Follow TV Tropes

Following

Super-Empowering

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SatanEmpowering5_3436.jpg
Aha! So Manga really is Satanic!

"The ability to give superpowers to characters is acceptable. Naming the character Captain Franchise is not."

Simply put, the ability to give someone else an ability. It can be a superpower, magic, or even oddball abilities.

There's five variants of this:

  1. Characters that are so powerful they can give fragments of their power to others. — Genies, gods, really powerful wizards.
  2. A character can gift the entirety of their own power to another, either permanently if about to die, or temporarily.
  3. Supercharge someone else's existing powers with a Combined Energy Attack or Super Mode much like a living Amplifier Artifact.
  4. A character can turn another person into one of their own kind, powers and all. Usually it's a Viral Transformation, be it a vampire or werewolf's bite, an Emergency Transformation spell, a blood donation or a witch training an apprentice.
  5. Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, The Fair Folk, or someone similar can tinker with someone's existence, genetics, soul, or similar to grant them abilities. Less advanced organizations can make similar attempts (Cyborgs are expensive) with less chance of success.

It's uncommon but not unheard of for a character to have this as his only power. They tend to be Support Party Members or a Living MacGuffin that must be protected, captured, or destroyed. They may be limited in their uses of this power by a Power Source, commonly Cast from Hit Points, which makes their empowering indiscriminately potentially suicidal. However if the giver is powerful enough, they may be capable of a Mass Super-Empowering Event. Another limitation is that they may only be able to "awaken" or unlock dormant powers, so anyone who doesn't belong to a Mage Species, power carrying family, or doesn't have an X-gene can't be empowered.

See also Status Buff, Fusion Dance and Mental Fusion. Contrast Power Parasite, which is about taking other people's powers for yourself, though there can be overlap if you can both "give" and "take". Compare Time to Unlock More True Potential, for when a character can enhance an already existing power. A subtrope of Meta Power, powers that influence other powers.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • The Godhand from Berserk are able to grant certain humans a One-Winged Angel form by turning them into Apostles. It comes at the price of the demon-to-be having to sacrifice whoever they hold most dear to them. New Godhands are born the same way, but it requires a much greater sacrifice and it can only happen during the Eclipse.
  • Bikini Warriors: When they prepare to take on a demon, Cleric prays to the God of War to empower her and her comrades. It works; they glow with a Battle Aura and their bodies and weapons are strengthened.
  • Bleach:
    • Ichigo's powers are first activated at the beginning when Rukia decides to share with him a portion of hers, although Ichigo accidentally sucks up more than she was willing to give. Ichigo's powerful aura ends up activating the dormant spiritual powers of Sado and Orihime. Because of the nature of quincy powers, Uryuu can suck up Ichigo's power when touching him.
    • It's also stated that other Soul Reapers are able to do this, but the practice of doing so is illegal. Rukia only empowered Ichigo as it was either that or die, and the Soul Society arc came about due to Soul Society finding out about this and seeking to punish her.
    • Ginjo, after stealing Ichigo's Fullbring for a powerup, also showed the ability to empower the other Fullbringers by distributing a piece of it to each of them (while keeping the majority of it for himself).
    • The Emperor of the Vandenreich and the progenitor of all Quincies, Yhwach, can empower others by lending them fragments of his own soul. The elite of the Vandenreich boast a variety of superpowers as a result. Heat manipulation, lightning, Super-Strength, and reality warping are a few examples. Emphasis on "lending". The Emperor eventually takes back what he gave, with interest.
    • Yhwach's right-hand man, Jugram Haschwalth, can amplify the powers of other Quincies with his presence.
  • Chainsaw Man: Performing a contract with a Devil lets anyone borrow the Devil's powers directly, or outright transform into it. Extensive use of the latter can lead to a permanent Power-Upgrading Deformation.
  • In Code Geass, immortal Code Bearers such as C.C. and V.V. can bestow Geass abilities to people, as C.C. did with Lelouch. Those who receive Geass powers make a contract with the Code Bearer. Once their Geass strengthens past a certain point, they become able to kill the Code Bearer and take the Code for themselves. In C.C.'s case, the only one that's shown, she went through about a thousand years, making plenty of contracts, and still hasn't found anyone to kill her — and she was tricked into receiving the Code in the first place.
  • Calumon, also known as the Catalyst from Digimon Tamers is a type 3, able to make other Digimon Digivolve with his Shining Digivolution ability. The Digi-Destined/Chosen Children in all of the seasons are also examples of type 3 to their Digimon partners.
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • The Namekian Guru was able to unlock some huge reserves of power in Gohan and Krillin.
    • Happens multiple times to Piccolo when he "fuses" with Nail, and later in the series, Kami, while still technically remaining himself.
    • The Elder Kaioshin has the ability to take a person "far beyond their limits." The exact definition of this is vague, but it's enough to let Gohan outclass Super Buu with little effort.
    • Babidi's magic was able to turn Yamu and Spopovich, two otherwise normal humans, into minor minions with the ability to fly and fire ki blasts, as well as regenerate from fatal injuries like having their necks snapped. He used this same power on Vegeta, which gave him enough of a boost to let him beat Goku (albeit due to a sneak attack and the fact that Goku deliberately held back from using SSJ3).
  • In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, primary antagonist Muzan Kibutsuji has developed his blood so that it has special mutagenic properties that can transform humans into demons. Also, people injected with Muzan's blood seem to develop special powers like rapid regeneration, the power to control the flesh, immortality, an accelerated growth rate, enhanced physical prowess and even supernatural abilities called Blood Demon Arts.
  • In Dragon Knights, Cesia has the latent power to exponentially increase anyone else's power with just proximity. She doesn't even have to will it.
  • In Fairy Tail, The Celestial Spirit King is capable of permanently empowering mortals with the magic of a celestial spirit, as shown when he gives Lucy Aquarius' powers after the girl was forced to sacrifice Aquarius' Golden Key to summon him to fight Tartaros and free Fairy Tail from almost certain death. The process clearly takes a lot out of him, however, as Mard Geer Tartaros mocks him for suddenly getting slower and weaker, though this doesn't stop him from successfully reversing Mard Geer's curse on Fairy Tail to get them back into the fight before he returns to the Spirit World.
  • This is one way a person can awaken their Nen in Hunter × Hunter. Being struck by a Nen-user, provided they survive it, unlocks the Nen within them. Kurapika can do it to a very limited extent. One of his abilities takes the form of a syringe that can draw out someone else's ability, and if he wants to, give that ability to someone else. The power can only be used once, and after that, the ability is returned to its original owner. If the recipient was not a Nen-user before, however, they become permanently awakened to Nen and can develop abilities of their own if they want.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Phantom Blood: Hamon master Will A. Zeppeli performs an unusual Type 3 on Jonathan, jabbing him in the chest in a way that alters Jonathan's breathing, allowing him to learn Hamon himself. Robert E.O. Speedwagon asks Zeppeli to do the same for him, but Zeppeli's finger slips, meaning he just punches Speedwagon in the gut. After being mortally wounded by one of Dio's minions, Zeppeli pulls a Type 2, using the Ultimate Deep Pass Overdrive to transfer his remaining life energy into Jonathan, greatly boosting the latter's strength, agility, and Hamon power.
    • Stardust Crusaders and onward have special arrows which hold the ability to grant Stands to people they pierce, but only if they survive, and only if they have the capacity for a Stand in the first place. Stands are physical manifestations with all sorts of powers, and they're invulnerable to any physical harm except from other Stands, so those in the know of the arrows are perpetually in a race to either obtain them or destroy them. Without fail, they wind up in the hands of major villains, and the arrows are the reason the heroes find themselves under attack from a neverending series of Stand Users. Diamond is Unbreakable depicts the arrows with wills of their own, able to detect those with potential for Stands and drawing their wielders toward them.
    • Golden Wind: Giorno's Gold Experience life giving properties means that in the event that it hits a living being, it will give them Super Senses so powerful that time will slow to a near halt for them and they'll be able to view the world in a third-person, akin to an out of body experience. The problem is that these senses become so powerful that the recipient's body will find it impossible to keep up with its owner's thoughts and attempted actions, leaving the afflicted person unable to act despite these powerful senses and leaving the body vulnerable.
    • Stone Ocean: Enrico Pucci's Whitesnake allows him to not only steal memories, but also give Stands to his subordinates as discs that can be inserted into their body.
  • In K, the seven Kings are able to bestow their powers onto ordinary people (and animals, like the Green King's parrot), making them members of their Clans (Type 1). They usually make their potential Clansman first pass a test of some kind, which can be quite risky if they fail. For example, to join the Red Clan, HOMRA, a newcomer must shake hands with the Red King Mikoto Suoh while his hand is on fire and not get burned. The Blue Clan, Scepter 4, has something akin to a Knighting ceremony, with the powers transferred through the sword. Once accepted, these powers, known as Auras, appear to be permanent, since several Clansmen have been shown to keep their powers after their Kings' deaths. Saruhiko Fushimi, who left HOMRA and joined Scepter 4, kept his Red Aura, and both Kuroh and Yukari, previous Clansmen of the Colourless King, keep their Colourless Auras while gaining Silver and Green respectively. They can even bestow their Aura on Strains, people (and animals) who have powers that aren't from a King.
    • The Green Clan, Jungle, is a special case, as those who download their social network/game app on their phones can receive Green Aura powers without actually meeting the King. They do not become true Clansmen, however, and their powers can be taken away if they lose points in the game. To become the Green King's true clansman, all one must do is get enough points to reach the highest rank in the game (J-rank — the ranks are taken from the letters in JUNGLE, E being the lowest rank, J the highest).
  • Kagerou Daze: The Mekakushi-Dan's eye-powers are eventually revealed to be a version of Type 1 from Azami, Mary's grandmother - an immortal Gorgeous Gorgon. After Mary and Shion died together on August 15th over a century ago, she ordered the Heat Haze to let them in, and gave Mary the Combining Eyes snake. Ever since, people who die in pairs on that date (Kido and her sister, Momo and her father, Hibiya and Hiyori...) enter in that pattern, one being left behind and the other coming back with one of the snakes inside them.
  • The first Reinforce does a Type 2 at the end of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, passing her magic and Psychic Link with the Wolkenritter over to Hayate before she performs her Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Ajimu from Medaka Box has the ability to give her Abnormal powers to other people. It doesn't weaken her at all since she has over a quadrillion Abnormalities to spare. Of course, one of her superpowers is the ability to count that high. Her companion Hanten has the ability to create new powers from scratch and give them to others. He's only responsible for about a hundred of Ajimu's though.
  • My Hero Academia:
    • One For All is a unique Quirk that can be passed from one person to another. Granting the power of Super-Strength and Super-Speed to the new user, while the previous user is left with a remnant of the power that will slowly fade the more they use it. This Quirk also has a stockpiling mechanism that causes it to grow more powerful each time its passed on, with each new user being twice as powerful as the last. All Might was the eighth user, who then passed it onto, Izuku Midoriya, the ninth and current user. To pass it on, the current user must provide DNA for their chosen successor to consume orally, like a strand of hair or blood. They must also be willing to give the Quirk to another person otherwise it won't be passed on, as demonstrated by the fact that two villains, Himiko Toga and Hero Killer Stain, both ingested Midoriya's blood at different points but never gained One For All. It's later revealed that One For All also absorbs the Quirks of previous users, with Midoriya being the first user able to access these powers in addition to the standard super strength and speed. At the end of the Shie Hassaikai arc, Midoriya considers passing One for All to Mirio Togata to replace his lost Quirk after getting shot by a Quirk-erasing bullet, but Mirio turns this down in a hypothetical scenario. It's later revealed that Mirio turning this down actually saved him from an early death, as One for All has a nasty side-effect of reducing the lifespans of users who already had Quirks after they receive it, not affecting either Midoriya or All Might because both were Quirkless.
    • All For One is the Evil Counterpart of One For All, being a Quirk that has the power to steal Quirks from other people.note  The user can then either directly utilize the stolen Quirks or transfer them to another person. In the past the villain "All For One" used this power to create a criminal empire that allowed him to rule over Japan from the shadows for decades, until he was eventually defeated by All Might several years prior. The Artificial Human Nomus are a direct example of this power, as they have all been outfitted with multiple Quirks that All For One stole.
  • Wizards in Negima! Magister Negi Magi are Type 1, able to grant magical transformations or artifacts to others via Pactios.
  • Naruto:
    • The Tailed Beasts grant special abilities to their hosts. The titular character carries the Kyuubi (9-tailed fox), which grants him an almost bottomless well of chakra to draw from.
    • Naruto eventually figures out how to imbue others with the Kyuubi's power. He even proceeds to empower an entire army.
    • The Sage of Six Paths can empower other individuals, granting them Six Paths Chakra as he did with his son Asura in the past and near the end of the series, he gives both Naruto and Sasuke half of his power.
  • In Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge, Anita has the ability to heal Donovan's wounds, as well as giving him a power boost that enabled him to destroy the previously unstoppable Pyron. She only does this when he's at the brink of death though, because it's activated by intense emotional stress.
  • In Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Kneesocks can stick her scythe into a minor ghost to make it go One-Winged Angel.
  • Pokémon Adventures: Under the right circumstances, Yellow can (sub)consciously boost her normally weak Pokemon's levels to the eighties by spirit alone, but this has the unfortunate side effect of her forcing herself to sleep off the strain very soon after.
  • In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Kyubey's main goal in life seems to be creating Magical Girls. He's very pushy about it. Of course, this is only half the truth.
  • One of the main abilities of Beast Tamers in Rise Of The Outlaw Tamer is empowering their familiars. The main character's first familiar, Kyuruke, began as a slime so weak that he was bullied by other slimes. He winds up a flying, shapeshifting tank that can easily No-Sell blows meant to slay dragons.
  • Moka does a type 4 to Tsukune in Rosario + Vampire, granting him powers on par with true vampires. Of course, this comes with some nasty side-effects...
  • Type 3 happens at the end of every single season/arc/movie of Saint Seiya, usually with the titular character or Athena herself receiving the Cosmo of the remaining four Bronze Saints so he or she can deliver the final blow to their ultimate foe. In the Sanctuary
  • This is the signature power of the Death Scythe Spirit in Soul Eater. He can dramatically boost the natural abilities of whoever holds him, turning even a Red Shirt into a One-Man Army.
  • In Speed Grapher, Kagura can kiss people on the lips to grant them powers based on their deepest desires (usually their fetishes, hence why they're known as Euphorics), as well as total invincibility on any part of their bodies except their heads. Having Kagura within the Roppongi Club is the central source of the club's power, as there's no one else like her.
  • The protagonist of Tende Freeze is a type 3. The twist is that he's unaware of his ability.
  • Something of this is implied in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. At first, Simon is the only protagonist with Spiral Power at hand. But over time, the rest of the cast develop it as well, starting with obvious badasses like Kamina and Kittan, and moving all the way down to the Team Pet. Either Simon triggered Spiral Power growth in his companions, or he inspired them to awaken the power within themselves.
    • Kamina might be a subversion. It's never clear if he used Spiral Power at all. According to Word of God, he has the lowest potential for it among the main cast, and you never see Gurren use it without Lagann attached. Kamina's real contribution to the team was inspiring them to take action, rather than actually being worth anything in combat himself.
  • That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
    • Granting a monster a name (or giving them a new name) will impart a permanent increase in the monster's power, though how much varies depending on multiple factors (the species of the monster receiving the name and the strength of the one naming the monster are the major points). In several cases, the power boost can even allow them to progress in their evolution. When Rimuru first met Veldora, the two gave each other names as a sign of their friendship (Rimuru giving Veldora the surname "Tempest", while Veldora properly named him "Rimuru Tempest"). As Veldora is one of the most powerful beings in the world, being named gave Rimuru a massive power-up, but by comparison Rimuru being just an above-average slime at the time had no effect whatsoever on Veldora himself outside of sentiment.
    • When the already-named Gabiru joined Tempest following the Orc Disaster conflict, Rimuru casually telling him that his name was fine during the customary naming ceremony of new monster allies (including Gabiru's yet-named Lizardmen companions) still counted as him being named, resulting in him getting a power boost.
    • One of Rimuru's latter vassals Kumara weaponized this and committed Loophole Abuse via tricking him into giving her multiple names (she is a fox spirit who could split her body into 8 independent controllable beings from her main body, getting him to name all nine of them), which allowed her to make quick gains in power to one of his strongest subordinates.
    • During one's proper ascension to True Demon Lord status (otherwise known as a "Harvest Festival"), any of their subordinates will also receive a power boost and possible evolution in response. This can even apply if the subordinate was technically dead at the time, as Shion was during Rimuru's Harvest Festival to gain the necessary power to pull off the resurrection of her and several other of Tempest's dead in the first place, but received a similar power-up as the rest of his close subordinates upon her revival.
    • Rimuru's Ultimate Skill [Lord of Gluttony Beelzebub] allows him to do this via its sub-Skill Food Chain, which allows him to acquire the prototype version of his subordinates' Unique Skills while also granting him the ability to impart new Skills of his (or more likely [Lord of Wisdom Raphael's]) creation to them. The only limit is that they need to be compatible with the Skill in question. Every time they receive a significant power boost of their own, Food Chain also ensures he gets a fraction of said boost for himself, creating a positive-feedback loop where any individual's gains boost the whole.
    • Emperor Rudra is able to impart "blessings" to others from his Ultimate Skill [Lord of Justice Michael], which are referred to as "Ultimate Gifts" and can be considered "downgraded" versions of Ultimate Skills. The strength of the resulting Ultimate Gift will depend on the servant's compatibility with the original skill, their mastery of the skill, and the servant's stats, but they are inferior to true Ultimate Skills. Though since the chances of actually meeting someone with an Ultimate Skill are slim, this disadvantage doesn't usually come up and they're all low-level Reality Warpers as a result. Every member of the Single Digits of the Imperial Guard received one of these.
  • One-Punch Man: The mysterious entity known only as 'God' can do this, giving powers to various humans and monsters like Homeless Emperor, Psykos, and Garou. It's even speculated that God is the reason why monsters exist in the series in the first place.

    Asian Animation 
  • At least one episode of Happy Heroes shows that Careful S. can temporarily impart his Self-Duplication abilities to others simply by touching them.

    Comic Books 
DC Comics:
  • The titular device in Dial H for Hero (and its later incarnations, H-E-R-O and Dial H) is a mystic artifact that resembles an old-fashioned telephone dial with letters instead of numbers that transforms the user into a random superhero for a short period. In H-E-R-O, we find out that the HERO Dial grants permanent powers if it is used by a single person for a long-enough time. However, these powers have to be 'unlocked', and dial users are mostly unaware of them until they're placed in a situation such that they activate subconsciously.
  • One storyline in The Flash involves this. Wally West, the man who was wearing the tights at the time, not only has superhuman speed, he has the ability to imbue anything and anyone with such speed. One day, while his wife is arguing with him, she notices that while she's talking there'll be strange breezes and sometimes things in the room will shift position. She (rightly) assumes that he's not paying complete attention to her, is using his speed to do other things while she feels that she should be paid attention to, and is rightfully angry about it. He (patiently) explains to her that the problem is that he moves so very fast that, to him, she and most other human beings are basically statues, and that he has to force himself to slow down in order to interact with any of them, and that doing so is agony for him because it just takes so... damned... long... When she doesn't quite buy his explanation, he shows her what he means by giving her his super-speed powers for a day.
  • Green Lantern:
    • Hal Jordan's power ring has the ability to produce power rings. Kyle uses a copy of Hal's ring to distribute rings to John Stewart and Jade. Later, Hal tries to give Clark Kent a power ring near the end of a year Clark had spent being powerless.
    • When he loses his ring very early on in the comics, after saving the boy who'd found (and couldn't control) it we see him exchanging it for a created replica which did nothing but glow at will. For a young boy with friends, that's a different type of Super Empowerment.
  • In Lucifer, the title character bequeaths his Lightbringer power to Mazikeen before setting off for the Void outside Creation.
  • Shazam!: The wizard Shazam grants teenage Billy Batson the ability to transform into Captain Marvel, an adult superhero (with Billy's mind in control) wielding the power of two gods (Zeus and Mercury), two demigods (Hercules and Achilles), a titan (Atlas) and a mortal with the wisdom of God (Solomon), who had themselves given the Wizard their abilities to empower a champion to defend mankind.
    • Any bearer of the Power of Shazam can share their power with others, which is why there is a whole Marvel "family". Billy shares his powers with his sister Mary and his friend Freddy to turn them into Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr., respectively. Billy's Evil Counterpart Black Adam (who is empowered by a different set of deities) does the same thing with his brother-in-law Amon to turn him into Osiris. And then there's the Lieutenants Marvel, three guys who can do the Captain Marvel shtick because their civilian names happen to be "Billy Batson".
    • In the post-Flashpoint take, this gets tweaked — Billy and Black Adam draw on the same source of power, the living lightning, and they can share it with anyone considered family (whether by blood, by choice, or being a fellow champion of the Wizard's). In Billy's case, this means he can share his power with fellow foster kids Mary, Freddy, Darla, Pedro, and Eugene.
  • In several Pre-Crisis stories, Supergirl accidentally gives someone else's powers through a blood or tissue transfusion. Usually those subjects — including the Super-Scavenger in #4 of Supergirl (1972) — use their newly-gained Flying Brick skills to commit crimes; fortunately, the transfer is always temporary.
  • Superman:
    • In Emperor Joker, the Joker tricks the near-omnipotent Mr. Mxyzptlk into giving him most of his power.
    • When the Post-Flashpoint Superman dies in The Final Days of Superman, the resulting blast empowers Lois Lane and Lana Lang, who were with him as he died. Interestingly, while Lois gets the classic Kryptonian powers, Lana gets the powers of Superman's late '90s "energy being" period.
    • When powered by the light of a blue sun, Superman and Supergirl can grant temporary Kryptonian powers to others.
    • Superman by the 853rd Century has become a Physical God living within the Sun that empowers his descendants for as long as they're exposed to its rays.
  • Touch (2004) features Cooper Santiago, a talent agent for super-heroes for hire, who has the power to give (and take away) powers to one person at a time. He gives powers to four people over the course of the series before losing his own to his assistant in the final issue after a Near-Death Experience.
  • Vartox can infuse people with a portion of his energy, giving them temporary powers like his.
  • Christine Trelane from the WildStorm Universe possesses the superpower to activate latent powers in humans and transform them into post-humans.
  • Wonder Woman: The gods can grant powers to others, though most of those who hang on to their powers for long periods like Wondy herself in those continuities where she owes her powers to Aphrodite and Artemis or Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark had latent powers already due to being descended from gods
    • The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): In this Elseworld, the only Amazons who are immortal are those who have agreed to become the champion of an Olympian, which comes with immense power at a the price of much of their personal autonomy.

Marvel Comics:

  • There's also a drug called Mutant Growth Hormone or MGH (first appearing in the Beast solo series in Amazing Adventures), extracted from superhumans (not just Mutants) that bestows various temporary powers.
  • Fantastic Four:
    • Galactus has the power to grant his Heralds the status equivalent of a Physical God.
    • Doctor Doom, being an Omnidisciplinary Scientist, has remapped several people's genetic structure through the power of SCIENCE several times in Marvel history. During the original Secret Wars (1984), Doom uses alien devices to create the super-villainesses Volcana, a Swiss-Army Hero able to turn into an ash form, a lava form and a stone form, and probably the more prominent Titania, the Arch-Enemy of She-Hulk, who has your typical super-strength, durability etc.
    • In Fantastic Four (2018), Doctor Doom takes control of Galactus and imbues one of his people with the Power Cosmic, creating his own herald in Victorious, who has a myriad of powers including beams, flight, and all sorts of undefined tomfoolery.
    • It turns out he was the one who created the religious order of the Black Swans and was the one to grant them their powers with the help of the Molecule Man.
  • It's been established that anyone who receives a transfusion of the Hulk's blood will get Hulk powers temporarily, but it appears that only a close relative like his cousin Jennifer, aka She-Hulk, can permanently keep these powers. Villains have Hulked themselves up this way a couple of times against Banner/the Hulk's will, but Banner himself has been unwilling to give his blood to anyone since accidentally empowering his cousin, considering it far too dangerous.
  • Minor villain Dr. Karl Malus is a mad scientist obsessed with super-powers who is perfectly willing to hire himself out to people who want powers and find a way to give them some, but these powers always come with some horrible drawback that isn't apparent until it's too late.
  • The New Universe has the Star Brand; each user can pass the Brand on to anyone or anything else, while still retaining a portion of the power. (Passing it into an inanimate object is... not recommended.) The Brand is also responsible for giving all the powers to all the Paranormals on Earth.
  • The Israeli superheroine Sabra can grant up to half of her own life-energy into someone else, enhancing their strength, speed, stamina, and occasionally giving them superpowers. She can also take that energy back... at least once, killing the subject because they hadn't healed from the wounds that were the reason that she gave them her life energy in the first place (it's okay; they turned out to be a bad guy).
  • Mr. Negative from Spider-Man. Sometimes, he just uses this to bring out latent abilities in people or bring their dark sides to the surface — other times, he flat out gives them powers, like giving his mooks immortality.
  • A company called Power Broker, Inc. (which first appeared in The Thing) sells superpowers, generally those of a brick (Super-Strength, Super-Toughness).
  • The Mighty Thor:
    • Thor's hammer, Mjölnir. It says right on the hammer itself that anyone worthy enough to lift Mjolnir gets to wield Thor's power. Just holding Mjölnir — without invoking its full power — gives the wielder a massive strength boost. We find later that if you already have powers, the power of Thor is stacked on top of them.
    • Loki is famous for giving out powers as part of his Deal with the Devil schemes, but he actually holds up his end of the bargain. The God of Mischief actually never twists his words when giving out superpowers and he tends to let you keep them permanently, regardless of how successful his plan with you is.
    • The Wrecking Crew get their powers from their leader, the Wrecker. He has an enchanted crowbar that only he can control and which gives people "Brick" superpowers. He and his crew/family of friends remain very loyal to one another. But he himself was just a street thug, until by chance he robbed the place where a depowered Loki was hiding and got mistaken for Loki by Karnilla the Norn Queen whom Loki had summoned to give him a power up he needed. As a result, it gave him his powers and enchanted his favored weapon, a crowbar, which also allowed it to let him share his powers with those he chooses.
    • Crusher Creel, "The Absorbing Man", was originally just a very muscular thug until Loki gave him the power to absorb physical properties from things he touched and let him keep the power even after he was no longer useful. Crusher owes his entire supervillain career to Loki's generosity.
  • Tiger Division's Taegugki got his powers in the late '70s when his old gang's heist on a military facility went wrong and Taegugki was subjected to the effects of an Asgarian artifact, the Psylot Gem and one of the Mad Science inventions of Dr. Phineas T. Horton. Doctor Doom and an ex-friend of Taegugki successfully used those items to take back his powers with Doom planning on empowering himself through those.
  • X-Men:
    • Sage has the ability to "jump-start" other mutants. Initially this was depicted as the ability to activate the latent mutations of mutants who hadn't yet manifested, but at this point it's more or less an excuse to do whatever the current writer wants to do to another mutant's powers (for example: turning Beast from apelike to lion-like, and curing Gambit's blindness).
    • And one of the ever-diminishing supply of X-Men ex-Morlocks has the power to supercharge other people's powers by jumping into their bodies. This character is in limbo.
    • After losing his super-speed on M-Day, Quicksilver embedded mutation-inducing Terrigen crystals from the Inhumans into his own body, giving him the ability to restore lost mutant powers, albeit in an erratic and dangerously supercharged form.
    • Gambit and Rogue pull a Type 2 when Gambit dies in various continuities. Rogue keeps Gambit's powers for awhile, either trading in her original or keeping both. They never stick permanently (powers and death).
    • Apocalypse is fond of doing this for his Four Horsemen. He uses his Celestial tech to either supercharge their abilities (like when he made Gambit into Death) or give them entirely new abilities (like when he made the Angel into Death).
    • Fabian Cortez, one of the X-Men's foes, combines this with Power Nullifier — he can both temporarily supercharge a mutant's abilities (potentially burning them out in the process) and temporarily suppress a mutant's powers. He can only do this by touch, however.
    • New X-Men introduces the "U-Men" group, which promises to provide its members with tissue and organ transplants that give them superpowers. The catch is, they have to go catch and kill mutants to get the samples. It doesn't always work, as sometimes the U-Men suffer organ rejection.
    • X-Factor once met a tragic case: Michael Nowlan, a mutant who could amplify the powers of other mutants, but the effect was addictive to them. So he suppressed his own power with heroin.
  • One volume of Doctor Strange had an Arc Villain that was man with the mutant ability to grant ordinary people magical power that would take years to develop. Unfortunately, because their bodies don't have the tolerance said years of experience would have given them, they only have about ten hours before their bodies burn up from the energies within them.

Other:

  • The Astro City "hero" Resistor is a neuro-memetic imprint that free-floats in the public consciousness. When a concentration of high social strife breaks out at a location — such as peaceful protestors being attacked — it turns ordinary people into flying energy beings who can protect the innocent.
  • The Big Bad of Freshmen has the ability to temporarily give others he touches super-strength and nigh invulnerability, but it has the same side-effects as taking mundane steroids.
  • Next Men has an unusual twist; having sex with the Next Men "triggers" a genetic superpower mutation. It's all Hand Waved with Evolutionary Levels. As one character describes it, benevolent mutation is now an STD.
  • Redbeard from the Savage Dragon line of comic books was granted random powers, from the stupid to the insanely dangerous.
  • Top 10: Welcome to Neopolis! Hope you enjoy our many fine tourist attractions. But word to the wise, be careful, be safe! Many of the "working girls" here have S.T.O.R.M.S., a disease that can mutate you horribly. Yes, there are rumors that you could become a godlike being with vast powers, but don't believe it! It has been known to happen, but it's very rare. Don't take the chance! Visit the Neopolis Free Clinic today!
  • Valiant Comics' Harbingers were thought to be natural mutations. Turns out Reality Warper Solar is unconsciously responsible. And Sting and Harada both had the power to locate and activate latent Harbingers.
  • All gods can do this in The Wicked + The Divine. They can give a portion of their power to a follower, transforming them into something beyond human but not quite a god. Woden seems to have been the only person to act on this, creating an army of valkyries. Luci offers to turn Laura into one of her demons, but whether she was serious or not...
  • The Others (1995) all wield devices created by the Many which functionally grant them superpowers. But granting internal powers is also within the the scope of their technology; in Shadowhawk, the Enclave of the Elders (a remnant of Many technology) is used to create at least one member of the super-crooks team known as the Regulators.

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): In this Godzilla MonsterVerse fanfiction, Ghidorah can pass on its powers in some form or another to other lifeforms who are hybridized with Ghidorah's DNA. San is able to transform Vivienne, a human, into a Two Beings, One Body Artificial Hybrid, and Ghidorah's unrefined DNA being artificially spliced onto humans creates an Undead Abomination, with both creatures exhibiting abilities similar to Ghidorah's own.
  • Absolute Trust: Lady Ài gives Alec the power of firebending when he enters the world. We have two explanations for this: in-universe, it's the element that Lady Ài has the strongest affinity with duel to its resonance with life, energy, passion, desire, and lust. Out-of-universe, the author says in Chapter 2's notes that he considered all of the other options:
    Urbanator93: I chose to make Alec a firebender to help him keep up with the rest of the Gaang. I can't write a nonbending fighter very well without stealing from Suki, Mai or Ty Lee, and those three are so iconic that I can't do them dirty like that....I didn't do air because that's Aang's thing, and I didn't want to steal Katara's thunder by making Alec a waterbender. I really couldn't do earth, because Toph is my favorite character and I don't want to take anything away from her. That only left one option.
  • Another Way: Marchioness has studied human biology extensively and developed a package of optimisations, allowing her to make her father's employees faster, stronger, tougher, with better vision and coordination, subdermal armour, etc. They're minor improvements compared to actual parahuman powers, just low-grade Mover and Brute ratings, but she can hand them out en masse to dozens and dozens of trusted enforcers, allowing the "Mercia" to quickly overwhelm the unpowered members of other gangs.
    Claire: I'm pretty sure that I can do more than heal people and alter their appearance. I can change them. Improve them. Faster reflexes, increased strength, better eyesight, tougher skin. Would you be interested?
  • Ascendant: One of the core abilities of Izuku's original Quirk. He seldom uses it, due to the possibility of brain damage to the recipient if they aren't compatible with the quirk.
  • A Better Class of Criminal: Bookworm is unable to grant himself superpowers, but can hand them out to his subordinates and friends freely.
  • Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron: In Tears of the Balmera, when they are stuck in Galra captivity, C.C. gives Shirley The Geass of Absolute Concealment.
  • In the Gamer/Worm crossover Co-op Mode, James can give his Party members the ability to gain Skills like <Aikido> and <Chinese> through either practice or Skillbooks, but a Party member can only learn a number of Skills up to that person's INT. As is standard with Skills though, they can be practiced and exploited to absurd effects. This leads to Taylor worrying over James being used by other people as a personal trainer.
  • Child of the Storm has a number of examples since it draws on a wide variety of canons, including both Marvel and DC Comics.
    • This is essentially how the Phoenix a.k.a. Destruction of the Endless operates - specific individuals are temporarily empowered with a fragment of the Phoenix's power to act as a Host of the Phoenix and provide the required fine judgement to either rejuvenate or destroy. Sometimes, this ends badly.
    • Like in the Dresden Files, the Winter and Summer Queens of Faerie can imbue a mortal with a degree of their power and make them their Knight. The main downside is that it puts the bearer under their influence - and in the case of the Winter Knight, gives them the urges of a psychopathic predator. The power is also only separated from the Knight by death.
    • Unfinished Business reveals that while Harry's Emergency Transfusion to Carol and use of his blood in curing Peter Parker of his Dhampyr state didn't exactly empower them, it did provide a stronger and more template for later empowerment. In Carol's case, this was enabling her to channel the full power of the Green Lantern Ring without its usual inbuilt safety measures without burning up. In Peter's, it left him with residual Dhampyr powers and is implied to have allowed the success of the famous Spider Bite.
      • Unfinished Business also reveals that Carol can split the Green Lantern Ring into several dozen others, sharing out the power. Given that her Ring is Alan Scott's, making her a one-woman Lantern Corps, she's got power to spare. When this actually happens, everyone's completely shocked, because no one had ever actually thought of doing that before.
  • It eventually turns out that the Mane Six can do this in Equestria: Across the Multiverse and give the natives of another universe Rainbow Power forms, but only if certain conditions are met. First, the universe doesn't already have a set of Elements of Harmony in existence, and second, they've formed a bond of friendship with the ponies in question (and obviously they have to be worthy of the Elements). Twilight theorizes it's the same exact thing that happened with the Humane Five. They first discovered this when they accidentally give the My Little Pony Tales main seven Rainbow Power Forms, as well as fully awaken their Earth Pony magic.
  • Fate of the Clans: A King grants the people who join their Clan a piece of their power.
  • The Fundamental Essence of Villainy: Due to having All for One, Izuku engages in this with his teammates:
    • Himiko is offered Stain's quirk in Frayed Edges.
    • Ochako receives a telekinesis quirk that belonged to Reiko Yanagi in canon.
    • Momo receives Compress, which she uses to store pre-made items.
  • In The Good Hunter, heroes chosen by the Chief God have an aura of divine strength bestowed upon them. It is known as the blessings of the Chief God. Wilmarina notes that if it weren't for the enhanced durability due to said blessings, the back of her skull would've been caved in during her duel against the Good Hunter (and even then, she gets utterly humiliated).
  • In A Great Endeavor, it turns out that ground-up unicorn horns can be snorted to grant humans magic. The Nazis make extensive use of these "warlocks", but it ultimately doesn't help stop the Allied tide.
  • inFAMOUS Hero Academia: Individuals who were nearby when the Ray Sphere activated or come into contact with Blast Shards receive this treatment in two different flavors: Those who were caught in the Ray Sphere's blast radius either gain powers they never had before or their Quirk receives a massive boost in power. Anyone who absorbs the energy of a Blast Shard can increase their powers as well, but is weaker in the empowering department than the Ray Sphere. David Shield speculates that if someone like Mt. Lady came into contact with a Blast Shard, she would be able to potentially either increase in size or shrink as an example of this.
  • Out of the Corner of the Eye has a couple of examples:
    • As an olive branch to try and cement a new alliance between the two of them, Shendu grants Jackie the inherent magic of the Talisman of his choice (in this case, the Rabbit's Super-Speed) to use in his fight with the Shoggoth.
    • He later does this with the other Chans, allowing Jade, Tohru, and Uncle to respectfully take the Dragon, Pig, and Horse. As he notes, they're specifically taking the powers that make him the most dangerous.
  • In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Ash gains the ability to give Pokémon, his own or otherwise, temporary power boosts. This ability seems to be tied to his emotions, as it tends to activate on its own in times of great tension or danger.
  • The Dark World of the Pony POV Series has a couple examples of this. Liarjack, upon her Heel–Face Turn back into Applejack, gets an Element of Kindness from Apple Bloom's spirit; the act of giving it freely makes it split in half, giving them both an Element. She later repeats the process with her Element of Deceit (as does Rainbow Dash with her Element of Free Will), giving it to Rarity so she can now have ALL the Elements of Chaos at her disposal.
  • A central feature in Projection Quest is that Taylor gradually learns powers and abilities from the projections that Emmy picks up.
  • Harry from The Taste of Your Magic is powerful enough to increase anyone's magical power. Since he starts the story off as a baby, he mainly does it through breastfeeding (yeah, it's that kind of fic); but weird as it might be, the method does allow both Bellatrix and Narcissa to accomplish some pretty powerful feats.
  • This Bites!:
    • Word of God stated shortly after the release of Chapter 28 that Cross will eat a Devil Fruit. He revealed nothing, however, about which fruit it will be nor when he will eat it, though the second special confirmed that it will be post-Time Skip.
    • The Going Merry eats the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Child.
    • In Chapter 57, Vivi eats the Gust-Gust Fruit.
  • In With Strings Attached, Paul gets his magic seemingly through the incompetence of As'taris, who tried to change him back to normal after he was turned into a diamond statue. Paul instead explodes and reforms with Super-Strength and Nigh Invulnerability (and a few other things that pop up during the book). From what the Fans say, it was actually the meddling of the C'hovite gods that bestowed this power on Paul. But we later find out that Paul was the creation of Jeft, who used him to “test out some theories I had” and who got “a little overenthusiastic” with him.
  • With This Ring: Paul is very interested in Earth 16's smorgasbord of ways to grant superpowers of different kinds, from Super Serums like the Danner formula, to Atlantean transformation magic that grants enhanced strength and water breathing, to purely technological options like Powered Armor. With his orange ring, he can typically grant anything that doesn't depend on casting magic, once he has had a chance to study it. Once he retrieves the Orange Central Power Battery and founds the Orange Lantern Corps, he can even issue more rings. In the Renegade timeline, he gains the ability to bestow Divine Awakening, restructuring someone's soul to let them grow magically stronger than normal human limits and become minor deities.
  • Downplayed in The Awakening of a Magus. Harry's mere presence is enough to awaken dormant gifts and stabilize weak ones, but it cannot grant new abilities.

    Films — Animated 
  • In Disney's Aladdin, Genie grants Jafar's second wish, to be a powerful sorcerer, but Jafar is tricked by Aladdin into making a third wish, which is to be a genie himself, which results in him getting sucked into a lamp and then thrown into the Cave of Wonders to "chill him out."
  • In Barbie in Princess Power, a magic butterfly gave both Kara and her cousin Corrinne their powers.
  • In Megamind, after the titular villain defeats his Arch-Enemy, Metro-Man, he soon becomes bored with victory and decides to fill the void by creating a new superhero by giving someone Metro-Man's powersnote . Due to a freak accident, the powers end up being infused into cameraman Hal Stewart, who Megamind then trains to become hero Titan. It unfortunately becomes a case of Gone Horribly Wrong when Titan becomes a supervillain rather than a hero.
  • At the end of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, Twilight's Element of Magic rebels against Sunset Shimmer and gives Twilight and the Humane Five the ability to 'pony up' and use the Elements to defeat her. The sequels reveals this was in fact permanent and the Humane Five are able to Pony Up at will (eventually, after figuring out how it works), and have powers even their Equestrian counterparts didn't get from the Elements. Sunset is revealed to also be able to Pony Up at will, though in her case it's more replacing the powers she had as a unicorn.
  • In Turning Red, the gods are said to have granted Sun Yee and all her female descendants the ability to transform into a giant red panda.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Iron Man can have someone else pilot one of his suits; this is how Rhodes becomes War Machine before Stark simply builds him his own armor to use. The third film gives Tony Stark the ability to put his suit onto anyone he points to, which he uses to temporarily protect Pepper when the two are under fire.
  • An unintentional case in Kung Fu Hustle. When the Beast beats Sing within an inch of his life, he ends up clearing the messed up chi flow that was hampering Sing's potential his entire life. After Sing recovers, he is a Kung Fu master surpassing the other characters including the Beast.
  • In The Man Who Could Work Miracles, a trio of angels (or gods) bestow Reality Warper powers on George McWhirter Forthingay—an ordinary middleclass Englishman — to see if humanity can handle the kind of power over reality that might allow such beings to deserve to reach the stars. (This is different from the original H. G. Wells short story where Forthingay just discovers he possesses these powers with no explanation of where they came from.)
  • SHAZAM! (2019) features the wizard named, well, Shazam, who falls into Type 2, bequeathing his power to Billy Batson just before he dies. In the climax, Billy uses Type 1 to share his powers with his foster siblings, creating the Shazam Family.
  • Thor: Love and Thunder: During the climactic battle, Thor grants his powers to the kidnapped Asgardian children, giving them the strength needed to overcome Gorr the God-Slayer's monsters.
  • TRON: "Sark, all my functions are now yours. Take him!" It's not altogether clear whether this is a type 1 (the MCP explicitly said "functions," which is a very big deal among Programs) or a type 3 (all Sark had time to do is grow gigantic and stomp around.)
  • X-Men: Apocalypse: En Sabah Nur can amplify a mutant's power, and it's one of the gifts that he bestows on his Four Horsemen — however, Xavier implies that at least in the case of Magneto, all he did was push him into tapping into his rage rather than enhancing him (presumably because a further enhanced Magneto would be a threat even to him). He also does this to his prisoner Xavier: by himself, Charles could already mind control an entire room of people. If possessed by Apocalypse, he can mind control the entire planet without needing the Cerebro anymore.

    Literature 
  • Dante Alighieri:
    • The Divine Comedy:
      • Exaggerated Trope; God provides every power that exists to everything that has ever had those powers, most fundamentally in providing the power to exist at all to beings. A more standard version of this trope applies when penitents climb Purgatory and ascend into the Empyrean, where they gain Flight, Super-Intelligence, Healing Hands, Super-Speed, Brown Note smiles, and much more.
      • Due to her closeness to her son and Father, Mary can intercede in prayer more effectively than any other, making her more suited than any other to grant Dante to ability to see God.
    • Vita Nuova: One of Beatrice's powers is the ability to dignify any man who looks upon her, transforming them from a wretched slave of sin to a noble soul in union with the Omnipotent.
  • The blue box in Animorphs (termed an "Escafil device") is basically Super-Empowering through technology.
  • Tonino Montana of the Chrestomanci series has the unique ability to enhance any spell he takes part in, making it ridiculously strong. He's also been known to hijack enemy spells and turn them to his advantage.
  • Discworld: Wizards in the can pass on their power to another person, making them wizards. Equal Rites is the story of one such recipient.
  • In the Dresden Files:
The Faerie Queens of Summer and Winter can transfer a portion of their powers to mortals to turn them into their Knights. The transfer is permanent and only death can free the power (though it is hinted that Tam Lin, a former Winter Knight, managed to either control the Mantle or rid himself of it). It also sets the Knights against each other as many of their deaths come at the hands of the other. The Winter Knight acts while the Summer Knight reacts to stop them.
  • The Order of Blackened Denarius (a gang of Fallen Angels) can mark a mortal and give them vast infernal magical powers and stop their aging when they touch the silver coin (one in a set of thirty!) that corresponds to them. Even the Shadow of the Fallen, a copy put into the host before they fully accept as a means to influence the host into accepting, grants knowlegde to the host and access to Hellfire. On the downside, this gives the angel the power to tempt the mortal to surrender to them, give them control of their body, which the angel then shapeshifts into their demonic form so that they can wreak havoc the world round. However, if the mortal feels genuine remorse for his or her actions while hosting the Fallen, it will remove the Fallen from within the host and cast it back into the coin.
  • Lucifer himself is capable of further empowering his Fallen in the Coins. He can grant them access to Super Hellfire, an archangel-tier of Hellfire. The downside to this is it is allows God to have an equal response in turn.
  • God and His Angels give much more limited empowerment to select people.
    • Priests and Faithful Clergymen are able to sanctify water and the ground of churches to make entering them impossible for many evil forces. Fallen Angels are exempt. They can peacefully enter churches, but that is because God wishes for his wayward children to come home. Fallen avoid churches because it makes them remember the joy serving God and maybe question their choice to rebel in the first place, and so question every wicked choice they made since.
    • The Knights of the Cross are people who take up one of three Swords who have in their hilts one of the Nails from the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The Swords are called as Fidelacchius, Esperacchius and Amoracchius, the Swords of Faith, Hope, and Love. They do not grant the Knight super strength, or Holy Hand Grenade attacks. Instead, they Swords strip away all empowering of the target, leaving them as strong as their natural physical form. Even people who are not true Knights can gain this portection as seen when Harry Dresden is strangling the leader of the Denarius with the noose on his neck. Fidelacchius is not held by Harry but it shined from in its hilt and kept the leader's Fallen partner from acting to help save his host. They also give the Knight access to The Call which tells them when they are needed on a job. One Knight has a strong gut feeling, another who plays Dungeons and Dragons and RPG video games, sees an exclamation point over the person they are to help. These Knights aren't meant to be superheroes, after all.
    • When Lucifer grants a person Super Hellfire, it permits Heaven to grant a mortal Soulfire, the fires of Creation itself. It empowers the attacks of the user allowing them to do serious harm to the Fallen and similar evil creatures. Harry using it allows him to nearly defeat a Skinwalker, a semi-divine being from the Navajo myths, and later destroys the shell of a creature from beyond the reaches of Reality. The slight downside is using it consumes the soul of the person, but doing good things and happy things helps one recover.
  • Lawrence Watt-Evans:
    • The Cyborg And The Sorcerers series has sorcerers whose "magic" (Psychic Powers) originated from Mutants in an After the End colony world nuked back to the Dark Age. They learned how to psychokinetically alter other's neurons to pass on their powers, and by the time of the story, the only way to get magical power is from another wizard; the original gene has long since died out.
    • In the Ethshar series, this is how the (psychic-type) magic of a warlock is passed on; the other dozen or so forms of magic are either inborn or trained for.
  • The Orc king Obould Many-Arrows from the Forgotten Realms was blessed by the Orc god Gruumsh One-Eye through an ancient ritual that focused his entire tribe's prayers on him. Already a strong and cunning orc, Obould became a mighty warrior capable of defeating the frost giantess queen in single combat. Fortunately for the Realms, Obould ultimately became a Pragmatic Visionary Villain more interested in founding a stable kingdom than in violent conquest.
  • The Inheritance Trilogy bonus novella "The Awakened Kingdom" features Lady Shill, a cute little goddess kid whose main divine power is making mortals into gods.
  • In Labyrinths of Echo Order Grand Magisters commonly shared their power among the order. Max also resurrects the tradition to share luck.
  • In the Night Huntress books, very old, very powerful vampires can give some or all of their power to another vampire, as Mencheres does for Bones and as his sire, Tenoch, previously did for him. Mencheres states that Bones won't be able to do the same until he completely masters the power.
  • In the Night Watch (Series) novel Twilight Watch, the Tome of Eldritch Lore Fuaran contains a spell that turns everyone the caster can see into an Other, enabling them to manipulate the world's magical energy. Unfortunately for everyone, the book falls into the hands of a Wide-Eyed Idealist who fails to read the part explaining how and why the spell works. The spell also "upgrades" an Other into an even more powerful Other. In the spin-off School Supervision, the Fuaran text is re-created by a genie-type Other and used by another group of idealists (and teenagers to boot) to try to solve the world's problems by turning every Other neutral. As expected, this doesn't work, and the book is confiscated by the Inquisition.
  • The Perfect Run: Sidekick, a White Genome whose superpower is to enhance the power of other Genomes within a ten-meter radius of his person.
  • In A Practical Guide to Evil at least the most powerful fey can grant mortals powers by having them swear an oath (or, as the king of Winter does to Catherine, ripping their heart out and replacing it with ice).
  • In The Reckoners Trilogy, a small number of Epics have the ability to temporarily bestow their powers on ordinary people. Notably, sharing one's powers with others allows an Epic to avoid the insanity that comes as a side effect of power use. In at least one other case With Great Power Comes Great Insanity, and all those 'gifted' with tunneling powers gradually went mad, carving tunnels and rooms without rhyme or reason beneath Newcago.
  • In Nina Kiriki Hoffman's book A Red Heart of Memories and its sequel, three of the characters were turned into powerful witches by a ghost who cursed them when they invaded the house he was haunting. However, the ghost was only able to do so because it was Halloween and the house itself(which is sentient and magical) wanted to welcome them and give them magical power.
  • Isaac Asimov's "The Secret Sense": Humans have an undeveloped organ in the brain that works like the Martian's sensory organ for magnetic fields. Martian medicine can stimulate the human version, making it work for five minutes, but it will never work again.
  • Witches in Septimus Heap have the power of Super-Empowering with a kiss. Subverted however, since Jenna's gain in Darke is mostly the ability to disguise as a Darke Witch and to sense the Darke.
  • The Shadowhunter Chronicles:
    • Ascension, drinking the blood of Raziel from the Mortal Cup can transform mundane humans into Nephilim. Though not everyone survives the process, and it apparently is riskier the older the mundane is.
    • Being bitten by a vampire or werewolf. Their respective conditions are actually demonic diseases with the bite as a vector. Nothing less than an Archangel or a Prince of Hell can turn somebody who has been changed back into a mundane as far as is known.
  • Tales of Supervillainy: Cindy's Seven: Crowbar King is indestructible, immortal, super-strong, capable of shooting energy blasts, and can share a watered-down version of his powers with his henchmen.
  • Trapped on Draconica: Dronor transforms four princesses into dragokin which grants them powers ranging from Flight to Shock and Awe to Healing Hands.
  • Warbreaker: Everyone on Nalthis is born with a single BioChromatic Breath. On its own it's not enough to do much, but by speaking the words "my life to yours, my Breath become yours", one person can transfer their Breath to another. Gathering large amounts of Breath gives access to the magical art of Awakening, as well as a variety of passive benefits known as Heightenings at certain amounts. The Returned have a super-powerful Divine Breath, enough to put them at the Fifth Heightening by itself, making it about 2000 times more powerful than a normal Breath. They die again if they give it away, and the recipient will not gain the Divine Breath themselves, though they will be fully healed of all wounds and illnesses. They also consume one Breath every eight days, which will be the Divine Breath that gives them life if no-one gives them theirs.
  • Wild Cards:
    • Croyd "the Sleeper" Crenson temporarily spread the Wild Card Virus; his strain is different from the original as it can reinfect the already infected and affected, although keeping the original 90 dead / 9 jokers / 1 ace distribution. Among a few lucky individuals, Typhoid Croyd turned the joker Snotman into the ace Reflector. Croyd also infected Tachyon, who is now a latent carrier.
    • Several other Aces from later books and RPG scenarios can release the original strain of the Wild Card virus.
    • Damsel, a Type 3 female Ace. She can boost the powers of her designated "champion" (such as turning a levitator into a bona-fide human jet).
    • Cameo has this trope as her power's side effect. She can channel the memories of the dead from items they owned, and for items owned by an Ace with mind-driven powers, e.g. telekinetics, she also channels the power. The catch comes with telepatic Aces, as Cameo also channels their personality.
  • In Worm, a "Trump" is the rarest type of cape, possessing powers that manipulate other powers. Super-Empowering is one of the main sub-categories:
    • Othala can bestow several superpowers on her allies, including invulnerability, regeneration, and Super-Speed. She can only give out one power at a time, and only to one person at a time, and she herself has no defensive or offensive superpowers... but when she's part of the largest cape group in Brockton Bay that still leaves her one of the best defended people in the city, and she's an incredible force multiplier for Empire Eighty-Eight and later Fenrir's Chosen.
    • Teacher has the power to grant limited forms of Super-Intelligence, Tinker, and other mind- or mental power-themed abilities to chosen volunteers. This however comes at the expense of a decrease in free will directly proportional to the strength of the upgrade. Also, they wear off and are addictive.
    • Null, a core member of the Yàngbǎn, a Chinese military unit of parahumans, has the ability split other people's powers among a group at a reduced degree, so every member of the Yàngbǎn has a weaker version of the powers of every other member (though the decrease in power varies greatly between abilities, e.g. Perdition's power was almost as strong while split). The Yàngbǎn's second Trump (named Two) makes this practical by amplifying all of the powers, bringing most of them up to about a third of their original strength. Khepri puts both of these powers to good use in the finale, using Two to amplify the powers of every cape (not least herself) under her control, and using Null to 'mix' all of the Tinkers' powers among them, making them all Omnidisciplinary Gadgeteer Geniuses.
    • Galvanate could touch others and grant a temporary combination of Super-Strength, Super-Toughness, and an electric touch. His power could work on many people at once, so he was known for having entire squads of nigh-invulnerable henchmen working for him.
    • On a larger scale, the Entities are the source of every power, by bonding one of their Shards to a human being.
  • Ivy from Xanth had an ability that could selectively supercharge people's properties, including their magical talents.
    • Her husband can do the same thing by canceling out magical properties, when they're turned back on the built up energy causes the powers to come back by multiple times.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In its fourth season, Danny Farrell in The 4400 gains the ability to mass produce Promicin and diffuse it in the air. Problem is, it has a 50% mortality rate, and he quickly creates an 'infection' effect where everyone in Seattle is exposed and would die or gain an ability. In the end, he's overwhelmed with the guilt of indirectly killing thousands, and since the only way to stop the spread of the Promicin was by putting him on an inhibitor which was slowly killing him, his brother Shawn is forced to kill him.
  • In Angel, the Visions can be transferred through intimate touch.
  • Babylon 5:
    • If Vorlons get their hands on you, you will be Touched by Vorlons. Or dead. They genetically created telepaths in many species.
    • Also, the drug called Dust will make you telepathic for a brief time.
  • The Collector: Done by the Devil to collectors and some other clients.
  • The Flash (2014): Season 3 Disc-One Final Boss Alchemy's entire schtick seems to be allowing people to undergo a Meta Morphosis into Metahumans. Specifically, people who were Metahumans in the Flashpoint timeline but were rendered normal when Barry reset reality.
  • Season 4 of Haven introduces two thugs and their bosses William and Mara who can leave a glowing hand print on people that only Audrey can see. People with this hand print on their bodies gain a Trouble or have their existing Trouble augmented.
  • In Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, and Young Hercules, gods and other supernatural beings can grant people powers. In the Xena episode "For Him the Bell Tolls", Xena reveals that the gods "can't make something out of nothing", and can only bring out what is truly in people's hearts. This neatly explains why they don't do this all the time to futher their plans. Aphrodite was able to turn Joxer into a mightly warrior because he truly believes he's one. In "Reign of Terror", Hera was able to grant King Augeus powers roughly equal to Zeus because he believed he was Zeus.
  • In Heroes, Ando's power is version 3.
    • Also D.L.'s mother, but only in the online comic books.
    • In addition, the combination of Mohinder's research, the formula that Kaito had been hiding, and the catalyst that Arthur Petrelli had robbed from Hiro in the past created a serum that could grant people artificial powers without adverse side effects.
  • Lost:
    • Jacob has the power to grant immortality (Richard) and possibly healing abilities (Locke, maybe Mikhail?)
    • And his powers as the protector of the island came from the crazy lady who claimed to be his mother, who passed them along (type 2) by having him drink water out of a cup she filled. Jacob later does this to Jack, who does it to Hugo. Who then makes Ben Linus his second-in-command.
  • The Heavenly Saint Snowgel from Mahou Sentai Magiranger is revealed to have been the one who granted Miyuki the power of magic, and later grants her children, the Magirangers, access to their Legend Modes.
  • Seth from Misfits is an unusual example. He can grant powers to others, but only if he absorbs that power from another first.
  • In Power Rangers Ninja Storm, when Karmanians Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence or whatever, they're able to bestow the power they leave behind on someone. This is how Shane acquired his Battlizer.
  • The Tok'ra in Stargate SG-1 grant their hosts a highly extended lifespan, perfect health, and access to their own memories, as well as letting them operate Goa'uld tech and sense the presence of Goa'uld in others. This "blending" is also voluntary, and the human is allowed to remain in the driver's seat, as opposed to the Grand Theft Me nature of the Goa'uld. Jacob Carter (Sam's dad) was cured of terminal cancer this way.
  • Stargate Atlantis:
    • Rodney accidentally manipulated his own DNA structure resulting in him developing telepathic and telekinetic abilities, greatly enhanced intelligence and hearing, among others; all due to his brain becoming more active than that of an average human. Eventually his brain became so advanced that he was unable to keep himself alive if he doesn't ascend or find a way to turn himself back. Thankfully, Atlantis' medical department kept a DNA sample from everyone so they turned him back.
    • Weir became infected with Replicator cells but Rodney managed to shut them down before they took control. Later, she suffered brain injury so he reactivated them. She instantly gained super-healing and the ability to mentally tap into the Asurans' subspace network, stealing information and temporarily freezing other Replicators. When she became fully Replicator, she was able to stick her hand into another Replicator, making it fall apart to a pile of cells; prior to that, she was uploaded into subspace and essentially became an AI able to infect and control computers to an extent (she was so powerful that Atlantis' systems gone wacko from her presence until she rebuilt FRAn and possessed it).
    • Due to Teyla possessing Wraith genes, she has Wraith telepathic abilities as well as detecting their presence (hell, she mind controlled a Wraith queen). And maybe Chaya too but that's justified by the fact that she's an ascended Lantean in physical form.
    • An unintended type 5 due to the Lanteans interbreeding with humans. The result? The ability to control Lantean tech with the mind, also known as the ATA gene (Sheppard has a so powerful gene he doesn't need to concentrate at all); straight type 5 when Beckett managed to figure out how to imprint it artificially (he also has it naturally, so does O'Neill).
  • Star Trek:
  • In Supernatural, werewolves and vampires can bite humans and cause a Viral Transformation. The Special Children gain their psychic powers from drinking the Yellow-Eyed Demon's blood. When Sam is dying, he is possessed by an angel who helps him heal.

    Multi-Media 
  • BIONICLE examples:
    • Toa heroes can unlock the latent Toa-energy in chosen Matoran by infusing them with their power, usually by giving them Toa Stones which they've previously powered-up with their own energies. If the Stones are activated, they transform the powerless Matoran into mighty Toa, but transferring too much Toa-energy into a stone or filling too many will depower the Toa who gave them the stones into a less powerful Turaga elder once the process is complete, as seen with Lhikan empowering the six stones given to the Toa Metru and why the Metru each only put a portion of their power into one in the event a new team of heroes would be needed (said stones were used after they already became Turaga, so it's unclear if this would have worked). So far, direct empowering hasn't been seen in the story.
    • Av-Matoran (Matoran of Light), the only type of Matoran who have active powers in Matoran formnote , can grant Toa special light-based abilities as long as they're touching them.
    • Nuva Masks can extend their powers to those standing nearby. These powers only work as long as the original user continues to keep the mask active.
    • Mata Nui, using the Kanohi Ignika, was able to grant several Glatorian's weapons Elemental Powers.
    • The Ignika itself is capable of granting new powers to anyone who receives its "blessings"/"curses." Usually, these stop when they let go of the mask. It's also implied the Ignika could also transform Matoran into Toa on its own as shown when it turned Dekar into Hydraxon or, even more radically, re-power Turaga back to their Toa forms, though this is never actually seen.

    Mythology & Religion 
  • In The Bible, Elijah passes his "spirit" of prophetic miraculous power to Elisha via his cloak - a "double portion", even in the words of the Books of Kings - making this one Older Than Feudalism.
  • It's not just limited to Abrahamic faiths, either. In The Iliad and The Odyssey, among other places, it is mentioned that the Greek gods can grant mortals gifts. Cassandra, a Trojan seer, had been gifted her abilities by Apollo in exchange for becoming his lover. When she eventually refuses after the granting of her gift, Apollo, unable to take the gift back, curses her so that she'll never be believed. She's the Trope Namer for The Cassandra and Cassandra Truth in part, for this reason. While not the only example, she is easily one of the better-known due to the popularity of the two tales.

    Tabletop RPG 
  • In Aberrant, the drug Mite will give its user superpowers in the form of superhuman speed, strength, endurance and toughness. However, Mite is essentially a super-steroid that is hellishly addictive and causes severe rage issues in its users. Most Mite addicts work as either muscle for organized crime, or as Jobbers in the super-powered wrestling league the XWF (Extreme Wrestling Federation).
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Though it depends on the setting, divine spellcasters usually receive their powers from the gods.
    • Similarly, Warlocks gain their powers from consorting with strange otherworldly powers.
    • In Fourth Edition, Primal classes gain their powers from nature spirits.
    • Clerics can learn a spell known as Imbue With Spell Ability, enabling them to donate some of their other spells to the target, who can cast them at his own discretion. Necromancers in Forgotten Realms sometimes use the similar 'Imbue Undead With Spell Ability' spell.
    • The Wish and Miracle spells can also enhance basic attributes by up to 5 points (which is quite a bit).
    • Planescape and Forgotten Realms, as divine-heavy settings, introduced special forms of empowering. A Proxy is an agent of a deity granted extra power and imbued with the divine will, who is not fully free-willed, but driven toward their god's agenda — not a big change, as they are picked from the most trusted servants; it's temporary, frequently for a specific task. A Chosen is a being given a portion of the power significant on the deity's own scale — until willingly returned or lost in death; they're immortal and almost unkillable, in addition to hefty god-specific advantages. A Seraph seems to be a specialized version of the Chosen (e.g. Hermes would make one a Seraph of thievery or commerce). Either is appliable to a priest or commoner, mortal or afterlife dweller or planar alike — it's a direct divine intervention.
      • It was indicated that the reason Mystra had so many Chosen running around was that she was so powerful that Ao told her she had to take measures to keep herself 'merely' a Greater God. Her solution was to put so many fragments of her power into various mortals that it made a significant dent in her power.
      • It has been suggested that sorcerers can be created by being at the right place at the right time...or being bathed in dragon blood as an infant.
      • Forgotten Realms also has the sarrukh, an entire species with the ability to grant any ability to non-amphibian, living squamous. Any ability. They are also almost extinct.
  • Exalted:
    • The Celestial Exalted receive their power from a shard of the Celestial Incarnae, the most powerful gods in the setting.
    • The Abyssals and Infernals receive their shards from Deathlords and the Yozi, respectively. They're still technically shards of the Unconquered Sun, but mutated and warped to connect the recipient to the Neverborn and Yozi, instead.
    • The first Dragon-Blooded were directly empowered by the Five Elemental Dragons, with their descendants inheriting the potential to Exalt as Dragon-Blooded themselves.
    • Third edition introduces the Exigence, the divine flame, which the Unconquered Sun can grant to a lesser god in times of need, allowing them to Exalt a mortal champion at some cost to themselves (up to and including death).
    • Furthermore, almost all forms of supernatural can learn charms to perform this role themselves, such as the Solars' 'Power Awarding Prana', which allows the target to use essence and Solar charms for as long as the Solar maintains the charm.
    • The Lunars can do a similar thing. The recipient(s) eats a small Essence-filled chunk of the Lunar's flesh, and gains Awakened Essence mutation that allows them to learn and cast Sorcery, for as long as the Essence is committed. Given the sheer scope of things possible through Sorcery and the relatively cheap cost of committed Essence, a Lunar can potentially raise an army of mortal superheroes all by his or her own.
  • The GURPS advantage Affliction with the Advantage special enhancement gives the ability to temporarily give people powers, depending on the advantage in question.
    • And later supplements include the rules to remove the "temporary" part.
  • The Boost power in Mutants & Masterminds is this trope, those its exact function depends on its modifiers. It can be used to enhance a target's natural physical abilities, or their superpowers (or both), or to give a target powers and/or abilities they might not naturally have.
    • The main reason that Earth-Prime China has so few superhumans is the Central Power Collective. A secret organization within the chinese government that controls an alien artefact that can drain superhumans of their powers and memories of having them. The artefact can then be used by specially attuned handlers to transfer these powers to government agents, and they can be rescinded whenver the handler chooses.
  • In Pathfinder, sufficiently powerful beings like gods, archdevils, and the like are capable of granting their followers spellcasting abilities. If you're using the Mythic rules, it's possible for the players themselves to become such beings, gaining access to certain domains to grant spells from and the option to specialize into this later.
  • Princess: The Hopeful:
    • Princesses have a Charm that lets a Princess turn normal humans into Sworn, giving them limited access to her Court's magic. The Queen of Storms can even do this without needing a Princess to perform the initiation.
    • In addition, the Practical Magic of the Court of Hearts allows a Jewel to add dice to another's role, so long as that other is following the Princess's directions.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • The Chaos gods don't always turn their followers into horrible gibbering chaos spawn. Every now and then, they empower a few of them and turn them into incredibly powerful and nightmarish warriors. For instance, Kharn the Betrayer went from powerful Super-Soldier to unstoppable bloodthirsty demigod after receiving Khorne's blessing. Kharn is now effectively the avatar of Khorne himself. And he's one of the tamer examples.
    • A Space Marine is created by taking a Badass Normal youth, putting him through a grueling training regime with ample brainwashing, and shoving in a bunch of extra organs grown from the genetic material of the Primarchs (practically demigods in their own right) that grant them a wide variety of superhuman traits.
      • The new Primaris Marines are even better in just about all respects save for combat experience. Fortunately, the man who came up with them also managed to apply the process to regular Astartes.
  • In Witchcraft, there are various powers (including Incantations and Necromancy powers) that can be gained by divine patrons. They usually demand you work in their interests, and/or conduct sacrifices.
  • The World of Darkness:
    • The Changeling: The Lost, Vampire: The Masquerade, and Vampire: The Requiem gamelines have this happen to human PCs. In Changeling, humans who spend enough time in Arcadia become changelings either through eating the food there, surviving the abusive tasks of their keeper, or their keepers' magic changing them. They can also bestow minor blessings and sometimes even abilities to mortals through Pledges. Vampires do the whole embracing thing, as well as ghouling mortals with vampire blood. It doesn't kill them, but it does addict them and give them a small access to vampire powers and agelessness.
    • There are also a few groups in Mage: The Awakening dedicated to doing this. One Legacy, the Blank Badges, has a top-tier Attainment that allows them to literally explain Paradox away, even by just saying "I'm doing magic." If they're really successful in doing it, not only does the witness buy it, but there's a chance they might Awaken in the future.
    • Hunter: The Vigil features the Cheiron Group, who use bits and pieces of various supernaturals to give their operatives powers, and the Knights of Saint Adrian, who have angels give them supernaturally empowering tattoos.
    • One of the Kinship powers of the Begotten is Mother's Kiss, which allows a Beast to supercharge the powers of other supernatural beings by shedding their blood and speaking the target's name.
    • In Deviant: The Renegades, many Deviants get their powers through scientific/occult experiments, at the cost of having their souls broken.
    • The imbued of Hunter: The Reckoning are granted their powers by the enigmatic Messengers.

    Video Games 
  • Pharaohs do this to buildings in Age of Mythology. If they target a resource building, workers delivering to it also work faster.
  • In Chrono Trigger, Spekkio can unlock the latent magical powers of the human descendants of Zeal. He can't technically grant them though, as demonstrated by Ayla (who was born millions of years before Zeal), Robo (who isn't human), and Magus (who already has said powers). The rest of your party gains the ability to use spells.
  • In Dishonored, the Mark of the Outsider that grants the ability to use magic is said to only be possessed by eight people in the world. However, those who don't possess it (and don't find some other way to use magic) can also be given power by one who does. This happens with Daud's assassins, the Whalers, as well as with Delilah's coven of witches, both in the first game's DLC and the sequel .
  • In Dragon: Marked for Death, the Astral Dragon Atruum and the Celestial Primatus are capable of blessing people with some of their powers in the form of the "Dragon Scar" and "Stigmata of Primatus" respectively. In the former's case, this usually manifests as them having white hair, occasionally gaining draconic traits like horns, gaining access to at least one of the five elements (fire, ice, lightning, poison, wind), having the form of the dragon manifesting on their body as either some sort of armor (like the Warrior's cuirass and the Shinobi's greaves) or body part (the Witch's hair and the Empress's arm) and/or gaining the ability to transform into a monstrous creature (like Sumahiko and Jinryu turning into ogres). The latter leaves the recipients looking much more human and granting them the ability to wield holy powers of light and lightning at will. However, there's a limit to how much of their power a human body can successfully contain. The Divine King attempting to obtain even more power to become a Deity of Human Origin ends up killing him, while in one of the endings the protagonists absorbing Atruum's power ends up turning them permanently into a dragon.
  • In Epiphany City, the superpowers Lily receives enhance her existing abilities as an artist, while Superb Man's powers enhanced his charisma, looks, and strength as he was a former personal trainer.
  • Dancers and similar classes in Fire Emblem are pretty much defined by their ability to do this. They can allow an ally to take another turn or, depending on the game, empower them for a short time. In some games, a skilled enough Dancer can revitalize and give a surge of stats.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Just before the Final Boss of Final Fantasy IX, after the party is wiped out by Kuja's self-destructive tantrum, you get to choose which party members to take into the Final Battle with Necron. The remaining ones will then surrender their life energies to resuscitate the chosen ones, in reference to a similar scene from Final Fantasy IV.
    • Final Fantasy Tactics: The Zodiac Stones empower people who possess strong wish. Unfortunately, more often than not this turn those people into Lucavi demons.
    • Final Fantasy VIII: The main characters admit that they will be too puny to fight were it not for their Guardian Forces, which allow them to use Magic and fight on par with the Sorceresses. The price of this power isn't exactly cheap.
    • Final Fantasy XIII: The fal'Cie are a particularly malevolent version of Super-Empowering entities. Sure, you get nifty powers, but it's all downhill from there even if you do what they want as you are only 'slightly' less screwed if you do what they want than if you don't. That is, assuming you can even figure out what the fal'Cie wanted you to do in the first place, since apparently at least some of them can't be bothered to actually explain it, you just get a vision/dream and have to figure it out yourself.
    • This is how the Job System works in the lore of Final Fantasy XIV. The player is given a Soul Crystal, a densely concentrated mass of aether containing the knowledge and experiences of previous users. While the exact workings of Soul Crystals is left vague, some Jobs go into detail about how a Soul Crystal can help its users. To name a few examples: the Black Mage's Soul Crystal protects its user from self-destruction due to the extremely destructive nature of black magic, the Scholar's Soul Crystal acts as a storage device for the Scholar's fairy, and the Ninja's Soul Crystal provides knowledge of how to perform otherwise physically-impossible fighting techniques.
  • To rein in Ares' Roaring Rampage of Revenge in God of War, the gods grant Kratos some of their signature powers, culminating with making him the next God of War. In the sequel, it turns out that Kratos is too good at his job. To help Kratos with his Roaring Rampage of Revenge, the Titans grant Kratos some of their powers. Then in the third and final game with the Olympians and Titans after him, the spirits of his fellow Spartans empower Kratos.
  • The Beast from inFAMOUS has the power to awaken the powers of everyone who has the conduit gene, supercharge the already existing powers of conduits and transfer all of his own power to another conduit. The last part is a one time deal though and ends with his death and Cole becoming the next Beast.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Chozo in Metroid were a Type 5, gifting Sole Survivor Samus Aran with "Chozo blood" (probably a form of genetic engineering). This granted her enhanced strength and athleticism, as well as letting her use Chozo technology like the Power Suit.
  • Minecraft Dungeons: Enchanters provide extra powers to other hostile mobs.
  • In The Neverhood, Hoborg's powers derive from his crown, which he was given by his "father" Quater (who, as the only son of Father, is essentially Jesus in the Neverhood mythos).
  • Persona:
    • Persona 2: Both Philemon and Nyarlathotep empower humans they like with the power of Persona. The result... isn't pretty.
    • Persona 4: Izanami-no-Mikoto empowers the main character and certain two others with a more flexible form of Persona. The result... isn't pretty. Only the main character gets the flexible persona ability, due an already latent wild card trait of his (and a few clues in the game could be interpreted as Philemon having a hand in it behind the scenes).
  • The Pokémon move Helping Hand does nothing but multiply the other Mon's Attack and Special Attack strength by 1.5 for one turn. Only works in Double and Triple Battles.
    • Eleven Pokémon have the abilities Plus and Minus, which raise the Special Attack of others with Plus or Minus. Similarly, Victini's Victory Star ability raises teammates' accuracy.
    • There are whole Metagame strategies that center around setting up powerful buffs, then passing them on to another party member using Baton Pass. Moves like Wish and Light Screen/Reflect also remain in play after the Pokemon that used them switches out.
  • In their Emergency Transformations, Red and Asellus get superpowers and Mystic powers, respectively in SaGa Frontier.
  • In The Secret World, the Bees grant anima powers to the people they bond with. (Such as the Player Characters.)
  • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne: Lucifer empowers the main character with demonic essence, allowing him to use Magatama and command demons. The result is definitely not pretty if you go with his plan.
  • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords is almost built around this and a Deconstructor Fleet of the Star Wars universe. As the de-powered Exile, you are "re-awakened" by Kreia. Then, as you gather party members, they can often teach you skills or status buffs. Topping that, most of your party turns out to be untrained Force Sensitives. Gather enough influence with them, and the Exile can "awaken" then into Jedi (or Sith).
  • In Soul Nomad & the World Eaters, to empower or not to empower yourself with Gig's power forms the bulk of the story.
  • Super Mario Bros.: Princess Peach can do a variant of this, producing items for Mario and Luigi in certain games.
  • Valkyrie Profile allows you to be the one doing the empowering. Due to the nature of your power, it usually works after a great tragedy befall the to-be-empowered. Namely, their death. In Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, the main character do the same in Hel's name, to exact revenge against the Valkyries.
  • The Naaru in World of Warcraft can bestow the powers of the Light on mortals. And they can also be taken from them, forcefully, as the Blood Elves did until the reveal that it was actually given willingly. The leaders of the Burning Legion are also capable of granting powers, though in a somewhat ruthless way. Sargeras gave Illidan the ability to see magic by replacing his eyes by a sort of magical smoke. This forced him to wear his iconic blindfold because the sight is somewhat unnerving to others.
  • Grahf from Xenogears is an evil version, giving power to sufficiently angry, revenge-minded individuals and turning them and their gears into super-powerful monsters.

    Web Comics 
  • In the RPG-themed Adventurers!, Karn gains a Super Mode near the end of the "game", giving him several new moves. One of these moves is Truth Buster, which enables him to give his other party members their own super forms.
  • Lady Lillith in Cat Legend is the first type. Other powerful faeries are probably capable of the same.
  • DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything: The Dice allow people to boost many of their attributes such as strength, endurance, agility or physical attractiveness, even granting to the ability to see in darkness. There are special golden A-Dice that grant people Psychic Powers, such as Dongtae's Colour-Coded Timestop, which was given as a reward for completing one of X's special quests.
  • In El Goonish Shive, Immortals can give people magical abilities, either by giving them a magic mark (allowing them to cast one spell) that either runs from their deepest desires or a latent magical talent they have, or by fully awakening already built up magic potential.
  • Coyote in Gunnerkrigg Court can do this easily, since he's a Physical God. But since he's a trickster god, the powers are often less than ideal. He gave Renard his Grand Theft Me power, but "for some reason," when Renard leaves a body, it immediately dies. He also gave Ysengrin his tree-manipulating powers, at great cost to Ysengrin's physical health and sanity.
  • In the Exalted-themed Keychain of Creation, The Elegant Nova Of Progression is trying to figure out how to do this, and has had some successes (though not without setbacks).
  • One-Punch Man: The mysterious entity known only as 'God' can do this, giving powers to various monsters like Homeless Emperor. It's even speculated that God is the reason that monsters exist in the series in the first place.
  • In Sidekicks the First Prana is able to create superpowers and imbue them into things. The Third Prana can steal superpowers and then transfer them into others.
  • This turns out to be Max's power as a biodynamic in Strong Female Protagonist. He considered himself to be Blessed with Suck, because it isn't one of the 'cool' powers.
    Max: Imagine being 14 years old. All over the globe, kids everywhere are getting extraordinary powers. They can run, they can leap, they can jump... They can fly. They can do whatever they want to do. Total freedom. And you're waiting, and you're waiting, and you're jumping off the roof and breaking your ankle, and you're trying to turn invisible or shoot fire or shapeshift. And nothing. And you're certain that you're special, you just know, you've gotta be. And so you get tested. And you come back positive for the gene. And your whole anomaly, your entire super power, is that you can make other kids more powerful. You can help them out. I wanted to fucking die. I wanted to kill myself. What a fucking useless power. It would have been better to have no powers at all.
  • Unsounded: Any spellwright with the right kind of enchanted dagger can open another human's connection to the Background Magic Field, although it's good for nothing without training in the Language of Magic. New spellwrights are properly "rited" in an important ceremony, but some have it done quietly or illicitly instead.

    Web Original 
  • Aegis from the ASH universe can borrow other people's powers. As a side-effect, he also amplifies theirs, eventually to the point where their powers go out of control and, if he pushes it too far, even kill them.
  • Using the Buster Spark Akira Kintaro/Buster Gold from Buster Girls can temporarily grant other civilians Buster transformations. Strength and abilities depend on the individual's affinity for the Buster Force.
  • RWBY:
    • The ability to unlock Aura. It is not entirely clear what this entails and how common it is, as the only time it is shown on-screen is when Pyrrha unlocks Jaune's Aura, but presumably, any skilled Aura user can unlock another's Aura, effectively granting them, as Jaune puts it, a "forcefield".
    • In the fairy tale The Story of the Seasons, the reclusive Old Wizard is so overwhelmed by the kindness of the four sisters who help him that he sacrifices most of his magic to split it between them, gifting the sisters with Elemental Powers so that they can help humanity as the legendary Four Maidens. It's a true story. The Old Wizard was a previous incarnation of Professor Ozpin, who has also used his magic to give the Branwen twins the ability to transform into birds for the purpose of helping him protect the current generation of Maidens. As magic is finite, he permanently loses the power he grants to others and therefore rarely uses his remaining magic.
    • Jaune Arc's Semblance allows him to recharge and even supercharge the Auras of others. This allows him to boost the Semblances of others, such as enabling Ren to mask an entire train of people from the emotion-sensing Grimm, or to help others recover from life-threatening injuries by boosting the innate regeneration abilities of a person's Aura. He first activates the Semblance in Volume 5 after Cinder fatally impales Weiss just to spite him. His Semblance unlocks to supercharge her Aura, allowing her to swiftly recover from the otherwise unsurvivable injury and then summon an unusually powerful version of her Queen Lancer avatar for battle.
  • SCP-040 seems to have this power as an extension of her ability to manipulate organic matter, as evidenced by the fact that one of her creations, SCP-040-1a, has limited shape-shifting abilities. There's even an OC meme where one of the panels is SCP-040 turning the OC into an SCP themselves.
  • In the Whateley Universe, Bill Wilson becomes Super Empowered when a millennia-old spirit gives him its powers, turning him into Tennyo.
    • The Mutant power called 'Avatar' is ability to make a deal with a spirit (often a totem animal, Nature Spirit, or Anthropomorphic Personification), in which the Avatar lets the spirit use their body as a hallow in exchange for being able to use the spirit's powers.
    • There are quite a few supers in WU (refered to in series as 'Imbued') which get their powers from an Upgrade Artifact or a through an agreement to serve a god or other powerful being as their agent on Earth. Bladedancer and Bruja are two notable examples.
    • Some supers (mostly villains, for some reason) have the ability to perform 'Exaltations', temporarily imbuing their minions with a part of their power in exchange for loyalty. Notably, after fighting the Exalted henchmen of Wulfin the Purifier, the Witch Queen stole the trick, but modified it: while she did give superpowers to her Witchknights, she also used it to tweak the metabolisms of the bored housewives, frustrated businesswomen, and ambitious sorority sisters who made up most of her cult, helping them lose weight, get fit, think more clearly, have better sex lives, and generally just enjoy life more.She soon found herself swamped by new members and expanding her personal empire almost faster than she could control it.

    Western Animation 
  • In one episode of Aladdin: The Series, Genie transfers his powers to Iago.
  • In the Donald Duck cartoon "Trombone Trouble", the gods Jupiter and Vulcan give Don some of their power so he can get revenge on a trombone player who is bothering all three.
  • Timmy Turner has wished for superpowers several times throughout The Fairly Oddparents; for himself, his parents, and once for the entire planet Earth, all made possible by his Fairy Godparents.
  • Final Space: Invictus grants the Lord Commander a Healing Factor when it resurrects him and seemingly negates his Cast from Lifespan. It's also heavily implied that the Lord Commander's original powers in his first life and also Ash's powers originally came from Invictus.
  • In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), after Prince Adam transforms into He-Man, he then gives Cringer the power of Grayskull and transforms him into Battle Cat.
  • In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021), after upgrading his staff with Kirbinite, Skeletor is able to empower others with the power of Havoc, transforming his three followers into Trap Jaw, Evil-Lyn, and Beast Man, the Dark Masters.
  • In the final season of Jackie Chan Adventures, Drago, Shendu's son from the future, infuses the Enforcers, and later, Strikemaster Ice and his posse, with his chi, transforming them into lizard men with fire/dragon-based powers. Upon achieving his goal of gaining the seven demon powers of his aunts and uncles, he is able to infuse the Strikemaster gang further with Earth, Thunder, and Wind powers.
  • In The Legend of Korra, we find out the origins of Bending. It used to be that lion turtles would grant humans various bending arts via energybending, something that could only happen one at a time because humans couldn't handle the stress of multiple bending arts. Wan, the first Avatar, managed to do so thanks to him merging his soul with a once-powerful spirit.
  • Miraculous Ladybug:
    • This is Hawk Moth's entire schtick. He senses out people full of despair, anger, and other negative emotions, and infects them with one of his akuma butterflies, which gives them powers based around their specific desires. This is later revealed to be a case of Good Powers, Bad People: he is the wielder of the Butterfly Miraculous, whose intended purpose is to create heroes, but he twisted it into a means to create minions.
    • The akumatized villain Catalyst has the ability to supercharge others' existing powers. She is Hawk Moth's right-hand woman Nathalie, and uses this power on Hawk Moth himself as part of a gambit to circumvent the Butterfly Miraculous's restrictions (namely, that it can only create one champion at a time and cannot be used to empower its wielder), enabling him to akumatize scores of people.
  • Ascending to be an alicorn might or might not be this in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Alicorns embody the abilities of all three pony species, and so far both Princess Cadance and Twilight Sparkle have ascended. Whether or not Princess Celestia was involved in Twilight Sparkle's ascension was ambiguous, as the power came from inside Twilight Sparkle.
  • The Owl House: After arranging a truce with Eda, the Owl Beast lets her transform into a humanoid version of her Owl Beast form dubbed "Harpy Eda", granting her its advantages with no drawbacks.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: When Adora is trying to figure out how to consciously transform into She-Ra, her sword shoots out bolts of magic that hit her horse and a random lizard, giving them both wings, a horn, and a more whimsical color scheme. It's later revealed that the horse also gained human-level intelligence, speech, and a mystic bond with Adora/She-Ra. No word on whether the lizard got those powers too. Whether she could do the same later or share her power with another human isn't clarified.
  • In an episode of Static Shock, there was an old man whose superpower was to temporarily give others random superpowers. Unfortunately, it resulted in a druglike addiction, causing a Does This Remind You of Anything? type Aesop for Richie.
    • Static himself was a minor example, as it was secondhand exposure to the Bang Baby gas residue on him that gave Richie his permanent Gadgeteer Genius power.
  • Steven Universe:
    • Garnet can temporarily pass along her Future Vision via a forehead kiss.
    • Steven himself learns in early Season 5 that he can do this when bringing the recently-dead back to life; he of course gets this from his mother, whose resurrected lion familiar can walk on water, open portals by roaring extra-loudly, and access a pocket dimension through his mane. Steven grants the same type of resurrection to Lars, who has only demonstrated the third, but it being a singular pocket dimension, Steven (and guests) can use the two allies as a Portal Network.
  • In the later episodes of Storm Hawks, Piper learns an ability call The Binding which allows her to empower herself and others with the raw energy of Crystals without the need of a device or weapon to channel it, something that normally is only possible for crystal mages like herself or Master Cyclonis. However, her original unmastered usage of it takes its toll on her health before she masters it and as shown by what Cyclonis ends up doing to the Dark Ace in the finale, putting too much crystal energy into someone will cause explosive results.
  • Wakfu: Phaeris blesses Yugo with a spell that will temporarily bring forth his hidden potential, allowing him to fight Qilby on a more equal ground.
  • Will's power in the first season of W.I.T.C.H. was simply triggering the Transformation Sequence with the Heart of Kandrakar, essentially giving all the others their Elemental Powers.

Top

Devil Ganryu

Ganryu is unable to fly even after getting the Devil Gene due to being so fat.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (1 votes)

Example of:

Main / FatComicRelief

Media sources:

Report