reason. His volcanic biology renders him searing-hot and enables his body to produce magma for blood, he emerges from an erupting volcano like a demon emerging from the subterranean mouth of Hell, and he's Ghidorah's minion during the movie. Rodan's fire is enough to severely cripple the Queen of the Monsters herself, fitting the analogy that Mothra is an angel whereas Rodan is a demon during this movie.
  • The climax of Disney's The Haunted Mansion (2003) goes from the villain's deception and lies breaking down in the big room to declaring, "Damn you all... Damn you all to HELL!" and summoning some draconic inferno from the fireplace... which seems like it judges that there's the one soul in the room with any business where it came from, grabs him and (with a scare at Taking You with Me that doesn't work out) goes, so, that sort of took care of itself.

    Literature 
  • The Phenex clan of devils in High School D×D have this as one of their signature abilities alongside their extreme Healing Factor.
  • While not specifically from hell, Fiendfyre in Harry Potter is hot enough to destroy a Horcrux, something which is rather difficult to do. And is sentient. And malevolent. And a lot harder to put out than to start. And very difficult for a normal wizard to control, so it's not like you can practice with it. When Crabbe tries to use it against Harry and company in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the only one he manages to kill with it is himself (along with one of the Big Bad's Horcruxes).
  • Harry Dresden of The Dresden Files is enabled to generate this from Blood Rites to White Night due to a shadow (a psychic copy) of the Fallen Angel Lasciel in his head. It adds more power to his destructive magical attacks, replacing his fire spells altogether, and often adds an incendiary effect to those that are based on kinetic force, but he has to struggle against The Dark Side and Some Sanity Slippage. By giving the Shadow of Lasciel a name, "Lash", and encouraging her to think independently of the original, Harry gave her free will. And she used it to take a psychic bullet for him, killing her, and saving Harry's life. He didn't seem to have too much of an opinion on losing Hellfire since he was occupied mourning Lash.
    • Due to their nature, the demonic Knights of the Blackened Denarius (or the Nickleheads) have access to it in their spells as well. Their "boss" gave them access to "Super Hellfire" for a short period on two occasions in Small Favor. It was considered "super" since it was stable for about five or ten minutes, while regular Hellfire is destructively unstable, and there was enough of it to cage off the whole of Chicago's Shedd Aquarium. Because the Denarians were given access to it, it allowed Heaven to move in accord, which led to...
    • A few years after "Lash", the psychic copy of a Fallen in Harry head dies saving Harry's life he finds out that the archangel in charge of maintaining free will, and God's own holy hitman, Urielnote  has gifted him with Soulfire, the angelic counterpart to Hellfire. It fits the trope just as well as normal Hellfire, it makes his spells more powerful, and he can do things he couldn't before (making magical constructs), but it's fueled by soul, and takes up a little bit of Harry's soul each time he uses it. While it would sound like it leaves him in danger of becoming The Soulless, his soul would regenerate in just a few weeks after even heavy usage, so long as he has some left. It regenerates more quickly if he takes time to nurture it; for example, going on a date with Luccio at the end of Small Favor). The Soulfire also burns an unusual color—it usually adds a bit of a silver tinge, depending on how much he uses and what spell he ties it to.
    • There's also Summer Fire, a gift granted by the Summer Court. So far, though, it's only been used against its polar opposite in the form of the Winter Fortress, where it is understandably extremely destructive, so no word on if it's actually any hotter or more powerful (though it does leave a trace in the user's fire magic from then on).
  • The Lord of the Rings: Only the forge of Mount Doom is hot enough to destroy the One Ring, though that might be as much symbolism as related to the heat of the lava itself. (In the film, it's not like Frodo or Sam were exactly burning up.)
  • In the Betsy the Vampire Queen books by Mary Janice Davidson, the titular queen's half sister Laura is the daughter of Satan (don't ask). As such, one of Laura's powers is to summon a sword made of hellfire. It can transform into a crossbow in the blink of an eye, and is implied to always be hanging at Laura's hip, invisible when she doesn't need it. Hellfire only disrupts magic, so it passes harmlessly through mundane humans but incinerates vampires instantly. However, Betsy's odd status as Queen of the Dead means that the sword neither passes harmlessly through nor incinerates her, but stabs her like a normal sword would. It gets stuck and must be pulled out, but leaves no wound behind.
  • Referred to as 'Wizard's Fire' in Sword of Truth. It's described somewhat like a magical version of napalm, a "liquid flame" which won't be put out by smothering, even if it's just a little bit of flame; in fact, it will just set on fire whatever you use to smother it. Beyond that, an even stronger version known as Wizard's Life Fire appears at a few points, used as a Desperation Attack by wizards who are about to die anyway.
  • The science fiction novel Roadside Picnic mentions a substance called "Witch's Jelly" ("Hell Slime" in some translations), left behind by the mysterious alien visitors, that will burn (or corrode?) through just about anything, leaving a flaming pit in the ground as it goes.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire has wildfire and dragon's breath. Wildfire is the exclusive creation of the Alchemist's Guild, a liquid something like magical Greek Fire which burns with an intense green flame that's impossible to extinguish (it can burn water!), and seems to be almost alive in larger conflagrations. It seems to be based on Greek Fire. Dragon's breath is apparently much hotter than normal flames, and is said to possess magical qualities, such as its use in the creation of Valyrian Steel.
  • Science Fiction variant in Charles Stross' Glasshouse - "Blasters" are very simple weapons based around a couple of wormholes. One end opens at the end of your pistol; the other opens into a sun.
  • A certain spell in Chronicles of the Raven makes very powerful jets of fire that supposedly home in on enemies. Have a guess at its name.
  • The Wheel of Time has balefire, a magical flame so strong that it not only kills you, it burns your recent past out of history. One scene has a bad guy killing several major protagonists, and then being killed by balefire—the recently-dead protagonists are brought back to life(very confused), because the baddie retroactively didn't exist to kill them. Enough use of this destroys the very fabric of reality. It's also the only way to prevent the Big Bad from resurrecting his assorted Dragons after they are killed.
    • Despite being called "balefire," it is not actually fire of any kind except metaphorically, as it "burns the threads from the Pattern. " It appears as a white beam that more or less instantly annihilates what it's aimed at.
    • Note that during the War of Power, in the series Back Story, entire cities were apparently destroyed by balefire before both sides stopped using it, due to the danger to reality itself.
  • The Banned and the Banished also uses the term "balefire" for fire from evil magic. It has many properties of normal fire, but it freezes instead of burns. (Good spellcasters can also create fire, but once started it functions like normal fire.)
  • The destructive, rare and difficult to control white fire from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Curiously, "Hellfire!" is one of Thomas Covenant's favorite sayings.
  • Journey to Chaos: Kasile possesses Sacred Fire which comes from the fire goddess Fiol. It is white in color, and unlike regular fire or magic fire, this stuff is divine in nature and not bound by the same limitations. For instance, it can't be blocked by Orichalcum.
  • Good Omens: When the Apocalypse begins, London's M25 motorway is engulfed in "a screaming, glowing ribbon of pain and dark light" that reads at 700 degrees and -140 degrees Celsius simultaneously, thanks to a cheeky demon pulling strings to have had the motorway laid out in the shape of an ancient demonic sigil.
  • Shades of Magic: White London's magic is described in these terms after their supernatural war exhausts their elemental magic and they turn to Blood Magic. In effect, though, it's closer to a strange, pallid sort of lightning, which lends itself well to Electric Torture. From A Darker Shade of Magic:
    The only element that could be summoned was a perverted kind of energy, a bastard of fire and something darker, corrupted.
  • Isaac Asimov's "Hell-Fire (1956)": The title is repeated several times, with Joseph Vincenzo, a scientist, claiming that "An exploding atom bomb is hell-fire. Literally." His claim seems confirmed when they watch the footage from yesterday's explosion, showing the explosion has the face of Satan
  • In Journey to the West, one of Sun Wukong's opponents is the Red Boy, who can breathe the deadly "True Fire of Samadhi", the untamed, primordial fire of creation which only great immortals can produce within themselves. Even if Sun Wukong himself is immune to fire due to his sojourn inside Laozi's Eight Trigram kiln, even he has to retreat in front of that heat.
  • Fengshen Yanyi:
    • The True Fire of Samadhi from Journey to the West makes a return, used by a few selected Immortals as a rare but powerful skill. The first user is Yang Jian, aka Erlang Shen.
    • The Vehement Fire Formation employs the True Fire of Samadhi, as well as the "Fire of Air" and "Fire of Rock", to burn down anyone who enters inside.
    • The Immortal master Qingxu Daode wields the Paopei called "Five Fires Seven Fowls Fan", which was made from the feathers of seven different birds (fenghuang, peng, swan, owl, hawk, luan and peacock) and with the essence of the "five fires": as a result, the flames summoned by the fan are so powerful they can "melt a rock mountain and dry up a whole sea".

    Live-Action TV 
  • In American Horror Story: Apocalypse, Michael Langdon proves capable of using hellfire to obliterate a person's soul and render them impossible to resurrect.
  • Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Sabrina Spellman gains the ability to summon and wield Hellfire after signing her name into the Book of the Beast. Her first use of it involves her utterly incinerating the ghosts of the Greendale Thirteen.
  • Good Omens (2019): Hellfire is a substance associated with the forces of Hell and capable of destroying angels, although it will not affect demons. Its opposite number is Holy Water, which will utterly destroy demons but leave angels unharmed.
  • Just like in the comics, Ghost Rider from the fourth season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has this power, and primarily uses it either in conjunction with his chain, or to incinerate enemies up close and personal. It can incinerate ghosts without a problem, and is one of the only things Aida is vulnerable to.
  • In Legends of Tomorrow Season 5, the Encores who are denizens of hell who are brought Back from the Dead, are all in possession of hellfire weapons. Similarly, it is hellfire that is the only thing that can kill them since they otherwise possess Complete Immortality.
  • Supernatural: In the show's earlier seasons, pyrokinesis was almost-exclusively a demonic power, used by demons like Azazel/Yellow-Eyes for murder, and the only non-demonic entity to possess such an affinity for flames was the ghost of a person who'd died by Azazel's hellfire. Later seasons however have shown various supernatural and non-demonic beings using pyrokinesis, including angels, witches, pagan gods, dragons and Nephilim.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Hellfire in 3rd Edition is a substance wielded by the devils of the Nine Hells of Baator, which some say isn't real fire at all, but a form of evil energy unique to Hell. It isn't subject to any energy resistance or immunities, so yes, you can burn fire elementals to death with it. Mephistopheles, Lord of the Eighth, claims to have invented Hellfire, uses it to power fearsome Hellfire Engines, and often strikes deals with mortals to let them wield it. The Hellfire Warlock prestige class allows player characters to augment their spells with Hellfire, though each use of it deals Constitution damage — not all of such spellcasters are evil, but most are. The irony of ironies is that Cania is the coldest layer of Baator, so Mephistopheles' Gelugon minions are deeply unhappy with their master's latest obsession, and his frozen palace is in danger of melting, symbolic of how Mephistopheles may be overextending himself by focusing more on promoting Hellfire than traditional soul-harvesting operations.
    • Infernum: Hellfire is basically negative spiritual energy (despair, pain, misery) given physical expression as sickly green-black flames, which are capable of consuming flesh, bone and soul with equal ease and which thus makes it especially powerful against creatures like demons and angels. It consequently has its own damage type (and damage resistance), so ordinary Fire resistance is worthless against it (although, conversely, a character with only Hellfire Resistance is defenseless against Fire damage).
    • The first edition of D&D had The Phoenix radiate something like this. To get a resistance to this fire, you needed one of the feathers dropped by a phoenix as a spell component.
    • The cleric spell flame strike can be considered a neutral variant of this, since half of the damage dealt by the spell is fire damage, but the rest is undefined divine energy that cannot be resisted or ignored. Fifth Edition changes it to half fire damage and half radiant damage.
    • The Searing Spell feat from Sandstorm can make your normal fire spells burn hot enough to deal partial damage even to creatures Immune to Fire unless they have the Fire subtype, like a salamander or fire elemental. The Frostburn supplement book has a similar feat, only for spells that deal ice damage rather than fire.
    • The Sanctified One prestige class grants worshipers of Kord the ability to make their fire-based spells Non-Elemental.
    • The Book of Exalted Deeds supplement also has a spell which creates "heavenlightning" that functions in the same way.
  • Exalted: In an interesting variation, infernal powers tend to use the burning, poisonous light of Ligier, the demonic Green Sun of Malfeas, in the same manner as characters in other settings use hellfire. In addition to the usual attributes of a Hellfire-analogue, this can also infect victims with Green Sun Wasting, a truly horrifying supernatural disease that makes Ebola look like the common cold in comparison. The fandom often jokes that Ligier's fire is basically radioactive, which technically makes the Green Sun a more "realistic" sun than the Daystar.
  • Godforsaken: The half-demon cambions can call up hellish energy in the form of an explosion of soul-rending black and crimson fire.
  • GURPS:
    • Essential Flame in GURPS: Magic is similar in concept to this but seems to be based more on Plato than Christianity.
    • In the Dungeon Fantasy books, demonologists can summon blasts of Hellfire. It totally ignores armor and is even able to incinerate spirits but saps life from the user.
  • Mutants & Masterminds classifies Hellfire as a type of magical energy that looks like fire but isn't. It can be any color, most elements, and act as numerous other powers.
  • Pathfinder: Hellfire is a substance often used by devils and devil-worshippers. The damage it deals is half regular fire damage and half unholy damage, which are subject to different immunities — evil creatures ignore the unholy damage, while good creatures take double the damage it would otherwise deal. Essentially, hellfire consists of evil flames that will quite literally hurt you more if you're a good person.
  • Sentinels of the Multiverse: The Infernal damage type, which is associated with demons and the occult and favored by the likes of the villains Apostate, The Ennead and Spite, and hero Nightmist. Like its opposite, Radiant, few if any targets are immune to it.
  • Warhammer: Warpfire is fire drawn from the Warp. Unsurprisingly, it's chiefly the weapon of daemons, their servants, and the odd race of evil Rat Men (who have Warpfire flamethrowers). Tzeentch's daemons in particular are little more than living flamethrowers, and vehicles dedicated to Tzeentch in 40k are covered in eldritch fire. There's also the Holocaust power, which is incredibly dangerous and deadly, and burns Demons just as well as anything. Bonus; it makes resurrection impossible and even kills immortal demons. Khorne's Daemons often bear weapons wreathed in this. The final Khornate talent for Eliphas the Inheritor in Dawn of War II also apparently engulfs him in this.
  • The World of Darkness:
    • Hunter: The Vigil: Members of the Lucifuge get the ability to throw about Hellfire as part of their special heritage. Using it is a bit of a gamble, since Hellfire spreads rapidly, burns everything, and is no kinder to Lucifuge flesh than to anything else.
    • Vampire: The Masquerade: The Baali clan are infernalists, meaning they can get power from their demonic patrons with their signature discipline Daimoinon. A third level power called Conflagration allows the Baali to summon black hellfire to immolate their target.
    • Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Powerful servants of the Wyrm use balefire, which is sickly green and has effects similar to severe radiation burns. It is also used by certain infernalists in Vampire: The Masquerade, particularly Dark Thaumaturges who use the Fires of the Inferno and Lure of Flames discipline paths.

    Video Games 
  • In the Exile/Avernum series, quickfire is an artificial, very powerful magic flame that ignites even thin air to create a wall of flames that spreads as fast as a man can run. Nothing short of cold rock or very powerful magic can stop its spread.
  • Hellfire is a damage type in the roguelike game TOME. Unlike normal fire, it cannot be resisted and evil creatures take double damage. The game also has holy fire.
    • Similarly, the Roguelike crawl has a damage type hellfire - some monsters resist it, players can't (contrary to almost all other types of damage). Hellfire attacks are always ranged area effects. They're most commonly used by various demonic monsters at the high end of the power scale, but can also be invoked by player characters with a specific mutation or wielding one of a very small set of artifacts.
  • World of Warcraft has this as a - surprise! - warlock spell, which spews apparently unholy flame in a radius around the warlock, dealing decent damage per second in an aoe but also injures the warlock. Oddly enough, the self-damaging part is the thing warlocks use it for as they have more powerful AoE but dying to hellfire doesn't cause durability loss.
    • Chaos Bolt, another warlock spell, is probably a better example. It fires a bolt of chaotic fire that goes right through absorption effects and ignores fire resistance. It does not, however, work against targets that are completely immune to fire damage.
      • Later expansions re-work it to act as "Chaos", a mixture of all elements that would deal damage based on the lowest of the target's resistances (before resistances were removed, anyway).
    • WotLK also introduced the concept of dual-element spells, primarily so you can't easily resist them by stacking a specific magic resistance (usually fire). Spellfire, Spellfrost, Frostfire, etc.
    • The Burning Legion in general uses Felfire which usually appears as a sickly yellow green flame. Felfire is stated to be the result of corrupting the Life element.
    • In Dark Shamanism, the corrupted Fire element manafests as "Long dead fire, black and smoldering" (read: ash).
  • In the first Devil May Cry, the Ifrit gauntlets describe their power as being hellfire. The description for the Frost enemy claims that, while impervious to volcanic fire, they're susceptible to higher levels of incendiary. In other words, use Ifrit against them.
  • Castlevania's Dracula has a three-to-five-directional fireball attack by this name. On occasion, he cranks up the damage factor and throws big black METEOR-fireballs at you.
    • Alucard can mimic the three-fireball and two-meteor-fireball attacks EXACTLY in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It is so immensely satisfying to be able to pull Dracula's shenanigans on his henchtwits. To gamers unfamiliar with the old Nintendo Hard console titles and their relatively slow Belmont heroes, the fireballs may seem like small potatoes, but even very skilled, hardcore gamers have been reduced to incoherent howling by the original Castlevania and the Sharp X68000 remake of that title. (We do not mention Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse around these gamers. They will go insane.)
    • Shanoa from Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia can do this, too, with the Dominus Anger glyph, but not without downsides. There's only one per shot, it's Dark property instead of Fire, which means it's watered down against many endgame bosses (like Drac himself), and, most importantly, it consumes HP equal to one sixth of Shanoa's capacity per shot! If that isn't enough reason to not use it, let's not forget what it's part of and where it came from...
    • Soma Cruz, can also perform the three-fireball attack if he equips the right soul. In Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, it's one of the three souls he needs to equip during the battle with the Disc-One Final Boss to unlock the path to the true ending.
  • Dread Templar, being set in the underworld, has Hellfire as technology for some of it's weapons. Notably, the Infernal Magnum which can set enemies alights besides wounding them, and the Hellfire Gauntlet which unleashes flames on enemies.
  • Pokémon: Throughout the series, various Pokemon have attacks that are much like hellfire, one example is Ho-Oh's Sacred Fire.
    • A more serious version is Shadow Fire from XD. Exclusive to Shadow Moltres, it's a Shadow version Flamethrower attack that, like other Shadow moves, is super-effective against every other type except itself - Water, Rock, and Dragon-type Pokemon included.
    • Pokémon Black and White also gives us Inferno (called Purgatory in Japan). Whilst somewhat inaccurate, it is guaranteed to burn the target if it connects.
    • The Gold Pokedex entry for Houndoom is meant to evoke this trope:
      "If you are burned by the flames it shoots from its mouth, the pain will never go away."
  • Final Fantasy: Hellfire is generally the name given to the Ifrit summon's best attack in the series, or Belias in Final Fantasy XII.
  • City of Heroes: The Demon Summoning powerset for Masterminds has a few demons that attack with hellfire, as well as giving the Mastermind a whip made of it. While regular fire attacks have the secondary effect of igniting enemies for additional fire-type damage over time, hellfire's damage over time is toxic-type, and applies a damage resistance debuff to its targets.
  • Scorpion of Mortal Kombat fame has power over hellfire as a side effect of being a Revenant from the Netherrealm. He pretty much only uses it to kill people by breathing it on them. One of his special moves from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance onward lets him summon hellish flames from the ground.
  • Neverwinter Nights 2 Warlock's Prestige Class, Hellfire Warlock. Guess what their magic blasts are made of.
  • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne: The Demi-Fiend can equip a powerful Fire magatama which allows him to use a spell called Hellfire. There is a stronger version, called Prominence.
  • Bravely Default: Hellfire is an attack that is appropriately used by Cerberuses, which deals 1.25 fire damage to all enemies. You can utilise the attack yourself by absorbing it with the Vampire's Genome Drain.
  • Terraria: Cursed flames from the Corruption, apart from the name, fit this trope quite well: water won't put them out, and they hurt a lot more than regular fire. Ichor, the Crimson counterpart, is a Damage-Increasing Debuff.
  • Nexus Clash: Pariah demons can, with the skill of the same name, add a little dose of unholy Hellfire to any attack they use.
  • Dungeon Munchies: Simmer uses her supernatural fire both to breathe life into corpses and other dead matter, and cook delicious meals for people. To be fair, the latter are made from magical monster parts she hunted down herself.
  • Dominions has both hellfire (fire/blood magic) and balefire (fire/death magic). Neither is particularly pleasant to be hit with.
  • Divinity: Original Sin II: Necrofire is a particular type of fire surface usually created by Cursing conventional fire (and shedding Voidwoken blood can do this). It deals more damage than normal fire and is impossible to put out, even with water magic, unless it's decursed with the Bless spell first.
  • Grim Dawn: Available in a few forms. The Demolitionist has an upgrades to several of his fire-based skills that add Chaos damage. The eldritch fires of the witch-god Solael usually combine either fire or chaos damage with vitality damage. Cthonic demons and their Bloodsworn followers also make heavy use of voidfire, with Optional Boss Shar'Zul being a standout example.
  • Though non-magical, the PyrX of Age of Wonders: Planetfall is essentially sci-fi Hellfire. Virtually anything is flammable when a PyrX fire is involved, even metal. The knowledge of creating PryX alone is useless, because it's so uncontrollable; the Promethean secret tech tree also grants technologies allowing it to be safely controlled, stored, and extinguished.
  • Minecraft: Soul Fire is a turquoise flame that burns only on soul soil, which is found in the Nether. It doesn’t combust the blocks around it, drives away Piglins and is also twice as painful as regular fire. Soul Fire can also be used via implementing soul soil into certain crafting recipes to craft special lanterns, torches, and campfires which, despite being slightly dimmer, share the Piglin-repelling properties.
  • Monster Hunter: Rise: The flagship monster Magnamalo attacks with purple flames referred to as "hellfire" that inflict "hellfireblight" upon those burned by them, which detonates after a delay to cause massive damage. However, this is explicitly not supernatural, but rather the product of a unique flammable gas that Magnamalo produces.
  • Regalia fire tomes from Fire Emblem casts flames that pretty much resemble hellfire, and are a lot more powerful than regular fire tomes, albeit usually with limited uses.
    • On an interesting note, Forblaze, the legendary anima tome from the Elibe games, is also referred as such in its Japanese epithet (Hellfire's Reason), as well as in the Japanese version of Heroes, where the one wielded by Legendary Lilina is called "Hellflame Forblaze".
  • In Elden Ring there are a couple varieties of this, as the Greater Will seems to treat any source of flame as a threat to itself. Given that its primary manifestation in the Lands Between is in the form of a World Tree, this isn't without precedent.
    • Destined Death tends to manifest as fire, with a couple of different varieties dependent on its interpretation. The Ghostflame of the Deathbirds is generally considered to be neutral, as its original purpose was to cremate the deceased and have their spirits empower the Outer God of Destined Death. Blackflame is far more malevolent, as it is wielded by the Godskin Cult and their Gloam-Eyed Queen to hunt down and flay the gods of the setting. The ultimate manifestations of Destined Death as wielded by those who have access to a piece of the Rune of Death like the Black Knife Assassins and Maliketh, the Black Blade are similar to Blackflame but with red highlights instead of white, and was so powerful in its destructive capacity that the Rune of Death was removed from the Elden Ring in its entirety.
    • The Primordial Flame of the Fire Giants, often known as Giantsflame, was a purely destructive manifestation of the Giants' One-Eyed God that is apparently the one thing that could truly threaten the Erdtree and the Greater Will, hence why the Golden Order slaughtered the Fire Giants to the last to deprive the One-Eyed God of its power via the faith of its followers. Although the Giantsflame is apparently so powerful that not even the combined might of the Greater Will can permanently snuff it out, and thus Marika left a sole Fire Giant alive to tend to the flame and ensure that it never ran rampant again. It is also apparently empowered by Human Sacrifice and can cause the One-Eyed God to physically manifest within its followers, as the Fire Giant sacrifices its own leg to the One-Eyed God in his phase transition and opens the third flaming eye in its torso before throwing much more powerful and potent fire magic at you than before. Giantsflame, along with the Frenzied Flame, is one of two forces known that are able to ignite and burn down the Erdtree, and in every ending except for the Lord of Frenzied Flame it is necessary to commit this cardinal sin against the Golden Order to enter the Erdtree and beat the game.
    • The Frenzied Flame, possibly also known as Yelough, is probably the closest to this trope in the Lands Between, it being a vivid and erratic yellow fire that drives people insane with extended proximity and mostly manifests by erupting from people’s eye sockets. It is also wholly committed to the omnicidal destruction of all life, as the Three Fingers that house its power believe that all life is born from the mistaken fragmenting of the "One Great", and that to restore the One Great all life must be burned and melted down by the Frenzied Flame. It, along with the Giantsflame described above, is one of two forces known that are able to ignite and burn down the Erdtree, and The Lord of Frenzied Flame ending sees this happen; the end result has the Erdtree split in half from the titanic gout of yellow flame issuing out of it, which has now paradoxically darkened the sky with a vortex of Frenzied Flame as the rest of the world burns down beneath it.
    • The Volcano Manor is one of the most explicitly evil factions in the game, as their whole schtick is committing uncounted blasphemies against the Golden Order and siccing Tarnished against each other, and as the name would imply it is both based within a volcano's caldera and uses lava in many of its unique weapons and sorceries.
  • Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous features the spell Hellfire Ray. True to its tabletop source material, Hellfire Ray does part fire and part unholy damage. It is perhaps the most damaging single target spell in the game since the caster can fire three rays at once with a single casting at caster level 19. And because it does part unholy damage, fire resistance grants limited protection against it (and in this game nothing really resists unholy, even demons). If one goes down the Devil Mythic Path, they gain the Hell's Vengeance Mythic Ability that lets them fire Hellfire Rays at will.

    Web Animation 
  • In Helluva Boss, it's made explicit that normal fire doesn't affect demons, but in hell, there's some kind of green fire that most certainly hurts them.

    Webcomics 
  • A particularly awesome application of this comes from the D&D webcomic Darken, where the main character is a Hellfire-flinging Evil Overlord-in-training:
    Garganon the Ancient Red Dragon: You burned me!?
  • The titular character of the webcomic Zebra Girl has the ability to summon hellfire which makes anyone she's mad at spontaneously combust. In a subversion, Epileptic Tree wisdom states that the burns made are skin deep, so that the victim can be fried again...and again...and again.
  • In A-gnosis' comics on Greek myth, the black fire of Tartaros can burn the spirits of the dead and cause a lasting blight on the world of the living. That Persephone can call it up at all, let alone outside The Underworld, is a sign that she has more power than even she is aware of — not even underworld gods like Hades and Nyx can manage that.

    Web Original 
  • Dragon Cave has a species called "Hellfire Wyverns". The submissive males are the bright fiery red usually associated with this trope, while the more violent females are the bright blue of hotter flames.
  • During the final battle of the NES Godzilla Creepypasta, Big Bad Red shows himself able to breathe Hellfire much like a dragon. It causes serious damage to Zach's monsters and much like Red's other attacks during the final battle, causes Zach himself incredible pain in the real world.

    Western Animation 
  • Jackie Chan Adventures: Shendu and his son Drago are malevolent Fire Demons; a case of Dragons Are Demonic with fire-based magic. What's more, Drago demonstrates in his debut that his fire magic is capable of disintegrating the Twelve Talismans.
  • The Owl House: A somewhat metaphorical case, but the series' main setting is basically a "kid-friendly hellscape"; and Boscha, one of the more obnoxious and antagonistic denizens that Luz encounters, seems to have a particular propensity for primarily using fire magic to torment Luz. In fact, it's from one of Boscha's fire spells that Luz discovers the Fire Glyph.
  • Young Justice (2010): Klarion and fellow Chaos Lord Child are not only capable of conjuring magical red flames for combat against entities on their power level, they actively seem to enjoy doing so.


 
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Hellfire

Much like how holy water can destroy demons, hellfire is deadly to angels.

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