Making a Splash

How a water mage waves hello.

"There is nothing softer and weaker than water,
And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things.
For this reason there is no substitute for it."

— Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, Ch. 78

For this Sub-Trope of Elemental Powers, you attack with the stuff that makes up 60% of your body mass, covers 70% of the Earth's surface, and falls from the sky on a regular basis: water. Just plain old reliable water. It may not scream "explosive devastation" like fire and lightning do, but you can't trump water's versatility and availability. Flood 'em, drown 'em, frost 'em, steam 'em, wash 'em, whatever. And no, we don't use that water to heal someone, that's for the White Mage. Use it to kill someone! (Although in many cases, water is used as a healing element.)

Many philosophers, like Lao Tzu above, wax poetic far beyond Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness about how nothing in the world is weaker and more malleable than water, and yet water wears away the hard and strong. Water extinguishes fire, smothers air, and erodes earth. The mountain stands tall and proud, but the sea will eventually grind it to sand. Water always, always, always wins.

Combined with the other elements, water has additional effects: fire can boil or steam, earth can create mudslides, and air can create mists, dew, or storms.

A water controller's biggest weakness is that they usually must be in the vicinity of water to be effective. Not a problem in a modern city if they can affect underground plumbing, but if it's not raining and they're nowhere near a source of water, they might be screwed. It's very rarely addressed that they could just sap the water directly from a person's body, killing or weakening them instantly, but this could be an issue of dramatic license since that would result in some very short and uninteresting fight scenes.

There are also beings like Marvel Comics' Hydro-Man and Darkwing Duck's Liquidator, who are sentient masses of water. Beating them can be tough as bullets and fists can simply punch through them to no effect while energy weapons' beams can be scattered through the substance. Furthermore, they usually change their shape at will, pass through anything that is not watertight and hit with concentrated blasts of their own mass. However, there are ways of defeating them: you can freeze or boil them, you can evaporate them, you can make them lose cohesion by hitting them with electricity to induce electrolysis,^note That is the effect of forcing the hydrogen and oxygen atoms making up water apart. or you can contaminate their bodies with a solidifying material, like cement or bake mix, to immobilize them.

Water is also required for Super Drowning Skills and Hazardous Water.

In most cases, this power beats Playing with Fire. A Sub-Trope of sorts is An Ice Person; both can be very dangerous indeed, if the two are combined. See Kill It with Water for cases where this is super effective; Soft Water may still be in effect — you just drown 'em. On the other hand, Heal It with Water is for cases when water is presented as a force of healing. Often, Water Is Blue. May also appear as part of Fire, Water, Wind.

If you came here looking for Splash Damage tropes, you might want to go to Splash Damage Abuse, and to Shockwave Stomp for situations where the stomp isn't purely decorative.

May overlap with Elemental Shapeshifter.

In a Four-Temperament Ensemble, such a character is normally Phlegmatic (except in the case of a Power Stereotype Flip). When it overlaps with Classical Elements Ensemble, the bearer is normally female.

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Example Subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Video Games

Other Examples:

Asian Animation

• In Happy Heroes, the Guling Supermen have different elemental-themed powers, with Sad S. having water powers that manifest themselves through her weaponizing her crying.

Comic Books

• Aquaman himself doesn't have any abilities that influence water itself, per se, but his wife, Mera, could control it to the point of it being a Swiss-Army Superpower, as could the destructive denizen of Sub Diego, the Eel. There's also his little buddy Aqualad, currently Tempest, whose magic powers grant him elemental control over water.
  • The Tangent Comics version of Aquaman was a Diabolical Mastermind turned sentient ocean, as well.
  • In the Filmation cartoon, Aquaman did have the ability to gather seawater into a hard ball and hurl it at his underwater foes. It could knock them off their seahorses. Aquaman, when equipped with the Hand of the Waterbearer, had some fairly high-level hydrokinesis abilities.
  • Modern Age newcomer Aqualad; Kaldur'ahm has hydrokinetic capacities controlled and directed through his water bearers, though to a less refined degree than Mera.
  • New 52 Ocean Master has a helmet that allows him control over water.
  • Also in New 52 continuum Aquaman has recently ascertained a fabled Relic of an "Old Monarch" which wields the power of the storm itself, including controlling water.
• Bill Willingham's Elementals had Fathom, who could shoot, control, turn into, or breathe water (and the vampires of that 'Verse were the water-killed variety too). The newer but unrelated Top Cow Fathom is part of a whole race with similar powers.
• Fathom: A common power of all Elite Blue/assorted other factions and the Black, the ability to control water and transform into water. Aspen raises the level using her unique biological traits/heritage, intellect, and personal outlook to maximize her abilities beyond all known limits. If Aspen wants to move all the oceans and alter the weather simultaneously, it happens!
• Firestorm (DC Comics): Mashenka Medviedenko aka Rusalka is a Russian metahuman whose control over water extends even to bodily fluids. Her moniker is a reference to the Ruasalka, a creature of Slavic myth that is often associated with water.
• Global Guardians: Sujatmi Sunowaparti is an Indonesian woman whose metagene was activated while she was working at a factory that became a battle site for two warring factions. She gained the ability to transform her body into water and control water in vast amounts.
• Plenty of Marvel Universe villains:
  • Morris Bench aka Hydro-Man (who is basically made of water in a similar way to Sandman with sand and usually uses his powers to produce flash floods). Hydro-Man is one of the harder rogues Spidey has to deal with since his liquid composition makes him insanely versatile and Nigh-Invulnerable (unless you can freeze or electrocute him). Spider-Man once had to get Hydro-Man into a wide enough space so he couldn’t reform himself.
  • Water Wizard/Aqueduct (who can control liquid in any form). Despite his big-league powers, Water Wizard is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who was once spared a gruesome death when his Volkswagen's tire blew out and later surrendered to the police because he was afraid of a vigilante targeting losers like him.
• New Wave, a villainess in The DCU who can transform her body into any form of water, including steam and acid rain.
• Hydroman, a Golden Age superhero from Eastern Color Publishing, was the fits superhero with ability to transform his body into water. He was revived in Project Superpowers, using the nickname Hydro.
• Robin: Monsoon II nearly drowned Tim when she used her abilities to suddenly move several pools worth of water into a Bludhaven alleyway, he'd have died if he hadn't been accompanied by magic using allies at the time.
• Kitsunami "Kit" the Fennec from Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) uses water stored in his backpack to form Combat Tentacles and, when agitated, can even freeze it. He can replenish his water supply by absorbing moisture from the air, lest he run out and be rendered powerless.
• Storm of course as a part of her iconic Weather Manipulation she can control rain doing everything from playfully getting her lover T'challa soaked to kicking Pyro's ass with a monsoon to the point where he can barely stand◊.
• Namor from Ultimate Fantastic Four displayed water controlling abilities. In the main 616 universe Namor summons a tsunami to sink New York but he is stopped by 1940s Human Torch, Wakanda isn't so lucky in Avengers vs. X-Men as the Phoenix Force powered-Namor drowns most Wankadans with a massive wave.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Holding Poseidon's trident enables the villain Queen Clea to manipulate the ocean.
  • Wonder Woman (1942): Solo of Neptunia can control water though a focus, which he generally uses as a water whip.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): "The Witch and the Warrior" features a fight between New Wave, Tsunami and Cascade, three superpowered individuals with the ability to control water. They flood a fair portion of Manhattan and nearly drown some of their respective allies. Another fight from the same issue features Rusalka, a Russian metahuman whose control over water extends to bodily fluids.

Fan Works

• Destiny Intertwined: Water is the youngest hybrid element, having originated from the crossing of Fire and Ice. Its breath form manifests as a stream of water that batters targets or, at very high mastery, can outright pressure-cut, while its manipulation allows for the creation of shields of water around oneself or others. Water dragons who live mainly underwater tends to develop manipulation first and the breath second, in an inversion of how other dragons manifest these powers, and use their manipulation to control existing water around themselves.

• Just Add Water (Akela_Victoire): One of Mirabel's abilities is hydrokinesis, even being able to freeze it on command.
• Keepers of the Elements: Bridgette has this as a power, along with ice.
• Pokémon: Nova and Antica: Marina, Gym Leader of Morwenna City, uses all Water types.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: Misty, like other Water Heart bloodliners, can use Water-type Pokémon moves. Water Heart bloodliners can also swim very well, breathe underwater, and withstand inhuman pressures. To top it all off, they can communicate with Water Pokémon and even control their minds.
• Pretty Cure Jungle Trip: Discussed; Lala is impressed that Setsuna is such a good diver despite not having water powers. She is promptly shown up by an actual water-based Cure, Laura.
• Raindancer: Izuku's Quirk, "Liquid Body", allows him to produce, manipulate, and become water at will.

• Rise of the Galeforces gives us David Squall/Splashdown. It helps to remember that he is essentially an Expy of Aquaman.
• Take a Stand: Regina Lowell got the power to create water and control it from the Purple Sky incident in The Broken Mirror.
• Touhou Galaxy: Juvia, Aquarius, Nitori, Demyx and F.L.U.D.D. all have this ability, though Aquarius does so reluctantly (at best!) due to tending to be summoned when she's in the middle of something.
• Utopia Unmade: Cure Marine has mild control over water, being able to sense it underground. She's also able to directly control it and drown people in it, as Kumojacky found out the hard way.
• Vow of Nudity: Water Genasi can control any water in their immediate environment or generate new water from thin air.
• In With Strings Attached, John gains complete control over water, thanks to the magical Kansael that embedded itself in his chest. Being an Actual Pacifist, he doesn't do much more than play with it (though he did some pretty heavy-duty undead ass-kicking in the Plains of Death), but in several places, it's implied that he could be incredibly scary if he did some of the things the Kansael suggested to him. He seems to have some degree of control over the weather as well.

Films — Animation

• Any water-talent fairy in Disney Fairies can do this. Rani and Silvermist are the two best known.
• King Triton from The Little Mermaid (1989) can lift himself out of the water with a wave and hold that position channeling and funneling the water.
• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf - Mission Incredible: Adventures on the Dragon's Trail film, one of Xiao Shen Long's powers, the Gushing Faucet, has him creating a huge dragon out of water.

Films — Live-Action

• The Abyss: The underwater aliens had the ability to control water, from a harmless water tentacle to making continent destroying tidal waves all over the planet.
• The Mermaids from Aquamarine can manipulate water.
• Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva: The Jalastra wielded by Shiva's mother Amrita gives one power of water.
• In Carrie (1976), Norma Watson (P.J. Soles) is killed when a fire hose, controlled by the title character, hits her in the face, breaking her neck with the pressure.
• DC Extended Universe: Arthur Curry aka Aquaman can stop water with his trident. Mera (his Love Interest) magically weaponizes water in all manner of ways and as seen when she creates air bubbles, sucks water out of bodies or impales Atlantean soldiers with wine stalactites. They demonstrate these powers in Justice League and Aquaman.
• Harry Potter:
  • In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Dumbledore just like in the books effectively imprisons Voldemort in of water◊ before the snake man breaks free. Very fitting that Dumbledore uses water in that battle while Voldermort uses fire.
  • The Aguamenti Spell is used and said out loud by Harry during the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, unlike in the book it briefly holds back Fiendfyre.
• In Iron Man 2, Tony Stark's lab features a waterjet cutting machine.
• The Mermaid has the mermaid elder, who can create tidal waves using her tail. For most of the film she appears as a benevolent, harmless elderly mer-woman, until the climax when Ruolan's mercenaries raids the mer-people's hideout, at which point the elder reveals her abilities and blast the armed mooks all over the place with a few swishes from her tail.
• The Mighty One: The warrior Hsiang Kuei, whose Red Baron title is the Water Knight, proves that he lives up to his name when he chugs a mouthful of wine and spits it into the faces of three mooks, resulting in all three getting their facial skin shredded off. Somehow.
• Controlling sand apparently isn't enough for Imhotep in The Mummy Returns as he makes a giant wave to attack Rick and others when they are trying to chase him down.
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings features a Chinese inspired dragon as the Great Protector, which fittingly uses water-based powers instead of the usual more common fire. She draws water from a lake as she is fighting.

Literature

• Water is the totem (and weapon) of Translucent of the Apprentice Adept series.
• The Fantasy trilogy Chronicles of the Raven has a wonderful example where three-dimensional mages open a gate to a dimension made entirely of water and use it to flood a whole valley of invaders.
• Watercrafters in Codex Alera may be better known for being healers and Empaths, but they can also drown you on dry land if you piss them off. They can also control water, though not to the same dramatic effect as earthcrafters or firecrafters with their respective elements. They also look much younger than they really are, as a side effect of their healing prowess, and specialist watercrafters known as "witchmen" also use their talents to keep powerful ocean beasts from detecting their ships as they pass over.
• In the Dresden Files, Warden Carlos Ramirez is one of the few water mages who takes advantage of water's ability to dissolve and erode. His shielding spell turns a hail of bullets into lead powder (and turns a ghoul that tries to force its way through into ghoul-ade) and his primary offense is a blast of disintegrating green light.
• The Elemental Masters series by Mercedes Lackey has several Water Masters/mages, the main ones being Peter Scott (The Serpent's Shadow), Lord Peter Almsley (Unnatural Issue and The Serpent's Shadow), Marina Roeswood (The Gates of Sleep) and Mari Prothero (Home from the Sea).
• Waterworkers of The Empirium Trilogy are people who can manipulate water.
• In Grimm Tales, Zane Grimm is a powerful user of water magic. Many of his water spells focus on concussive force, and when used at close range, can end a fight in a hurry.
• The Aguamenti Spell from Harry Potter is a great and useful spell for making a splash, though if used incorrectly it can be quite hazardous as Seamus Finnigan shows when he accidentally shot a powerful stream that knocked Professor Flitwick away, ending with him having to write lines in detention. Dumbledore uses it to give Voldermort a thrashing during their climactic fight in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it doesn't work on Fiendfyre however just evaporating in the air.
• Lost Voices: While the mermaid Luce practices singing, trying to train her voice to do something besides kill people, she discovers that when she sings a certain way, she can make waves rise out of the water and move the way she wants. Catarina says that she's never seen anyone with that gift except for Marina, who was Catarina's queen when she lived off the coast of Russia. Luce uses her power in battle against both humans and other mermaids, and to conjure up currents to carry herself along when she's exhausted. Conventional wisdom is that controlling water is a gift that only a small number of mermaids have, but Luce is convinced that anyone could learn with practice. She's proven right in The Twice Lost, when she teaches hundreds of mermaids to conjure waves.
• Both Melusine and her son Maelstrom in The New Humans.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Percy Jackson is born with this ability, being the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea (who is presented in a much more favorable light in the books than the myths, but then, so are most people). Even throughout the other instalments of The Camp Half-Blood Series he stands out in this regard.
• The genius loci Rivers from Rivers of London can control the flow of their respective watercourses, sometimes causing floods when they're angry or upset.
• The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel has the twins learn this Magic in the third book from Gilgamesh and it is the first element that they both learn together. Excalibur also gets upgraded to the sword of Ice/Water.
• Renegades has Tsunami, one of the OG Renegades, who can both create and control water in large quantities.
• Shadow Grail has Adalaide Lake, a water witch and a close friend of the protagonist
• In Shadow Ops, hydromancers can control water. They can also either heat up or cool down water, allowing them to generate ice or steam as needed, which makes them useful as medics for burn victims, or as breachers for knocking down doors or walls.
• The Silerian Trilogy: The waterlords, whose magic lets them control this, with the most powerful of them able to make an entire river fold back on itself and starve a city dry.
• In the Star Trek Novel Verse, the aquatic Alonis do not possess opposable digits. In order to build a civilization, they instead use their limited but effective telekinetic control over water. They essentially "shape" the water into "tools". The exact limit on the ability has not been determined (yet) but, possibly, it depends on the individual.
• Stories of Nypre has mages of the four main elements. The water mages tend to use water in combat.
• In The Syrena Legacy, the Gift of Triton allows a Syrena to create waves with a scream. In Of Triton, Rayna develops a mysterious voice ailment that turns out to be her developing Gift. Once she gains control of her powers, she uses them to flood the island of Kanton in order to rescue two Syrena who are being held captive by humans there.
• Mia Rinaldi from Vampire Academy, is a water magic user who manages to temporarily incapacitate a Strigoi by drowning him.
• There's a short Sci-Fi story where a worker at a salvage yard uses a portable water jet cutter to dismember his attacker.
• Wild Cards: Water Lily, aka Jane Doe, can control water in lethal ways. In one scene, she sucks out the water out of a person.
• The Witch of Knightcharm: Amira Chadid, a rookie witch at an evil Wizarding School and a member of Lily's cruel clique, specializes in water magic. The protagonist Emily learns this when Amira pulls water out of her canteens and wraps it around her (Emily's) face so she can't breathe, then leaves her to die.
• The World of Ice & Fire: The wizards of the Rhoynar specialized in raising waterspouts and "walls of water". They expected this to be an adequate countermeasure against Valyrian dragons, and it worked as such for a long while until the Valyrians overwhelmed them with hundreds of dragons at once.
• Wrong Time for Dragons has the Water Clan, one of the four Elemental clans in the Middle World, whose mages are very adept at using water magic in a deadly manner. In their first appearance, they ambush and kill several experienced Air mages during their Hour of Power (each Element has a time of day when it's the strongest). Two are killed when the Water mages begin to manipulate the water in the Air mages' bodies, and one is killed by a water whip, which slices him in half. They can also create water golems that cannot be stopped by conventional means (steel weapons simply pass through the water, while rusting and crumbling). It's not a surprise that the Water Clan is the most powerful at the time the story takes place. They also use it for peaceful means, especially in their capital city of Hundred Fields, which is full of beautiful fountains, canals, and water mirrors.

Live-Action TV

• Charmed (1998): In the backstory of, Patty Halliwell (the protagonists' mother) was drowned decades earlier by a water demon. The demon itself appears as a Monster of the Week in the second season; aside from controlling water, it can transform fully into water and jump inside people, animating corpses or (as in Patty's case) drowning its victims on dry land. It is defeated when Patty's former whitelighter Sam lets it drown him while holding a set of jumper cables, electrocuting them both.
• Doctor Who: In "The Waters of Mars", a flood of water-controlling parasites from the planet Mars infect the water supply of a human base. In a rare example, they can take over a human's body, making them akin to zombies.
  "Water is patient... water just waits. Wears down the cliff tops, the mountains. The whole of the world. Water always wins."
• Aisha from Fate: The Winx Saga is a pretty powerful Water Fairy and she is able to both control and generate significant amounts of water (although, ironically, she has a harder time in manipulating the minimal amounts of it, as seen in the third episode).
• H₂O: Just Add Water:
  • Although the three girls have powers over water, Cleo is the only one who can actually control it and manipulate it. Emma's power is freezing things while Rikki's is boiling things.
  • Charlotte, the Big Bad of season 2 has this and the other two's powers as well.
  • Mako Mermaids: An H₂O Adventure: In the spinoff series, all natural-born merpeople have this power to varying degrees. Evie gains this ability when she becomes a human mermaid.
• In Heroes, Tracy gains this power after coming Back from the Dead during the Volume 4 finale.
• Kamen Rider has had a few water users in its history, including Kiva's Basshaa Form, Abyss, and OOO ShaUTa Combo, Wizard Water Style, Zero-One Biting Shark, and Blades.

• The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nóg: Ivar, with his Barbed Trident ("water around me!")
• Nowhere Boys: Andy and Jesse.
• Super Sentai has featured a few heroes who can manipulate water — chiefly the Blue Rangers of each team. Examples include the Gingaman, Hurricangers, Magirangers, Shinkengers, and Goseigers. Driven home by Milestone Celebration installment Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, where GokaiBlue uses a finishing move referencing said Blues against a Monster of the Week.
• Tidelands (Netflix): The hybrids have the ability to manipulate water somewhat. Also blood, which is implied to be because that's mostly water too. They usually do this with water in people's bodies, whether to harm or heal them.
• A Monster of the Week in Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger / Power Rangers S.P.D. turned out to be using this power to cut through things like steel and stone. And opponents; you will feel it even through a Ranger suit, in the same episode where we find a Ranger can causally lift and toss a car, proving just how strong those suits are. Water could be fired with that kind of razor precision. And it turns out it's Truth in Television. Water jet cutters really are a thing. Mind you, abrasives of some sort are often mixed in, but not always.
• Not common in the Ultra Series but it shows up here and there:
  • Ultraman Gaia: While Ultraman Agul doesn't have any obviously water-based powers, his life energy is drawn from the sea itself, so he can be considered an example.
  • Ultraman R/B's Ultraman Blu uses water-based abilities by default, in contrast to his brother's fire-based ones. He can switch powers with Ultraman Rosso though if needed.
  • A number of kaiju as well.
    • Seamons and Seagorath from Return of Ultraman are a mated pair of Sea Monsters who can use their combined powers to summon tsunamis and cause massive rainstorms.
    • The Gilas Brothers of Ultraman Leo possess many of the same powers as Seamons and Seagorath above, which Alien Magma uses to devastate coastal cities and even sink an entire island.
    • Mizunoeryu from Ultraman Gaia is the Dragon God of Water, thus possesses a wide range of water-based powers, including Weather Manipulation, create shields or orbs of water, and change the consistency and color of water.
    • Maga-Jappa from Ultraman Orb is the King Demon Beast of Water. Resembling a seahorse mixed with an octopus, it fouls up bodies of water with its presence, rendering them unbearably smelly, and is able to shoot jets of polluted water from its snout.

Music

DJ the S' "Disciple of the Water" is a compilation remix of Water-based themes from video games.

Myths & Religion

• Various deities and spirits in Aboriginal Australian Myths (fitting, as most of the continent is arid so some water is appreciated):
  • In the Gunwinggu sphere Ngalyod is the Lord of the Ocean and the Yawkyawk the various sea gods which can control the waves and weather.
  • The Wandjina from the "Wandjina-Wungurr" cultural complex in Kimberley bring in the rains. Wungurr is the Life-Force, represented by water.
  • Similarly, Yurlungur is a serpent deity associated with water in Yolngu lore.
  • The Gamilaraay have Birrangulu, a goddess that brings in floods. The Garriya is a water snake monster; the famous Bunyip is associated with water in modern times, but traditionally its just a term for any dark spirit.
  • Wagyl is the Noongar Fertility God, bringing in the rains.
  • Ironically the Yuin, the Australian Aboriginal culture that were the best navigators and fishermen, don't seem to have sea deities.
• The Bible:
  • Jesus. Not only can he control the entire ocean and all its storms, he can also walk on water or turn it into wine.
  • Moses split the Red Sea to allow his people safe passage out of Egypt.
• When the forces of the demon Mara attack Buddha, calling him unworthy of calling himself enlightened, the latter calmly summons the Earth to be the witness of his enlightenment. The Earth appears in the form of the goddess Dharani, who promptly generates a flood tide from her hair, symbolizing the amount of Buddha's merits, and washes the demons away.
• Flood myths are pretty common. Gilgamesh goes to find the survivors of the Flood, who has been granted immortality.
• In Greek Mythology, Poseidon is the hot-tempered god of the sea. Incidentally, he's also a god of earthquakes. So he doesn't just kill you with water.
• Many other gods, obviously, both of the sea and freshwater bodies. Examples include Oceanus (also from Classical Mythology), Mannan Mac Lir, Njörðr, Sobek, and Atabey as well as the many kinds of nymphs and fairies and the like.
• Eastern dragons are frequently Nature Spirits attuned to water.

Podcasts

• Chel/Summer from Sequinox can summon large waves thanks to her beach theme, usually in the form of her Misirlou Beach Blast attack. In the monster world from the Gemini Arc, Winter's ice powers are replaced by murky seawater.

Tabletop Games

• 50 Fathoms: Magic in Caribdus is element-based. Since the world is mostly ocean (and getting more so all the time, thanks to an ongoing curse), specialising in water is a pretty solid choice.
• In Aberrant, Splash is a well-respected member of Team Tomorrow with the ability to control water and transform her body into water. And the powers are available to player characters.
• In Anima: Beyond Fantasy, one can specialize in Water-based magic, which allows both for the control of water and ice.
• The Aquos attribute in Bakugan is that series' water element.
• Blue Rose has "water shaping" as one arcanum adepts can learn. It's rather less dramatic than usual for this trope, letting you do things like raise or lower the surface of a body of water with a few feet.
• Demon: The Fallen: The Lore of Storm practiced by the Defilers is, despite what its name implies, mostly about controlling water.
• A few Dungeons & Dragons monsters and prestige classes get in on this, particularly water elementals, water-based Elemental Savants, and Wavekeepers. There's also a species of aberration in the Pathfinder setting that's damaged by saltwater.
• Exalted: Water elementals, deities associated with water and Water Aspect Dragon-Bloods can do this a bit, and their equivalents, the Water Ryuujin from the shard Burn Legend, do this virtually all the time, to the extent of getting damage and clash bonuses when near a full bathtub, fire sprinkler, or other sources of water.
• Magic: The Gathering: Multiple:
  • Jokulhaups, one of the earliest Reset Button (i.e. kill everything!) cards of the game. But why does it use mountain mana? Because Jokulhaups are the result of melting a glacier, which would require a lot of red mana.
  • A student mage in the Kamigawa novels tries to explain the strength of water by talking about the strength of a tsunami breaking apart a ship.
  • The "Hydroblast" spell, from its name and image. Also Water Is Blue, as it uses blue mana.
• Nobilis: take Water, Floods, Rivers, Streams, Oceans or anything along those lines as your Estate, then buy the rest of your Familia some floaties.
• Pathfinder:
  • Kineticists with the water element, which also crosses over with An Ice Person. Their abilities start at blasting enemies with high-pressure bolts of water and upgrade into manipulating mist and fog, general hydrokinesis, walking on water, and creating Deflector Shields out of water or ice, with the element's ultimate wild talent summoning a Giant Wall of Watery Doom.
  • Some class archetypes also revolve around controlling water, including the Water Elementalist (Wizard), Sea Singer (Bard), and Ocean Druid (Druid).
• Rifts features an optional (and somewhat underwhelming) Psychic Character class called the Soaker, a character with hydrokinetic powers.

Toys

• The Water Element in BIONICLE. One example of use is Gali, a Toa of Water, who has literally killed the realm of Karzahni with a massive flood attack after evacuating all the traumatized Matoran.

Visual Novels

• In Spirit Hunter: NG, the Urashima Woman's cause of death was drowning, and so as a spirit she's gained some control over water. She can make her victims feel like they're drowning even without water present, she can control the water in Akira's pipes when she haunts his apartment, and Seiji theorizes that she can teleport herself to any location that has water, such as bathrooms, lakes, sewers, etc.

Web Animation

• Dreamscape:
  • Anjren can shoot blasts of water by creating clouds of various sizes.
  • Jenna can create a ball of water by combining a ball of ice and a ball of lava.
• DSBT InsaniT:
  • Given what she is the goddess of, Waterfall Girl has this trope in the bag. She can even drop a waterfall on you.
  • Tide can create water spouts and such.
  • While not involving water directly, Corla can create spikes of coral.
• Calamity of No Evil can control water with the aid of Tlaloc's magical tuning fork. Her real name, Chalchiutlique, is that of an Aztec goddess of water.
• Water-Human. He can attack people with masses of water, apparently has a propensity for sitting in water for no reason, and may very well be an Elemental Embodiment, actually (his skin is revealed to actually be blue in the final episode).

Webcomics

• In Agents of the Realm, Jordan's element is Water.
• In Air Ride Adventures, Blue Kirby can use Teal Dolphin's Sea to make water appear out of thin air. He creates hydrogen atoms to do it.
• In Beyond the Canopy, Cascadian foot soldiers are trained in this. Which is odd, because they live in a desert. They carry water — with explosive fish inside — on their shoulders to shape into weapons.
• Seaweed's power set in Gloomverse.
• In Pacificators, Larima is an Elite-ranked Pacificator of water (the rank Elite is the highest possible). She's so good at her power of water, she's also An Ice Person. ^note However, she can't swim, and is afraid of deep water. The renegade Tiamat is one as well.
• Panthera: Onca Aquae, Jaguar of Water.
• Phantomarine: Cheth is the god of Death and of Water, and has the ability to manipulate water in all forms.
• Sleepless Domain's protagonist Undine Wells has this power as Alchemical Water. She's a member of Team Alchemical, a Magical Girl group with powers based on the four classical elements (plus Tessa, their leader, as Aether).
• In Suihira, Wahida seems to have developed water multiplying powers after her talk with Akia.
• Wayward Sons: Saiden. He can control its state of matter too, allowing him to form his weapon of choice, a trident, out of ice. He can even move a fleet of ships around, though he runs the risk of passing out from exhaustion when he does so.

Web Original

• In Elemental, the element of water goes to Nachtis, symbolized by internal shifting and change, just like his element.
• Strangely, only Sabella in Trinton Chronicles has any water-based powers. She also has one ability that she tends to mix with her hydroblasts to make them especially deadly. Aside from her liquid control, she also has the added gift of freezing water.
• Whateley Universe examples: Riptide, the girlfriend of protagonist Chaka, and Aquamaster of the West Coast League.
• In Worm, Leviathan has this ability on a terrifying scale, capable of causing tsunamis and sinking islands.

Web Videos

• In Noob, water elementalists are healing-oriented, but their token non-healing spells fit the trope. The one among the protagonists has been shown using the classic water jet and having some control over bodies of water in the comic. The Coconut Superpowers-laden web series that demotes the former to light particles had her mention the possibility of generating an ice shield.

Western Animation

• The Aquaman & Friends Action Hour: Aquaman can toss high-pressure concussive water balls, a power which has since been adapted into several animated, live-action, and comics versions of the character.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Waterbenders tend both toward this and the White Mage version. Water can be used for healing along with manipulation of chi flow, but in its attack forms, it's used as a malleable weapon (wall-of-water ram, razor-whip, ensnaring tendrils, etc.). Waterbending also involves solidifying shapes as ice, and certain waterbenders can leech water from surrounding plants, manipulate plants through the water inside them, and physically manipulate other beings through their blood. Extremely exceptional waterbenders such as Amon/Noatak can use bloodbending to take away others' bending abilities.
  • Ming-Hua from The Legend of Korra deserves special mention, as she has the fine control to manipulate water without any arms. Indeed, being able to have water for arms makes her far more versatile and dangerous with the element than most.
  • Like the other bending styles Waterbending is based on a martial art. Specifically, it's based on t'ai chi ch'uan, a style that features slow movements and elegant forms that evoke the feel of flowing water.
• Ben 10:
  • Ben 10: Ultimate Alien:
    • The Orishans have this as their main ability. Both Bivalvan and Water Hazard display the ability to breathe underwater and shoot out pressurized water blasts. Water Hazard takes this even further by being able to manipulate the density of his water blasts and being able to manipulate and absorb the moisture in the air.
    • Aggregor, after absorbing Bivalvan, also displays this ability, though he mostly uses it to create a bubble shield capable of withstanding missiles.
  • Ben 10 (2016):
    • Overflow can do most of what Water Hazard can and can even redirect streams of water thrown his way.
    • Kevin's take on Overflow, dubbed Undertow, is capable of similar hydrokinetic abilities, though his water looks like it came right out of a swamp.
• Gi of Captain Planet and the Planeteers has Water as her element, whether from any body of water, a faucet and the like.
• Darkwing Duck: The villain Liquidator can not only manipulate water, but also heat it, chill it, or turn it into hard water.
• Dragons: Riders of Berk: Scauldrons are aquatic dragons that spit super-heated water at their prey.

• Justice League: Downpour, from Justice League Unlimited, uses is water powers to try to drown Max Lord, sweep a few dozen lava monsters off an oil rig, and turn himself into a tsunami. And then he tries to drown Aquaman.
  Aquaman: King of the Seas, remember?
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: In practice, Tad Mulholland can come off as a water elemental. He manipulates water and can even create certain figures of water to fight.
• My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "Flight to Cloud Castle", one of the castle's guardians is a merman who can control water, mostly in the form of blasts of it that he shoots at the heroes.
• Ninjago: Kai's sister Nya is revealed in Season 5 to be the Elemental Master of Water. After undergoing training, Nya can shoot jets of water at the enemy, make it rain, and manipulate existing sources of water, which allows her to defeat the Preeminent. She can also become the very embodiment of the ocean by merging with the Endless Sea, though doing so comes at the cost of her humanity and forces her to say goodbye to her friends until they are able to restore her by temporarily taking away her powers.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Mermista has control over water. She derives her powers from the Pearl.
• Sky Dancers: A variation: Breeze is able to conjure rain clouds torrential enough to flood a room.
• Static Shock: Aquamaria takes on the living water being form. She actually does well against Static (he's prone to shorts) until he realizes, hey, electrolysis!
• Steven Universe: Lapis Lazuli can manipulate water and create copies of her opponents. In one of the most dramatic shows of this power onscreen, she controls the entire ocean at the same time and shapes it into a huge tower. By extension, Malachite, a fusion formed between Lapis and Jasper, also retains this ability.
• Teen Titans (2003): Aqualad has these sorts of powers, which don't seem to work while he's UNDER water for some reason.

• Winx Club:
  • Subverted. While Aisha comes from an ocean-based realm, and seems connected to water, her powers come from plasma, which appears in the show to be shiny, pink clay. This is very evident in the 4th season when, twice, the girls had to stop a housefire and Aisha could not use her powers to douse it. Her Sophix seems to give her this power, though.
  • Played straight in the spinoff World of Winx where Aisha DOES have water-based powers.
• W.I.T.C.H.: Irma Lair can control water, as well as create it seemingly from nowhere.

• Young Justice (2010): Aqualad can telekinetically control water and turn it into weapons like a sword or hammer. It's later shown that this is the standard for Atlantean magic and that the powers Aqualad wields are actually a far simpler version. Atlanteans with fuller training have demonstrated making different shapes out of water, like manta rays as shields, octopi to make use of combat tentacles, and even an eel, to electrocute enemies. Though it's no longer her exclusive ability, Mera is definitely a lot more powerful than the others by a few orders of magnitude.

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