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"The Sun is the king of torches."
West African proverb

Ah, The Sun. The celestial object around which our world turns. A ball in the sky that brings light to darkness, life to plants, and warmth to all. It's also, of course, a giant nuclear furnace more than three hundred thousand times the mass of our puny little planet that fuses more than six hundred twenty million tons of hydrogen into helium every second, the biggest source of energy for four light-years in any direction, so it's understandable that one might want to harness or replicate that kind of power.

See, sometimes, the power of the sun itself is classified as a sort of Elemental Power. The effects of sun-power are many and varied: you could shoot ultraviolet rays to give people nasty sunburns, perhaps channel a beam of light to fry a vampire, maybe heal people with the mystic power of sunlight — somehow. And of course, you could always just go straight to nuclear fusion. Radioactive superheated plasma is always a nice way to make sure your target is dead, and it's much easier to Hurl It into the Sun if you can make a little mini-sun.

The power of the sun is a lot like a fun little cocktail of Playing with Fire and Light 'em Up, with an occasional side of nuclear weapons. Often associated with heroes, but not always; villains that use solar power, directly or indirectly through technology, are fairly common in science fiction. If elements oppose each other, the power of the sun will generally be opposite Lunacy. It may also be in opposition to Power of the Void, which is associated with Darkness, Cold, and Black Holes.

If a device is simply powered by solar panels, photosynthesis, or even by a Dyson Sphere, it doesn't quite count as this trope: it generally has to utilize sunlight, solar rays, or nuclear fusion to qualify as the power of the sun.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Black Clover: The House of Grinberryall, the royal family of the Spade Kingdom, has three special magic attributes that have been passed down through their bloodline. One of them is Sun Magic, though its last known user, King Loyce, was killed during the Dark Triad's uprising.
  • Bleach: Yamamoto's Bankai, Zanka no Tachi, is described as the embodiment of the Sun itself and even produces flames of 15 million degrees Celsius to approximate the temperature of the sun's core.
  • Teppei from B't X. It turns out to be the key to taking down Raphaello.
  • Casshern's limited power supply can only be recharged this way.
  • Daitarn 3: Borrowing the Power of the Sun! Sure Kill attack! SUUUUUUUUUNNNN ATTTACK!
  • Day Break Illusion: Akari. She's more strictly associated with the Sun, but it manifests as Flaming Hair and a Flaming Sword anyway.
  • Digimon
  • Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum: The titular museum has an underground laboratory that doubles as a mini-sun generator, which predictably goes out of control in the climax expanding rapidly and threatening to swallow the entire museum until Doraemon and friends figured a way to shut it down.
  • After "eating" God, Father from Fullmetal Alchemist is able to create mini-suns, which he uses to try to kill the protagonist, or threatens to, in Brotherhood.
  • Feitan from Hunter × Hunter. His nen ability Rising Sun creatures a miniature sun that burns anything around it with its power dependent on his pain. He uses his Pain Packer to protect himself from its heat.
  • Heart Catch Pretty Cure has Cure Sunshine, a character who fights with the power of sunlight.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Hamon, seen primarily in Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency,note  is a Tibetan martial art that allows the user to channel energy through special breathing techniques. It's described as essentially turning the user's own life energy back into the sunlight that it was originally. This is useful wherein the main antagonists of the early arcs are Vampires, and what are only described as Pillar Men which makes trained experts of Hamon serve as excellent Vampire Hunters. Practiced users of Hamon also make great use of its healing properties, capable of mending broken bones in seconds and even slowing (but not halting) the aging process, to the extent a 50-year-old woman looks like she's still in her 20s.
    • Stardust Crusaders' introduction of Stands named after Tarot cards gives Arabia Fats's The Sun, which takes the form of the Sun, emitting intense heat and able to shoot jets of solar energy akin to Frickin' Laser Beams.
  • From Medabots, Space Medafighter X's partner ArcBeetle, with his Finishing Move, The Prominence. X even quotes the trope by name whenever invoking the attack. It helps that The Prominence is a Charged Attack, considering his invocation is several sentences long.
  • In The Mysterious Cities of Gold it's one of the city's secrets — they can channel sunlight into an energy weapon.
  • Epsilon in Pluto, as long as he has time to (re)charge in sunlight.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • The Solarbeam attack.
    • There's also the Meteonite from Pokémon the Series: Black & White. Though the arc was canceled and the plot of the episodes retconned, trailers and promotional material for the "Team Rocket vs Team Plasma" two-parter show that the Meteonite is solar-powered, and it can be made into an artificial sun that shines even at night. Its rays put pokemon under its control, which is why Giovanni wants to harness its power. At the climax of the story it apparently becomes a sun, as shown here at 1:29.
  • Record of Ragnarok: Apollo unleashes the full, unbridled power of the sun by shooting golden arrows as swift as the dawn rays. The beam-like arrows burn through anything that's not a divine weapon.
  • The Gold Saints from Saint Seiya have a combo attack that channels this power. Too bad it needs all twelve saints to work.
  • Senki Zesshou Symphogear AXZ: Adam Weishaupt, leader of a powerful group of alchemists, favors using alchemy to create gold as his preferred combat technique. This is because there's only one way to turn other matter into gold: performing nuclear fusion on it.
  • The Seven Deadly Sins, The Lion's Sin of Pride Escanor takes this trope quite literally with his ability "Sunshine", at midnight he is a scrawny and meek man, and is the weakest of all knights. But as the sun rises, his power does the same, as does his pride, transforming him into a muscled behemoth of a man as the day goes on until his power peaks at noon, where he is the most powerful of his fellow Sins, all the while radiating light and heat as if he were the Sun itself, after noon passes he loses his power before turning back into his smaller, weaker self at night as a part of a daily never-ending cycle. It is later revealed that "Sunshine" is the Grace of the deceased Mael, one of the four Archangels of the Goddess Clan. It is not clear how the Grace was passed on to Escanor at birth. Mael's brother Ludociel warns Escanor that his human body will not be able to bear the strain of the Grace for much longer. It then turns out that Mael is not actually dead. When Escanor convinces Mael to take back Sunshine, Mael promptly demonstrates the Grace's full potential by conjuring miniature suns and other powerful flame attacks.

    Comic Books 
  • The Marvel Universe has a number of sun-using characters:
    • X-Men:
      • The original Sunfire (this one's also a total jerk, though), his sister Sunpyre, and the Exiles' Sunfire.
      • The Phoenix Force, described as "fire and life incarnate", literally eats suns to replenish itself. In this instance, the trope established just how very powerful it was.note 
      • Sunspot from New Mutants can absorb sunlight and release concussive blasts of solar energy, with a considerable heat and light projection component. At first, he gained Super-Strength that was fueled by the Sun.
      • Uncanny X-Force gives us Orange Hulk from the Black Legion, who appears to be powered by solar radiation rather than gamma. He's still quite tough, though.
    • Solarr from Captain America is the villain version, using his solar powers to burn people.
    • Hyperion of Squadron Supreme, as befitting a Superman Substitute, is powered by the sun. He's one of the most physically powerful heroes in the Marvel Universe, though that does less good against certain enemies than others:
      Hyperion: Look here, monster. I AM THE SUN.
      Beyonder: Foolish creature. I create stars... I destroy them. What makes you any different?
    • The Vision absorbs solar energy through the jewel in his forehead and can release it as energy blasts.
    • Iron Man's various suits often have a solar-energy collection function as a backup power source, but it is too slow to sufficiently power the armor for combat.
  • The DCU:
    • Legion of Super-Heroes has Sun Boy. He can internally generate an almost limitless supply of solar energy, from the smallest candle flicker to a blistering furnace. He is also immune to virtually all forms of heat and solar radiation.
    • Earth's yellow sun is what gives Superman, Supergirl, Power Girl, and other Kryptonians their powers. Even their blood is solar-powered, as Dracula found out the hard way. By contrast, red suns drain Kryptonians of their power, which doomed the rest of the species, as their home planet orbited a red dwarf.
    • Daxamites like Valor are descended from Kryptonian colonists who intermarried with the native population of Daxam and are solar-powered in the same way as Kryptonians.
    • Starfire gleans part of the power she uses for flight and starbolts through absorption of the sun's rays through her skin.
    • Sensation Comics: Queen Flamina — a one-shot villain who looks nearly identical to another Golden Age Wonder Woman foe, Queen Atomia — is queen of the sun, and correspondingly has Playing with Fire abilities.
    • Wonder Woman and the Star Riders: Solara has the "Power of the Sun", which in this instance means she can emit light and manipulate the temperature.
  • The Authority: Apollo is fueled by the Sun; the results include Flying Brick powers, Eye Beams, a halo, and a warm and cheerful personality.
  • The much dreaded Kool-Aid Man comic features the Thirsties, evil sun creatures with light powers.
  • Lucifer in his Vertigo incarnation is the Morningstar, the light of God, responsible for shaping and lighting the stars through his will alone. He is able to channel this power whenever he likes it, with fiery and usually instantly-fatal results.
  • Xadhoom from Paperinik New Adventures obtained her immense power by using the sun of her planet to change her into a star in physical form.

    Fan Works 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): The sun breaks through the passing rainstorm at the end of the Yonaguni battle, warming Manda's (millennia-old) egg and seemingly triggering his hatching.
  • Child of the Storm:
    • Kryptonians as being this as a matter of course, being empowered by sunlight, with mentioned examples including the late Jor-El, the possibly late Kal-El I (foster-brother of Odin, Cool Uncle to Thor and Loki, currently Chekhov M.I.A.), and the very much alive teenage Kal-El II/Clark Kent (explicitly named after the former). The traditional Flying Brick powers are in the Thor weight class, with a young Jor-El being mentioned as capable of overpowering a young Colossus and drop-kicking Omega Red through Mount Yamantau, are present. Additionally, they get Stronger with Age and become able to learn how to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum. However, they're restricted to Krypton's oligarchic ruling elite, while everyone else is stuck at Golden Age Superman levels. Since Krypton's always been under a red sun, this seems implausible — they're no different to each other under a red sun. Word of God implies that there's an In-Universe reason for this, and in chapter 59 of the sequel, it's revealed that the Thirteen were the ones that inter-bred with other species, including Asgardians, and implies that the block was engineered, hybridisation allowing replacement of the relevant genes.
    • The Phoenix Force doesn't generally indulge in its canonical star-eating antics, but is heavily associated with light, life, and fire, and hates vampires, which it is utterly inimical to — as one found when it tried to drink Harry's blood. Cue said vampire trying to scream as its jaw burns off. Additionally, on the flip side, the original Dark Phoenix (Surtur) made his mark by eating an entire galaxy (not all in one go, admittedly), leaving behind only "darkness and the echoes of screams."
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami is making plans to fight vampires, and learns that since the sun is a symbol of the Light gods, sunlight contains a portion of their power, thus a vampire killed in sunlight will not respawn. Artificial sunlight is no good, though.
  • Origin Story: Sentry tries to use this as a weapon against Alex Harris. Too bad she's a Kryptonian, and thus is empowered by the sun.
    • Similarly, the Sentry tries the same trick against Divine (Power Girl's evil clone) in A New World In My View when the Avengers are trying to subdue her. Notably, the other Avengers — who encountered Superman in JLA/Avengers and know what Power Girl (and thus Divine) is as a result — try to stop him. This ends horribly badly, with Divine getting supercharged and breaking his arm.
  • The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Blazen Sun can create a miniature sun, bright enough to turn night into day.
  • Corona of RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse. In addition to control of the Sun's rising and setting, she makes liberal use of sunfire to burn anything that displeases her and can merge herself into the Sun to heal from otherwise mortal wounds. It's also rumored that she can smite anypony who's outside at high noon, though this may or may not be true.
  • In Twinkling in the Dark, Akaoni suggests a fantasy fight between Cure Peach and Cure Sunshine using their sun powers, and whoever gets sunburnt first loses.
  • In Sailor Moon fanfiction A New Order, sunlight helps the senshi's healing factor. This becomes a problem when Uranus is seriously injured while they're in a pocket dimension.
  • To Hell and Back (Arrowverse): After spending several months on the island of Lian Yu, Kara all of sudden starts exhibiting extraordinary strength and toughness and amazingly keen senses. Barry quickly guesses that she draws power from a yellow sun. Shortly later she is flying around and shooting heat beams.
  • In Last Child of Krypton, Shinji gets genetically altered with Kryptonian DNA and starts developing powers by absorbing sunlight. Asuka does the same thing in the rewrite.
  • In Project Sunflower, Celestia unleashes this twice. The first time starts well but ends with a devastating counterattack from the Black Tide, and the second is good, old-fashioned overkill against the Black Tide
  • Hellsister Trilogy has the main heroine, who under a yellow sun is powerful enough to move planets and time travel under her own power. Likewise, she uses an anti-matter sun to destroy her evil duplicate.
  • In Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton, Asuka's sperm donor is Kryptonian, so she's sun-empowered and able to lift skyscrapers or survive a conflagration.
  • Crossover fanfiction The Dragon King's Temple has several examples:
    • A ha’tak has its shields modified to reflect these rays against the super-yukiuso.
    • Similarly, Zuko needs to be exposed to sunlight to replenish his naquadah reserves.
  • The Vampire of Steel has — other than one of the two co-leads — Zol-Am, who, being a Kryptonian, derives his power from the Sun despite being a vampire. Even so, he heat-blasted two vampires to dust right after being turned.
  • The Last Daughter: As a Kryptonian, Taylor gets her power from the sun. Amy also uses it to heal Taylor after her fight with Behemoth, since nothing else was working.
  • A Force of Four: Being a Kryptonian, Power Girl draws her power from the Sun. Unfortunately so do several of her enemies, Mala, Kizo, and U-Ban.
  • Superman of 2499: The Great Confrontation: By the year 2499, dozens of descendants of the House of El are living on Earth and empowered by its Sun. Unfortunately, not all of them are willing to use their powers for good.
  • In Destiny is a Hazy Thing, Yoko/Kyuubi's domain includes the Sun, which is used to fight the Reibi.
  • Kara of Rokyn: The titular character's powers are fueled by the Earth's sun, but she loses them while on planet Rokyn and has to get by with her natural abilities.
  • For Celestia in Celestia's Rocket Adventures, while this trope focused on moving the sun and utilizing light-based magic back in Equestria, she later learns how to throw around Solar Beams during her time with the Team Rocket trio. This is also the rationale for her part-Fire typing.
  • In The Butcher Bird, one minor character is a Sun Logia. He's a Brilliant, but Lazy type more concerned with finding good bars than fighting or causing havoc on the Grand Line.
  • A Diplomatic Visit: In chapter 11 of the third story, Diplomacy Through Schooling, after assuming her full-powered form as the Lady of Magic, Twilight unleashes this on Tirek, burning/rotting away his arm and spreading its effects throughout his body, leaving him wracked with cancerous tumors.
  • In Shazam! fanfiction Here There Be Monsters, Doctor Sivana's devices collect sunlight and turn their bearers into super-beings with enormous strength, resilience, and flight capabilities.
    "My associates, who will appear with me in our next broadcast, were men of power–at least some of them were. But even those who had no power at all have gained power enough to challenge the Three Cheesy Marvels, and those who had power before have acquired the might to beat them. And they did. All of this was done by a power we tap every day, to warm our bones, to raise our crops, to keep the chlorophyll producing oxygen for all life to exist on Earth."
    "The power of the sun."
    "I devised a method of directly tapping the great energy of the sun, through a lattice of receiver-transmitters we installed at a point near enough to the sun to be efficient for our purposes. Don't worry, men of Earth, it's far beyond your capacities to reach. I don't feel insecure about revealing its existence. The receivers empower my associates. As a result, the Monster Society of Evil have become monsters beyond your greatest nightmares."
  • With This Ring: Devilance, New God of the Hunt, is sent by Darkseid to test the Renegade's fitness to rule, by fighting him and his allies in a duel. However, Devilance brings along a plasma servitor for the Renegade to fight, essentially a walking sun — not realizing that two of the Renegade's friends are Kryptonian. By the time the Renegade disables the servitor, Devilance has been knocked unconscious and Superboy is bringing his spear home as a trophy (to show Wonder Woman, his adoptive mother).
  • In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic The Long Eventide, Twilight Sparkle has been trying to learn if it's possible to tap into the sun as a magical power source, by studying the legend of a pony said to be able to do so named Sunbeam Smiles.
  • In the climax of Glitter Force: Into the Glitterverse, Cure Peach uses sun powers to upgrade Cure Flora's Petal Power and defeat an Akanbe.

    Films — Animated 
  • Tangled rewrote Rapunzel with solar powers. They seem to be primarily life-related, allowing their vessel to regenerate injuries and someone else's age. They can be activated by song, and as of yet no offensive uses have been seen. Tangled: The Series goes slightly further by having her conjure protective light shields, though she drops the healing aspect of her magic.
  • Sunburn from Happily Ever After, who controls sunlight. Unlike Rapunzel above, she uses it pretty damn offensively.
  • Chanticleer in Rock-A-Doodle can summon the sun through his crowing, and this is a plot point since everyone else needs him back to restore daylight. His crowing-sun-summoning extends to ordering a rain of solar flares to hit the Big Bad in the climax.
  • Megamind tries to kill Metroman with a Kill Sat that's powered by sunlight. It takes several seconds to charge enough energy.
  • Watership Down: Frith, the rabbits' god, is strongly associated with the sun, though whether he is the actual sun or not is contentious within the books' universe. In the film, he appears as a stylised sun who creates the world and gives animals their traits.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Dr. Octavius's device in Spider-Man 2 was meant to create "the power of the Sun in the palm of my hand" — specifically, a controlled nuclear fusion reactor, which, admittedly, would be extremely revolutionary. He achieves it, except for the "controlled" part, as the "mini-sun" has one hell of a magnetic field. And everyone (in-universe) seems to completely overlook the fact that he already invented and nearly perfected cybernetic limbs and true A.I. just to help him handle the complex manipulations of the controls for his fusion project.
    • Amusingly to provide him closure, his appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home has him obtain the Arc Reactor post-Heel–Face Turn, helping him realise he didn't need such a dangerous machine to achieve his dream of producing clean energy while reconciling with the Peter of his world. The quoted trope even becomes part of his catchphrase that he says as he observes the tiny machine in his hands.
  • Seemingly half the point of Sunshine is to demonstrate the incredible radiant power of the Sun. Everyone's lives both depend on and are threatened by the Sun during the movie, and while the Sun is dying, it is still incredibly powerful.
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past: Sunspot's mutant ability.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse has the title villain's technology activated by sunlight. It's why he was sealed for thousands of years, as his chamber ended up underground with no sunlight to reactivate it.
  • Gadgeteer Genius monk Carl in Van Helsing invents a special grenade which, when activated, unleashes a burst of light equal to the intensity of the Sun, but admits he doesn't know exactly what they can actually use it for, but brings it along to Transylvania, anyway. At the end of the second act, they use it to vaporize an entire mansion full of vampires.
  • In Yamato Takeru, Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu imbues her followers and artifacts with her power, letting her priestesses play with fire and her Magic Mirror serve as a Wave-Motion Gun of immense power.
  • In the 1959 B-Movie Missile to the Moon one character steps from the dark side of the Moon into the light and is instantly charred into a burning dummy, and then a plastic skeleton. Ten years later real-life astronauts would report less fatal effects.
  • The villain Nuclear Man from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is powered by the sun even more than Superman, to the point where just going into the shade is enough to render him practically inert.

    Gamebooks 
  • Lone Wolf wields the Sommerswerd, also known as the Sword of the Sun. The holy blade burns with the flames of the sun and can emit fire blasts. At one point, when Lone Wolf tries to use the sword while underground, he realizes it has been out of the sun for too long and has not had a chance to replenish its power.
  • In the third Sorcery! book, The Seven Serpents, this is supposedly the power of the Sun Serpent, one of the seven titular elemental monsters you must seek and defeat. However, it turns out Fenestra had already captured the Sun Serpent before your adventure begins.

    Literature 
  • Wicked Lovely has the summer court, who use sunlight as a tangible elemental ability, the same as the dark court's shadows, the winter court's frost, Sorcha and Bananach's warping reality, and Olivia's stars.
  • Both Apollo and Hyperion in Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
  • Nuklear Age's Nuklear Man. His ultimate move uses half the power of every star in the galaxy for several seconds. Good thing too, because the Big Bad Nihlus can not be defeated by normal means.
  • Robin McKinley's Sunshine features a protagonist who draws her magic from exposure to sunlight, and whose health actually deteriorates without said exposure, in what may be the ultimate case of seasonal affective disorder. Appropriately enough, she uses said power to get involved in a war against vampires.
  • In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan addresses the Sun to speak of its power — and rages that it reminds him of what he lost.
  • In The Book of the New Sun, The Conciliator is at the same time a man and the White Fountain which will restore the dying Sun and wreck continents. Or perhaps that's just what the Powers Above the Stage need him to believe.
  • In Animorphs, Yeerks need to leave their host bodies every three days to absorb Kandrona rays or they die. The Kandrona is actually the name of their home world's sun, which they regard with religious significance; however, the "Kandronas" used off-world are just devices that imitate its energy.
  • The Empirium Trilogy: Sunspinners are people who can manipulate sunlight.
  • The Shel Silverstein poem "Invention" from Where The Sidewalk Ends is about a child who creates a light that is powered by plugging it into the sun. The only problem, however, is that the cord isn't long enough.
  • The Dreamside Road:
    • The Aesir runs on high-yield solar cells. That includes its ability to fly, as well as its energy shield and weapons.
    • The Sun Talons and other Liberty Corps craft are at least partially solar-powered.
    • The Solar Saver Collective and their massive crawlers are partially solar-powered and deliver solar-charged batteries to their customers.
  • In The Dresden Files wizards have the ability to contain sunshine itself and use it as a weapon against those who fear the sun, which Harry Dresden demonstrates when jumped by Bianca, a Red Court vampire (not the traditional Dracula type, but still vulnerable to sunlight), having folded some into a handkerchief. However, there's just one problem with this trick, which Harry reveals when his friend, Karrin Murphy, pushes him on it: to do it, the practitioner must be genuinely happy, and at that point, he hasn't been genuinely happy enough to do it for years.
  • Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: Magnus, being a son of Frey, has the ability to bring warming sunshine to any location.
  • Dragonlance: The New Adventures: Sindri Suncatcher, the world's first kender wizard, claims his power comes from the sun (it's actually Bequeathed Power from a ghost dragon), unlike the three moons all other wizards draw power from.
  • In The Lord of the Rings Gandalf calls himself "wielder of the flame of Anor" which those familiar with the wider Tolkien's Legendarium (or careful readers, because it's said explicitly in some dialogues) will identify as The Power of the Sun ("anor" is elvish for "sun"). Explains his Playing with Fire skills, kind of.
  • In Campione!, the God Verethragna (and Godou Kusanagi, who killed Verethragna and gained his powers) can summon a white stallion made of the flames of the sun. It typically charges through enemies and incinerates them. It can only be used on a target who has committed great sins.
  • The Perfect Run: Leo Hargrave is known as "Leo the Living Sun". He can transform into a humanoid star, granting him control over his own gravity, extreme durability and matter regeneration, stopped aging when in this form, and strong enough pyrokinetic powers that he must constantly hold himself back to prevent being a Person of Mass Destruction. Before he got his powers, he was a fireman.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Andromeda: Trance Gemini is a Lucifer, the avatar of a Sun.
  • Hikaru/MagiShine, and Daggeron/Solaris Knight from respectively Mahou Sentai Magiranger and its American localization Power Rangers Mystic Force use the Sun as a power source and have sun-based powers. Same for Travelion/Solar Streak Megazord.
  • I am the child of the Sun! Kamen Rider! Black! RX!
  • In Heroes Reborn, it turns out that Luke Collins has radioactive powers derived from the sun. He can carefully control them, however, and doesn't Ted Sprague-out and blow stuff up. He can easily use his powers to light a small piece of paper on fire while leaving everything else unscathed. His abilities could make him more powerful than Ted, if he can harness most of the sun's radiation.
  • Much like Superman, the eponymous heroes of the Ultra Series rely on sunlight to fuel their strength due to having gained their powers from an artificial Sun they constructed on their homeworld. Their requirements however are so vast that Earth's atmosphere reduces their staying time to three minutes.
    • Ultraseven had the titular hero fly into the Sun once to replenish his energy due to exposure to extreme cold.
  • In Stargate Universe, the Ancient ship Destiny can recharge its power reserves by literally diving into suns and absorbing energy. However, while this theoretically grants the ship unlimited power, in practice the age of the vessel means that it can only recharge to around 40% of the power capacity it would have possessed when it was completely new, while prevents the crew returning to Earth. In general the ship recharges from standard stars, although it was once able to recharge in a blue giant, but the power of this star required most of the crew to evacuate Destiny and seal all essential items in protected areas of the ship
  • Shadow and Bone has the Sun Summoner, a legendary figure capable of summoning light and even, perhaps, destroying the Shadow Fold that has trapped East Ravkans for years. Of course, the Sun Summoner turns out to be very real and named Alina Starkov, and the discovery of her powers kicks off the plot.

    Music 

    Mythology & Religion 
  • Many religions have one or more solar deities.
    • Helios from the Greek Mythology drove the Sun chariot across the sky. He was later replaced by Apollo.
  • Amaterasu from Japanese Mythology is ruler of the gods (and the ancestor of the Imperial Family), but powerless against her brother, the storm god Susanoo.
  • Neto, who was both a solar deity and a deity of war, and apparently a very powerful one at that.
  • Ra or Horus are powerful gods with the former being a creator-deity and the latter vanquishing the god of storms and chaos.
  • Indian mythology has the sun god Surya, who is treated among the pantheon of deities as equal to the king of the Devas, Indra. Both of them are seen as quite overpowered that in the Mahabharata, their respective sons are seen as the strongest champions of their respective factions.
  • Huitzilopochtli from Aztec Mythology was a god of sun and war and one of the most powerful deities.
  • Haemosu from Korean Mythology, Heavenly Emperor's son and a very powerful god(beating god of the river in a shapeshifting duel), and founder of the Buyeo and Goguryeo Kingdoms.
  • In Norse Mythology, Sunna/Sól is apparently so powerful that only her shield protects us from fiery devastation, though that still isn't enough to save her from the wolf Sköll at the Ragnarok.
  • Some systems had both a sun god and a personification of the Sun. For instance, in Greek mythology, Apollo was the "god of light" (effectively a solar deity), while Helios was the Sun itself.
    • Sometimes, the Sun is the eye of the ruling god. Helios, for example, is often referred as the eye of Zeus, Ahura Mazda's eye is Hvare-khshaeta, et cetera.
  • In both Maori and Hawaiian myth the sun is beaten by Maui into submission.
  • In Aboriginal Australian Myths most solar deities are goddesses, whose power levels depend based on the culture. Yhi for example is the creator of the world, while Bila was a cannibal that killed many people but that got beaten by the lizardmen Kudnu ("Goanna") and Muda ("Gecko").
  • In the Nart Sagas Satanaya (a prominent female figure that depending on your interpretation is either a demigoddess, a full-blown goddess, or a witch) can make the sun rise and set at her will. Worth noting is that the Scythians worshipped Tabiti, which might have been a sun goddess, implying this is an echo of the older deity.
  • In Abrahamic theology, Shamsielnote  is usually said to be the angel of the Sun. In Paradise Lost, though, it is Uriel who wields this power.
    • Archangel Michael is also frequently considered the planetary angel of the Sun. Curiously, he and Shamsiel share multiple traits, such as being cherubs, guardian of the Fourth Heaven, and the Garden of Eden.
  • In Gnosticism, the Sun is represented by the Archon Adonaios, though some sources list Iao instead (which otherwise stands for Jupiter). In a twist, however, since the Sun is an Archon, which work for Yaldabaoth, it is at best an hostile power.
  • Solaromancy is a classical term for sun-based divination. By tabletop logic, it should be sun-based magic.
  • The Buddhist Sermon of the Seven Suns claims that the universe will be destroyed by seven suns burning everything.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Al-Qadim: There are a few sun-powered spells: Sun Stone (a stone held in sunlight becomes an incendiary missile), Sundazzle (sunlight causes blindness), Sunfire (solar-powered Fireball), Sunwarp (powerful, though limited mirage-based variant of Mirror Image)
    • Forgotten Realms: The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide for the fifth edition adds the Way of the Sun Soul subclass for the Monk, which allows the Monk to channel their Ki into searing blasts of energy that deal Fire and Radiant damage. 5th edition also has several sunlight-themed Area-of-Effect spells such as Sunburst or Dawn, and a Flaming Sword known as the Sun Blade.
    • Spelljammer: Sun Mages in the campaign Astromundi Cluster. The Antilan Empire wizards purchased the secrets of sunmagic from the Arcane and kept as a secret weapon.
    • Some or other sun deity is almost obligatory in any setting, and the priesthood of each, of course, has sun-related spells and powers.
      • In 3.5, the clerics of the sun god Pelor can take the Sun domain. Which, in addition to giving them many heat and light-based spells, including the extremely powerful Sunburst, which lights up everything within ten feet of the cleric, allows them to perform a "greater Turn Undead", which focuses powerful sunlight instead of positive energy. Instead of merely scaring undead away, a Greater Turning turns them to dust on the spot.
      • Conversely, druids due to their strong ties with Nature are also able to use some of the spells of said domain.
    • In 5e, there's the spells Sunbeam and Dawn, which not only deal Radiant Damage, but create sunlight that negatively effects anything weak to it.
  • Exalted:
    • Since the default player characters are all the chosen of the sun god, this is commonplace. In second edition, the sun in the sky isn't actually a sun — it's a massive weapons station that helps decide which beings are "creatures of darkness" and thus worthy of receiving the pain from the Unconquered Sun's cleansing light. There are several attacks and spells that allow a Solar to harness this power.
    • For a somewhat darker twist, there's the sorcery spell Total Annihilation, which draws on the destructive potential of a different sun — Ligier, the ever-burning green sun of Hell. It's essentially a fantasy nuke.
    • The sun god himself, the Unconquered Sun, is generally invincible, but in second edition the Scarlet Empress turns into the Bitch Queen of Hell and schemes a way to kill him by blotting out the skies, and effectively bring about Armageddon to the land.
  • Magic: The Gathering puts sunlight in the white (and, occasionally, green and red) part of the color pie. It's shown to devastating effect in cards such as Wrath of God.
    • Flavour has several solar deities from a myriad of planes. Represented in the cards are the Oversoul of Dusk from Shadowmoor (who was only featured in a poem, where she hid the Sun), and Heliod from Theros, who puts his sunlight to awful use.
    • Amonkhet has no actual sun deities per se, but two of the gods, Oketra and Hazoret, draw their magic from its Second Sun.
    • In Ixalan, dinosaurs of all things are associated with the sun, and different stages of the sun are embodied by dinosaurian avatars.
      "The Legion's conquistadores could endure Ixalan's sun. Their forts could withstand a charging ceratops. But nothing can stop a ceratops strengthened by the sun."
  • Warhammer has Solkan, one of the gods of order, which is a solar deity that may offer his followers fire and light powers. Like all the gods of order, he doesn't show up very much (except for some references in the novels). Considering how he is, that may be a good thing.
  • The World of Darkness:
    • Mage: The Awakening and Changeling: The Lost have "spells" that work like this. The major difference between these and ones that make a lot of "fake" light is the ability to mess with vampires.
    • There are spirits from the Shadow which are essentially sun elementals. These are noted as bearing a passing resemblance to fire elementals, but appear more transcendent and powerful (they're among the most powerful spirits in the Shadow) and also have a theme of bringing "illumination." They also attack darkness spirits (which are conceptual rather than elemental), and have a relationship with werewolves (children of Luna) that ranges from "grudge" to "attack on sight."

    Video Games 
  • Meridian from Atlas Reactor has a sun-based theme and most of his skills and taunts are named appropriately. His ultimate, Zenith, creates a small sun floating over his head that shields him and his allies.
  • In Azure Striker Gunvolt 3, the Septima of the leader of ATEMS, ZedΩ, is "Golden Trillion", which grants him the ability to manipulate nuclear fusion and produce powerful flame and light attacks. Zed can shape his solar flames and sunlight into a Great Bow that shoots a Rain of Arrows, create swarms of small phoenixes that swarm his targets, produce countless amounts of swords to drop sword-point on foes, coat himself in flames to ram a foe, fly through the air on Hot Wings that produce feathers with which he can teleport in a burst of rainbow light, produce a barrier that allows him to No-Sell physical strikes, and just unleash a Fantastic Nuke of fire. He's also one of the strongest Adepts in the whole series, with his power as stated in his collectible Image Pulses capable of razing countries and a possible rival to Gunvolt's Azure Striker, which at this point has risen to literal world-ending potential.
  • In Bayonetta, the Lumen Sages had the Sun as the source of their powers (as opposed to the Umbra Witches' own Lunacy and Demon Summoning); Father Balder, the last of these sages, even has solar motifs in his battle mode, with his clothes turning blue/yellow (the main wavelengths of sunlight), and his peacock feather like wings vaguely resembling sun rays.
  • The Bloons Tower Defense series sees the Sun Avatar, Monkey Temple/Sun Temple, and True Sun God firing enormous quantities of solar light to destroy Bloons. The Monkey Temple/Sun Temple/True Sun God also call to mind myths about the sun needing sacrifices to rise, requiring sacrifices of other towers to reach their full potential.
    • Adora, one of the heroes from Bloons Tower Defense 6, is the Sun God's High Priestess. Her basic attack launches divine bolts of light, her level 3 ability (The Long Arm of Light) makes her fire stronger bolts of light over a much longer range, and her ultimate (Ball of Light) lets her summon what looks to be a miniature sun to annihilate bloons. Her only ability that *isn't* explicitly sun-themed (Blood Sacrifice) is a reference to the Sun Temple/True Sun God's own sacrifice mechanic. She even powers up when you summon the True Sun God!
  • In the Boktai games, the protagonist Django uses the "Gun Del Sol," a solar-powered gun that shoots sunlight (and later a solar-powered gauntlet called the Sol de Vice, which gave melee weapons similar powers). Very useful for a vampire hunter. What was especially interesting was that the game had you power the gun using real-life sunlight. A UV sensor on the game cart made sunlight shine into the game world when it detected sunlight.
    • The later entries Lunar Knights and Kura 5: Bonds of the Undying both also feature the Solar Gun, albeit without the Solar Sensor that draws from real world sunlight, instead keeping the solar power strictly in-universe. The latter does have in-game weather change to adapt to the real world, however, making it possible for strong real life sunlight to be transferred into the game setting.
    • The same gun is a hidden weapon in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
    • The Gun Del Sol is also a weapon (in this case, a chip) in the Mega Man Battle Network series (and the first of the Mega Man Star Force games in Japan). In the Battle Network example, it's more effective when jacked in to an outdoor location, while Star Force offers no such bonus.
  • Ingrid, as seen in Capcom Fighting Evolution and Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX, is able to harness sunlight in her attacks - fitting for a sun goddess.
  • In Chrono Trigger, the ancient Kingdom of Zeal used the Sun Stone as a power source, but even its ability to store a seemingly endless supply of solar energy wasn't enough for them. So they attempted to harness the power of Lavos instead, and that didn't turn out too well. But your party is able to take the drained "Moon Stone," place it in a patch of sunlight on an island that is immune to both continental drift and a Lavos-based apocalypse, and use time travel to retrieve the recharged Sun Stone after a few thousand years, then use it to create Lucca's strongest weapon and a very powerful accessory.
  • Dark Souls has this as a common motif associated with Lord Gwyn and the early days of the Age of Fire. Unusually, sun-based healing spells are associated with light, but the offensive ones are all based on lightning.
  • The Elder Scrolls
    • Throughout the series, all known bloodlines of vampire are, at the very least, weaker in sunlight than they are at night. This ranges from a mild irritation that prevents natural healing and Magicka regen, to outright being burned by sunlight and potentially being killed by it. The Vvardenfell strain of vampires in Morrowind are outright damaged by sunlight no matter when they last fed. In Oblivion, sunlight could kill them, the longer they went without drinking blood the more damage they took. Fast traveling in daylight could prove lethal. In Skyrim sunlight stops vampires from regenerating health, stamina, and magicka, something non-vampires can naturally do. Online includes a vampire bloodline who are not harmed by sunlight, but simply have far greater power during the night.
    • Magnus, the "God of Magic" who served as the architect of Mundus (the mortal plane), provides an indirect example. Magnus created the sun (which is named after him) when he fled Mundus after realizing that the et'Ada who participated in its creation would be greatly weakened and forever bound to it. Magnus punched a hole through to Aetherius, the realm of magic, as he escaped. The magical energy flowing into Mundus through the sun is what allows for the use of magic among mortals. Essentially, all magic in the ES universe is a form of the Power of the Sun.
    • Skyrim's Dawnguard DLC expands upon this. Some new weapons and spells deal Sun Damage that is quite effective against undead enemies. The most notable and story-relevant is Auriel's Bow, said to have been wielded by the Auri-El, the Aldmeri Top God in battle. Besides dealing Sun Damage with each arrow, it has the unique ability to fire a "Sunhallowed" arrow towards the sun and trigger a rain of fire that blasts your enemies like a magical Kill Sat. It's also sought by a clan of vampires, who hope to pervert this power to instead cause The Night That Never Ends.
  • Sun mana is a type of mana in the Fall from Heaven mod for Civilization 4.
  • The sun in Fallen London is (like all stars) actually an ancient Eldritch Abomination that enforces its own laws of reality on Earth and incinerates anybody who violates them, which inconveniently includes you and most others in the Neath. The British Admiralty attempted to replicate its reality-warping abilities by creating a giant mechanical sun called the Dawn Machine, but the A.I. Is a Crapshoot and now the machine seeks to impose its own regime on the universe.
  • Fallout: New Vegas brings this in the form of the Archimedes II weapon — a Kill Sat that reflects and focuses the entirety of the blistering desert sunlight gathered by the HELIOS One solar power plant at a single targeted point. While hijacking a power plant able to power half the Mojave is definitely the selfish option, having the ability to call a massive ray of light from the heavens able to incinerate entire packs of enemies with a pocket-sized device is a hell of a temptation.
  • NPC Saber from Fate/EXTRA who is actually Gawain uses Excalibur Galatine, Excalibur's sister sword, which 'glows with heat rays of the sun'. He also is immune to your attacks as long as the sun is shining which is usually all the time during the tournament.
    • From the sequel Fate/Extra CCC and Fate/Apocrypha, we have Karna, son of the Sun God and Hero of Charity, whose armor is solidified sun flare, has a cape of sun fire, and wields a god-killing spear.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, Azeyma is the Keeper of the Sun in Eorzean mythology. When faced as the penultimate boss of the Aglaia alliance raid, she makes extensive use of her sun-related powers against the party: blasting them with the heat of the sun, creating mirages of herself to befuddle players, and causing the ground to explode with concentrated beams of sunlight.
  • In Final Fantasy Tactics A2, the Geomancer spell Shining Flare generates an intense burst of sunlight for fire damage. It can only be used when the weather is sunny.
    • Additionally, the illusionist spell Prominence claims to use the fires of the Sun.
    • In Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth's flashiest attack is Supernova, where he attacks the party by blowing up a (our) sun at the party. Funny thing: he can use it multiple times and it cannot kill the party.
  • Helios in God of War III, being the god of the Sun. He even shouts it before blinding Kratos with intense sunlight from his head.
  • Golden Sun has the final summon Iris, which takes every enemy onscreen and applies Hurl It into the Sun (and back). Unfortunately, it can only be taken after one of the most nightmarish Superbosses in existence, and there's really nothing left to use it on afterwards.
  • In Hexen the Sun Staff shot ridiculously damaging rays of light.
  • League of Legends has Leona, a Paladin who is the head of the Solari, a religion that worships the Sun. Her schtick is that she uses sunlight to enhance her allies' damage and can even call in Solar Flares to stun multiple enemies. She forms a Solar and Lunar dichotomy with her Lunacy counterpart Diana.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Sun Song is as useful for stunning undead as it is for moving the sun through the sky to change the time of day.
  • Mega Man:
    • In Mega Man 10, one of the robot masters is Solar Man, from whom Mega Man acquires the Solar Blaze weapon.
    • In Mega Man 4, Pharaoh Man's Pharaoh Shot draws upon the power of the sun, and when Mega Man learns the attack, it generates a miniature sun above him when he charges it up. The mini-sun isn't just for show, either. Ramming it into an enemy will do damage just like the actual shot. This is particularly useful against the final boss, who is weak to the Pharaoh Shot, but sometimes too high to hit with the normal firing of the weapon.
    • Supplimentary materials reveal that Mega Man himself runs on solar energy, which he is able to weaponize as energy blasts from his Mega Buster. The same applies to his successor, Mega Man X.
  • Mega Man Star Force has the boss Apollo Flame, who uses the Solar Barrier and has attacks like Solar Flare.
  • Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi: Sunlight plays an important part of the ritual. Fortunately, it's also the Count's Weaksauce Weakness...
  • Ōkami: Amaterasu is the Goddess of the Sun and naturally possesses the Sunrise power, which allows the user to summon the sun, turning night into day. It's the only Celestial Brush technique in the game that isn't re-taught to her by a Celestial Brush God, though it does take a bit of plot progression before the player gains access to it.
  • Illari from Overwatch is the last of the Inti Warriors, who was able to harness the power of the sun at a very young age (but at a great cost). Her Solar Rifle uses the sun's power to both heal allies and shoot enemies, and her ultimate ability fires a ball of solar energy that triggers an explosion when enough damage is dealt.
  • Sun is an important recurring element in the Plants vs. Zombies games, being the main games' form of currency (as plants need sunlight to grow):
    • Sunflowers and other sun-producing plants are used to generate sunlight in the main games, and Sunflowers in Garden Warfare can harness solar power into a laser beam that incinerates zombies.
    • Sunlight is offensively used by the Magnifying Grass plant from 2, who refracts the solar power onto zombies.
  • Pokémon: Several Pokémon and several moves are overtly linked to the sun.
    • Beginning with the moves, first and foremost is Solar Beam, one of the most powerful Grass-Type moves since Generation I. The user charges up sunlight for a turn and then fires a beam of pure solar energy at the foe.
    • Generation II introduces the move Sunny Day (Clear Skies in the original translation), which generates harsh sunlight for 5 turns. During that time, Fire moves are empowered, Water moves are weakened, and Solarbeam's charge-turn is eliminated, making "Sunnybeamers", Pokémon with Sunny Day and Solarbeam, extremely powerful, especially if they also know Fire moves.
    • We also got the introduction of healing moves that become twice as effective under harsh sunlight, like Morning Sun and Synthesis.
    • Generation III gives us the move Weather Ball, which changes its typing and becomes twice as strong during abnormal weather: it becomes a Fire-type move during intense sun.
    • As of Generation V, Growth, a Grass-type move that boosts the user's offensive stats, has its effects doubled under harsh sunlight.
    • Generation VII introduces Solar Blade, a physical counterpart of Solar Beam that's slightly stronger.
    • Now, as for the Pokémon themselves, a dichotomy of Power of the Sun and Lunacy happened several times even before Generation VII.
      • Although fairly subtle, Ho-Oh and its unique abilities (the attack "Sacred Fire" and being able to resurrect the dead) are based on this. It becomes more obvious when paired with Lugia, who forms the lunar counterpart with its silver shade and association with influencing the water.
      • Espeon, the Psychic-Type Eeveelution, is called the Sun Pokémon, with its Dark-Type counterpart Umbreon being the Moonlight Pokémon. Espeon was the first Pokémon that was able to learn Morning Sun.
      • Solrock is a sun-shaped meteorite Pokémon which is even stated to use sunlight as the source of its psychic power. Lunatone is its Lunacy counterpart.
      • And, finally, there is now the de facto sun Pokemon, Solgaleo. Notably, it is a Steel and Psychic-type, as opposed to the more predictable Fire-type, with emphasis on the sun's light.
      • Some other Pokemon have associations with the sun, like Groudon (it's more associated with land and continents, but it was the first Pokémon to have the ability Drought, which causes sunny weather).
      • Cherrim is a cherry blossom Pokémon who only blooms in harsh sunlight.
      • Volcarona is a powerful but non-Legendary Pokémon depicted as a substitute for the sun.
      • Gigalith, a Rock-type stone monster with red crystals sticking out of its body and feet, absorbs rays of sunlight into its energy core and releases it as a concentrated ball of solar energy.
    • A few Abilities also draw power from Sunny Day:
      • Chlorophyll doubles the Speed of a Grass-Type user under harsh sunlight.
      • Forecast is Castform's signature ability, which turns it into a Fire-type in harsh sunlight.
      • Solar Power increases the user's Special Attack stat by 50% in harsh sunlight, but also costs them 1/8 of their HP every turn.
      • Leaf Guard gives the user a Safeguard effect under harsh sunlight, preventing it from being put to sleep, poisoned, paralyzed, frozen, or—yes, surprisingly, even burned.
      • Flower Gift is Cherrim's signature ability, which boosts Attack and Special Defense by 50% in harsh sunlight. And the effect extends to Cherrim's allies in Double and Triple Battles.
      • Finally, Protosynthesis, the signature ability of the Paradox Pokémon exclusive to Pokémon Scarlet powers up the strongest stat of the Pokémon by 1.3xnote  in the sun.
  • Rise of Legends give us the Cuotl Sun God, Xil, a robotic Mayincatec alien who uses beams of solar light to attack his opponents. Various Cuotl units also use solar rays as a weapon as well.
  • Cosmology, a school of magic in Romancing Saga consists of spells that use the Sun's power to heal allies or cause damage to enemies.
  • Mori Motonari from Sengoku Basara worships the Sun and can use its light to dazzle enemies, break their defence, or burn them to a crisp. And he just won't shut up about it.
  • In Shadow Hearts: From the New World, Shania's final Fusion is Tirawa, the Spirit of the Sun. Its ultimate move is "Sun Flare", which causes the sun to hurl fireballs at her enemies. In-story, the Spirit has the power to burn away any and all evil which you need to do just that by maxing out Tirawa's statues in order to get the Good Ending.
  • Smite features Egyptian Sun God, Ra, whose skills revolve around sunlight that can heal and can also burn... OK, it mostly burns. Later on, they also added the legendary Chinese archer and ex-immortal Hou Yi, who is protected with the sun that he can't be hit with critical hits a lot, and can also drop not just one, but nine suns and all of its power to an area. Not content with that, they then bring in one of Ra's fellow Sun deity Khepri, the scarab that rolls the sun with him; and there's also the Norse Sun Goddess Sol. They THEN added Amaterasu as a "buff/support/fighter" character. Interestingly they made Amaterasu a Samurai as opposed to her more traditional magical portrayal.
  • The Sun Rune, along with both Dawn and Twilight Rune from Suikoden V. Apparently, the influence of the Sun Rune is so powerful to the point it can corrupt its wielder. If you gather all of the 108 Stars of Destiny, it will move to its nurturing phase and brings back Lyon to life.
  • Super Mario Galaxy: The Comet Observatory is powered by stars, and even has a miniature one at the very center. It steadily grows as more and more are collected.
  • In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, the Wii Fit Trainer has a move called Sun Salutation. There is an actual yoga position named Sun Salutation where one leans forward with both arms stretched. Wii Fit Trainer however takes it up a notch and literally charges up a sun-like projection in front of her while doing the yoga pose! She can use it as a powerful projectile and just launching it heals her slightly.
  • One of the wonders you can unlock in Surviving Mars is the Artificial Sun, a large fusion reactor that looks like a miniature sun when powered up. It's basically a much larger version of Octavius's device from Spider-Man 2. It consumes a monstrous amount of water to fully charge each time you turn it on, but with the right layout of solar panels placed around it, your colony will never have to worry about power again.
  • In Temtem a lot of attention is drawn to the pan-sun, a unique star around which the archipelago gravitates, yet none of the actual Mons seem to have any moves related to it. But at the end, all six Tuwai evolutions perform a move called "pan-solar beam", a beam of golden light that kills off the Big Bad.
  • The Solar Pillar from Terraria is able to rain solar fireballs on the player. The mooks that accompany it are also fire- and sun-themed.
    • Defeating the Solar Pillar drops Solar Fragments, which can be crafted into the Daybreak and the Solar Eruption, as well as Solar armor that drastically increases melee damage and speed and provides flaming Single Use Shields that can be consumed for a devastating Dash Attack as a Set Bonus
  • Three different characters in the Touhou Project have been seen using solar power:
    • Patchouli Knowledge has Sun as one of her seven elements (alongside Fire, Water, Earth, Metal, Wood, and Moon). Spells with this element include Royal Flare (alone), Hydrogenous Prominence (Sun and Water), Photosynthesis (Sun and Wood), and Royal Diamond Ring (Sun and Moon).
    • Utsuho Reiuji, on the other hand, swallowed the corpse of a sun god, giving her the power of nuclear fusion. This manifests in, among other things, gigantic nuke-bullets, attacks based on suns, stars, and various constellations, and the ability to create artificial suns. She was led to get that power so that she could be used to build and maintain a nuclear power plant running off of suns made from her nuclear fusion. She also went a little nuts with this power and wanted to burn the surface world to ashes, but it was nothing some danmaku-based Percussive Maintenance couldn't fix.
    • Sunny Milk, the fairy of sunlight, uses the sun to strengthen her abilities. She is also capable of optical camo by refracting light.
    • Touhou Soccer, famous for its over-the-top spells (such as a 1,000+ km/h kick or killing a space station), sees Mima use what appears to be a goddamn solar flare to... score a goal.
  • Warframe:
    • The Warframe Equinox features two aspects: Night and Day. While the Night aspect reflects the safety and calming effects of night and shadow, the Day aspect represents the burning power and fiery inspiration of the dawn and daylight, with aura effects that increase speed and damage for all allies in the immediate vicinity.
    • Wisp's fourth ability, Sol Gate, opens a portal directly to the Sun itself through which she streams a deadly beam of solar plasma.
  • Wizard101 has this in the form of Sun Magic, but it isn't good for much more than enhancing other spells. The theme still shows in the various temples dedicated to this magic, including a boss fight on a platform that seems to be suspended over the surface of the sun.
  • In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the tauren founded the Sunwalkers, a group of paladins and priests who revere the sun (or An'she, the right eye of the Earth Mother) as their idol and patron, which is a direct balance to the druids who use the power of the moon. Whether this is really the power of the sun at all is up for debate, as the Light is a universal force fueled by strength of will regardless of whether an individual personally acknowledges it, but depictions of Sunwalkers outside the game seem more in line with priests and paladins of other races than with other sun-based beings.
    • Balance druids seem to have followed in the footsteps of the tauren (since many of them are tauren themselves) and their Balance specialization has shifted somewhat away from raw natural energy and plants towards a motif of celestial bodies. In addition to the power of the moon that they've always had, supplied by the night elves' moon goddess Elune, they've also added solar power to their repertoire (notably, manifesting differently than the Sunwalkers) and their abilities revolve around periodically shifting between the two powers.
    • Rajh, final boss of the Halls of Origination, is the Construct of the Sun and uses several sun-based abilities, such as Solar Winds.
    • The entire culture of the high/blood elves runs on the Sun. They draw their power from the Sunwell, a font of magical energies, their city is coated in warm color and sun references, and at least half of their greetings involve the Sun somehow. This is a direct contrast to their cousins, the night elves who have a similar reverence for the moon, though the night elves treat the moon as an object of worship, while the high/blood elves see it more as a symbol of their rejection of everything the night elves are. It's a common misconception that the high/blood elves worship a sun god, but that's just not true.
    • The arakkoa in Warlords of Draenor are a Light Is Not Good example. They worship the sun and wish to see all lesser races burn under its fire. They also deem any arakkoa caught with tomes of dark magic as heathens and exile them. Those exiles are the friendly faction that players help to bring down the sun-worshiping arakkoa.

    Webcomics 

    Web Originals 
  • New Life SMP:
    • The Sunshine Girl origin, held by Shelby in her first life, is entirely based around the Sun. They gain a special meter so long as they are in direct sunlight, while it slowly decreases if they are away from it (e.g. at night or underground), even when going under water. Even in the shade, they glow with little particles, and can fire off a beam of light which briefly grants the Glowing and Regeneration effects to the target. They also have limited Green Thumb abilities, being able to accelerate crop growth à la bone-meal with their stored sunlight, and gain the Speed effect in the rain.
    • To a lesser extent, the Phoenix origin can Rejuvenate from their Reborn form to their Normal form under direct sunlight, and receive a speed boost on land or in the air while under the Sun.
  • Phaeton has solar and lunar celestial affinities, Solar phaetonians can use pure sunlight to channel some powerful beams, lunars can use sunlight reflected off celestial bodies to do the same thing but inverted. Just don't let the beams touch at equal power.
  • In Worm, Sundancer can create and move a miniature sun and dial it up to such extreme temperatures that it pretty much instantly incinerates anything that isn't absolutely invulnerable.

    Western Animation 
  • Aladdin: The Series: In the episode "The Lost City of the Sun", Mozenrath sought out the power of Shamash, the ancient Sorcerer of the Sun. Upon being uncovered, it's revealed to be a huge magical orb that can act like a miniature sun.
  • In Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the jewel that is embedded on Frylock's back apparently possesses the power of a thousand suns. After Shake and a random shop owner take control of it, it unleashes hundreds of fireballs that destroy the neighborhood.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: Firebending is ultimately this, and even the corrupted form of Firebending is tied to the sun. While firebending still works at night, it is much weaker at that time. During a solar eclipse, even the most powerful firebenders are unable to conjure more than a spark.
    • Zuko later states during his and Aang's travels to the lost Sun Warrior civilization that the primal form of Firebending, as taught by the dragons, is 'like the sun, but inside you!'. Notably, he becomes vastly more powerful after this field trip, implying that Firebending is pretty much this trope straight.
    • In the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra Book 2 episode "A New Spiritual Age", Korra herself manages to make the Sun glow brighter and dispel dark clouds in the spiritual world.
  • Hanna-Barbera's Birdman (1967), who also needed sunlight to recharge his powers. He could fire "solar rays" from his fists and create a "solar shield" to protect himself.
  • When Captain Planet got covered in "pollution" it was up to the Planeteers to clean him with pure water, then expose him to sunlight to restore his power.
  • The Dragon Prince: The Sun is referenced to be one of six natural and primal sources of magic in the universe. The specific elf species that specializes in it, known as Sunfire Elves, can craft Hot Blades hot enough to slice through most things like butter and channel it through their bodies to give themselves Volcanic Veins and Super-Strength powers. Bait, who is revealed to have an innate affinity for Sun magic, is able to emit flashbang-esque flashes of light when agitated.
  • Gargoyles: The gargoyles absorb solar and thermal energy in their dormant stone forms. This provides them with enough energy to be active at night. Dr. Sevarius came up with this theory (which Word of God confirmed) since he calculated that the Gargoyles would need to eat at least three cows a day if they didn't have some other means of gathering energy. There have been a number of times when a Gargoyle turned to stone somewhere sunlight couldn't reach, such as indoors or underground, but Word of God is that this is no worse than skipping a couple of meals; it might leave them somewhat lethargic, but they'd be fine as long as they didn't do it repeatedly.
  • My Little Pony:
    • My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The End of Flutter Valley", Flutter Valley is shown to be kept perpetually green thanks to the power of the Sunstone, which amplifies the sun's rays. When the Sunstone is stolen by the bees of Bumbleland, Flutter Valley starts to wither away. Newly situated in Bumbleland, the stone at first turns it from a frozen wasteland into a beautiful forest, but after a few hours the rays become too powerful and the forest starts to burn.
    • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria, raises and lowers the sun (and while her sister was... away, the moon as well). It's not altogether clear how much of her power is in turn actually derived from the sun and how much of it is "just" her own innate alicorn magic; in either case, moving the literal celestial body is in and of itself no mean feat. In "A Royal Problem" it is clarified that Celestia is holding back the true extent of her power... via the revelation of a hypothetical Superpowered Evil Side in Daybreaker, who uses fire, red light and solar flares in devastating effects.
  • In The Secret Saturdays, Drew has a Flaming Sword that is powered by the light of the sun. It also has a blue setting that is powered by moonlight, which is, after all, reflected sunlight.
  • In The Venture Bros., troubled superhero Captain Sunshine's superpowers are solar-powered and involve firing high-energy "Sunbeams" that cause painful sunburns at least.
  • Stella of Winx Club is the princess of Solaria, and has powers majorly coming from the sun; most of her spell are indeed sun-based, and she gets weakened when in dark places or underground. Her title was even changed to "Fairy of the Shining Sun" following the Atlas Oceanic version.

    Real Life 
  • The Sun gives you Vitamin D and has many benefits that all living things can't live without.
  • Life on Earth is literally dependent on the Power of the Sun. The most obvious examples of these are plants, who use solar energy to build themselves and create nutrients. Then animals, including us humans, consume them. Just look at a tree, a forest, or a field of wheat and you will know what the Sun is capable of. Indeed, biologists have theorised that chloroplasts (organelles responsible for photosynthesis) were actually symbiotic bacteria. Without this symbiotic relationship, multicellular life, including humanity, would have never existed.
  • Nuclear fusion is the heart of the Sun's power. Its sheer mass compresses hydrogen into helium at the rate of some 620 million metric tons per second. Nearly everything on Earth is indirectly powered by this nuclear fusion reaction note . The fusion energy generated near the sun's center (except for neutrino energy) percolates to the sun's surface in a million or so years.
    • Ultraviolet light emitted at the sun's surface has antiseptic properties, and prolonged exposure of human skin to it causes sunburns and eventually skin cancer.
    • Completely inverted with some types of fungus and fish who need little to no sunlight at all, some even hate the sun. However, it is a rare case, as most Sun-haters are located in the deepest depths of the ocean or in caves. In this case, they use geothermal energy in the form of hydrothermal vents.
  • Historically, many ancient religions worshipped the Sun as a deity and a Life-Giver (which makes sense because sunlight is necessary for agriculture). In Egypt, the Sun was identified with Ra (the primary Egyptian chief god) and reached its extreme during the reign of Akhenaten, who had a radical policy to purge classical Egyptian religion in exchange of the worship of Aten, aka the Sun itself.
  • Every element found in nature except hydrogen and helium came from a star's nuclear fusion. While a little under one-fourth of the primordial mass of the universe is helium, most of the earth's helium comes from nuclear decay or fission, and the decaying elements came from stellar fusion. Humans are literally made of stardust.
  • Concentrated solar power use mirrors to focus sunlight to a point. The temperature at the point can reach over 3500 degrees Celsius, and can be used to heat molten salts, which can store thermal energy in the long-term, and when power is out, the salts can be used to produce steam powering turbines.
  • Elon Musk believed in this and the potential of solar energy. The key to provide unlimited energy to the world is some way to store this energy for the night or cloudy days. While Musk himself preferred lithium-ion batteries, there are other ways to make use of solar 24/7, such as electrolysis (water gets converted into hydrogen fuel, which can be used by transportation and power plants).
  • One of the major features of the Solarpunk aesthetic.
  • On the Kardashev scale, being able to completely harness the power of their own star is the benchmark for a Type II civilization. An example would be the construction of a Dyson Sphere.

Praise the sun!

 
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Alternative Title(s): Youve Got Sol, Power Of The Sun

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Crystal of the Sun God

Using the Emerald Duck, Doctor Claw's agent discovers the location of the ancient crystal weapon of the sun god. Upon being activated by the sunlight, the crystal demonstrates its destructive power, to Dr. Claw's delight.

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4.17 (6 votes)

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Main / SolarPoweredMagnifyingGlass

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