Star Power - TV Tropes
- ️Fri Jun 10 2011
Just wait until she starts shooting meteors and frickin' galaxies.
"May the seven stars bring judgement upon you. Seven Star Sword, GRAND CHARIOT!"
Related to Lunacy and The Power of the Sun, Star Power is magic fueled by, of course, the stars.
Generally comes in one of three forms: "Classical", "Lovecraftian", and "Aesthetic", "Classical" star power, derived from the traditional use of the stars and the motions of the planets to predict the future, is concerned primarily with fate and divination. "Lovecraftian" star power takes its cues from H. P. Lovecraft (of course) and evokes the unfathomable otherness and distance of the stars and whatever inhabitants they may have. "Aesthetic" star power uses stars as a motif and a visual for light, heat and energy, but doesn't take cues from either of the above sources.
Don't be surprised if your Star Powered-character refers frequently to constellations, perhaps referring to the influence of the Western Zodiac and other planetary bodies. As an offense, the stars may be helpful to Light 'em Up. Causing meteors to fall from the sky to strike your opponents is not out of the question for either type. On the opposite side of the scale, this may extend itself to power that comes from galaxies or even the entire universe.
Often the reasoning behind using something made of Thunderbolt Iron. If the person who uses Star Power is actually made of stars, see Celestial Body.
For related "space" powers, see Gravity Master and Reality Warper. See also Magical Star Symbols. Not to be confused with the webcomic Star Power or that other Star Power.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Black Clover: Star Magic is Yuno's true magical attribute, which he obtains when getting his Spade grimoire after learning that his wind magic is actually Licht and Tetia's son's during his rematch with Zenon. Spiky stars appear about him, and let him teleport between them and form barriers and blasts of starlight.
- In Cardcaptor Sakura, the whole second series is about her having to transfer the Clow Cards from their old energy source (The Sun and the Moon, which her predecessor used) over to her power source - the power of her star.
- Digimon:
- In Digimon Adventure 02, main character, Takeru "T.K." Takaishi's partner Patamon's digivolved form with the Digi Egg of Hope, Pegasusmon, has the ability to fire shooting stars out of it's wings. Monster of the Week, Starmon is able to summon a rain of meteors with its Meteor Shower attack.
- In Digimon Frontier, minor character Baromon has the ability to summon meteors. Another Baromon also appears in Digimon Data Squad.
- EDENS ZERO: Both Elsie Crimson and Justice (both Expies of Erza Scarlet and Jellal respectively) use the Ether Gear Star Drain, which absorbs the ether/magic/life force of the planets they're on to fashion armors and weapons. According to Justice, this Ether Gear was known during the Dark Ages as "Heavenly Body Magic", a power that could control the stars. They both even use similar spells, such as Grand Chariot.
- Fairy Tail:
- Jella's Heavenly Body Magic is Full-Contact Magic and Fantastic Nukes fueled by the stars. Several of them take the form of constellations before being fired, such as Grand Chariot, while his Altairis spell heavily resembles a black hole and his Sema spell actually drops a meteor from the sky.
- Lucy's brand of Summon Magic is based upon the Zodiac constellations. Later on, she gains the ability to copy their powers for herself, giving her super strength, light magic, water magic, et cetera based on which spirit she summoned. Her Urano Metria spell is also described as "The Ultimate Magic of the Stars".
- Erza in Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry is able to use Heavenly Body Magic while wearing her Celestial Armor, even performing Grand Chariot.
- Viviano Westwood from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean has the Stand, Planet Waves, which summons meteors towards his location, using them to hit his opponents.
- Nanoha Takamachi from Lyrical Nanoha has two themes: Stars and a Feather Motif. To perform her Starlight Breaker, she gathers the residual energy left by magical attacks in a battlefield in form of thousands of starlights. Other characters who know Breaker magic are Reinforce Eins, who copied it from Nanoha, Teana Lanster, who learned it from Nanoha, and Miura Rinaldi, who also has a star themed Intelligent Device with the name Star Saber. In Miura's case, her attacks are mostly close-ranged based and her two most powerful attacks have the names Bakken: Seiōha ("Sword-draw: Starbright Blade") and Bakken: Tenshō Seiōha ("Sword-draw: Heaven-piercing Starbright Blade").
- An occasional theme in Pretty Cure:
- HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! has a star-themed heroine with Cure Fortune, whose introductory phrase is "The star of hope that glitters in the night sky".
- Cure Twinkle "the Princess of Twinkling Stars" from Go! Princess Pretty Cure uses stars as her primary powers. She also uses Moon-based shields.
- HuGtto! Pretty Cure has "The Pretty Cure of Strength," Cure Etoile. She can summon energy stars to attack directly, form binding trails, or even ride around on like a hoverboard.
- Unsurprisingly featured in Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure, starting front and center with Cure Star. Her fellow Cures Milky (as in "Milky Way"), Soleil, Selene and Cosmo are also based on space-related themes, and the whole team has access to power-ups based on the Zodiac constellations.
- The Sailor Starlights from Sailor Moon draw their power from stars in a distant galaxy, as opposed to Sailor Moon herself and her planet-powered teammates.
- Saint Seiya is built on this early on, with both heroes and villains taking their powers from a constellation (From Pegasus Seiya to Gemini Saga). Later enemies had other sources for their powers, though.
- In the manga version of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Kaiser's monsters are all named after stars, specifically those of the constellation Draco.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, every known resident of the Barian World is loosely named after one of the stars of the Big Dipper: Durbe after Dubhe, Alit after Alioth, Misael after Mizar, Gilag after Merak and Vector after Phecda.
- Pamoon, one of the Millennium Mamodos from Zatch Bell!, has spells revolving around this.
Comic Books
- The DCU has had several characters powered by the stars, in about the same way Superman is powered by the Sun: Starman (in the Golden Age), Hawkman (at some period in the Silver/Bronze age), and Dr. Regulus (a Legion of Super-Heroes villain).
- In a Hellboy/Batman/Starman (DC Comics) crossover comic, a group of neo-Nazis build a machine to collect power from the stars in order to awaken an Eldritch Abomination.
- In X-Men: Emperor Vulcan, Vulcan knocks Havok out of a space station. Instead of dying, Havok absorbs power from a star and defeats Vulcan.
Fan Works
- carbon monoxide: In the Last Life world, due to the Power Limiter, Scott's starborne abilities are restricted to just making his eyes glow and creating "particles of starlight that hovered around him if he so chose" — or in essence, very limited Light 'em Up abilities for aesthetics. In his true Celestial Body form, though, his ability to connect to the Multiverse becomes downright Lovecraftian enough to terrify the deity-level entities who created the death games in the first place.
- In Cave Dancers Pretty Cure, Cure Space can summon stars to use as hoverboards.
- The Night Unfurls features the Lovecraftian sort. Its otherness is shown where even the two most skilled arcane users, Celestine and Olga, do not have this magic in their arsenal. Only two people are shown firing streaks of starlight at the enemy — Kyril (via A Call Beyond) and an unnamed goblin sorcerer. This attack is strong enough to tear through armour and the walls of a fortress.
- In Pokédex, Ledian gain their energy by absorbing starlight, relying on the strange wavelengths of distant stars.
- In RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse, Princess Luna can summon meteor strikes as a counter to Corona's ability to summon solar flares to roast things that displease her.
Literature
- The Divine Comedy: Dante's Paradiso keeps with ancient cosmologies in attributing the creation of all of Earth's elements to the power of the stars. They have this unique influence due to being directly created by God, making it so that they could never be corrupted or destroyed (again, in keeping with astronomy of the time). The only thing on Earth created in the manner of the stars is the human soul, which is why it remains immortal even if the body dies for a little while.
- In My Brother is a Superhero, Zack gets three glowing stars on his chest when he's given his powers, and thus takes on the hero name "Star Guy."note It turns out that he needs exposure to starlight or his powers begin to fade.
- The Stars, a semi-divine race in The Orphan's Tales. Their magic is powerful, but also drawn from their very essence, so that as time goes by, the Stars collectively grow weaker and weaker, and hide themselves away more often.
- In The Silmarillion, this was the domain of Valar Varda, the lady of stars. Afterwards, the elves became always associated and very fond of starlight ("Eldar" more or less means "of the stars" in Quenya), though sadly few show such magic. It's also common to swear by Eärendil, the morning star in Middle-earth's mythology.
- In Star Darlings, the Starlings live on a star, use their magic to grant wishes to humans, and travel to Earth as shooting stars.
Live-Action TV
- In Kamen Rider Fourze, both heroes and villains are powered by cosmic energy, but the villainous Zodiarts fit best because they're themed after constellations.
- The Uchu Sentai Kyuranger draw their power from constellations.
Myths & Religion
- In Tagalog mythology, Tala
is the goddess of the morning and evening star.
Podcasts
- The villains of Sequinox are literally stars taking humanoid form, so of course they can access this.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition:
- One type of warlock, the Star Pact warlock, gains its powers by making a pact with an Eldritch Abomination that lives among the stars. Powers include hurling balls of freezing starlight and conjuring portals to the void of space, but also more conceptual things like manipulating fate.
- The Master of the Starry Night paragon path from the Arcane Power supplement is all about cutting out the Eldritch Abomination middleman in favor of discovering and harnessing the presumably-more-natural power of the stars themselves.
- The Star Pact Warlock is taken to its logical conclusion with the Radiant One epic destiny, wherein a warlock's mastery of Thing Man Was Not Meant To Know allows them to become a star themselves, perhaps even one that future warlocks can make pacts with.
- Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition: Druid of the Circle of Stars study the stars and draw upon their power as an aspect of nature, as opposed to most druids drawing up plants and animals. They use star charts as their spellcasting focus and, instead of turning into animals, they have the option of taking on a Starry Form that embodies a constellation, giving them different powers based on the asterism of their choice — a magical ranged attack for the Archer, improved healing for the Cup, and a wisdom boost for the Dragon.
- Greyhawk: Celestian is the deity of space and the stars. He has a number of space/star related powers, including Aurora Borealis, Comet, Meteors, Space Chill, and Starshine.
- When the Sky Falls, a third party sourcebook, revolves around adding meteors and celestial bodies to a player's campaign setting. Naturally, it has a ton of new star-themed spells for wizards, up to including a whole new "plasma" damage typenote .
- Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition:
- Exalted: The Sidereal Exalted get a variant on this, especially in the form of Astrology, where they can weave alternate fates that grant them benefits to certain tasks based on the constellation they're using.
- Magic: The Gathering:
- Pathfinder: Sorcerers can choose Starsoul as a bloodline, which means their inherent magical powers come from some hereditary link to the stars and the empty void. They get space-oriented bonus spells and even eventually develop physiological changes, such as immunity to cold or no longer needing to breathe, to let them survive in the void of space.
- Warhammer: One of the eight Winds of Magic is Azyr, the Wind of Heavens, whose lore is sometimes called Astromancy. It's mostly the Classical (fate manipulation and divination plus meteors) type, but with added aeromantic and lightning-based spells for combat — in classical thought, meteors and comets were considered sub-lunar (atmospheric, in our terms) phenomena, and thus fundamentally similar to lightning, wind and weather.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: Members of Sacred/Constellar archetype are named after stars, clusters of stars, or in a few cases, whole galaxies. Most of them are named after stars in the constellations of the Western Zodiac.
Toys
- In BIONICLE, the Toa Inika were transformed via a bolt of energy from the Red Star. "Inika" means "energies of a star" in their language. However, in practice all this means is that Shock and Awe is added to their usual elemental abilities.
Video Games
- Avencast: Rise of the Mage: Some magical artifacts are powered by the light of specific stars — one for protection, one for destruction, and so on. Two quests require the Player Character to take such artifacts to the Wizarding School's observatory, align the astronomical apparatus with the correct star, and Hold the Line while they charge up.
- Bloodborne has the A Call Beyond hunter tool. It's item description refers to it as creating a small exploding star, and it packs the power to back up that claim.
- Disgaea has "star magic" and mages as a Non-Elemental spell element.
- The "Astral" magic of Dominions. Among the heaviest users of Astral magic is the Illithids of R'lyeh.
- Dungeons of Dredmor has the Astrology skill, which grants a number of star-themed spells. While mostly a defensive skill that grants buffs and traps, the capstone spell The Stars Aligned blasts everything around the caster for a lot of Aethereal damage.
- EarthBound (1994) and Mother 3 have PK Starstorm, a powerful PSI technique that manifests itself as falling stars which deal massive damage to every enemy.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- As part of Nirn's Alien Sky, the sun and stars are actually holes punctured between Mundus (the mortal realm) and Aetherius (the realm of magic) during the Dawn Era by Magnus and his et'Ada ("original spirit") followers (now known as the Magna Ge) when they realized that helping to create Mundus would severely weaken them and permanently bind them to it. Magic now flows into Mundus through the sun and stars, called "varliance" to distinguish it from simple light.
- The extinct Ayleids (Wild Elves) believed that starlight was the most "sublime" form of magic, and venerated anything which fell from the heavens, particularly meteorite iron, which they would craft into their "Ayleid Wells" which channeled and restored magicka.
- The Nedes, human ancestors to most of the modern races of Men, had the study and worship of the stars and constellations as a major part of their culture. They also worshiped beings known as "celestials." Exactly who or what they were is not known. (Theories posit that early forms of the Aedra, Magnus and the Magna Ge, or some other unknown set of divine beings are all possibilities.) Given that the Nedes were once slaves to the Ayleids, it is possible they picked up this cultural trait from them.
- EXTRAPOWER: Sharkungo features stars heavily in his aesthetic. His wrestling uniform consists of a crop top with a star emblazoned across his chest and across his mask. He's a Star Lore Superstar, the prince of the Shakun Star, and fights using Star Yui martial arts, which incorporates stellar imagery and naming such as in his Star Bit attack and Shooting Star final crash.
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy XIV added the Astrologian job in its first expansion, Heavensward. In lore, Astromancy was originally developed in Sharlayan for divination, though it was later refined to draw upon the power of the stars to alter fate rather than merely predict it. In Stormblood, it is also revealed to form a powerful syngergy with Geomancy. Gameplay-wise, it's a healer job with an astrology flavour to its skill names and animations with the unique ability to draw random cards that give buffs to its teammates.
- Olan/Orran from Final Fantasy Tactics, whose class is "Astrologist" and whose only skill prevents most enemies from acting.
- Kirby isn't called "Kirby of the Stars" in Japan for nothing. Throughout the Kirby series, stars show up as a motif in many of Kirby's weapons and items (Warp Star, Star Rod, Triple Star), and in the design for his copy ability hats. The anime mentions at one point that Kirby's power comes from stars. Some of the Final Bosses have an association with stars as well, most prominently Nightmare, Galactic Nova, Star Dream, and Void, a so-called "Astral Birth" who exists in all dimensions, serves as the Kirby universe's God of Chaos, and has disturbing lore connections to both Dark Matter and Kirby himself!
- In the world of League of Legends, the stars are tied to celestial beings whose powers extend far beyond the normal reach of humans, but have in some way made it onto their lands, most specifically the denizens around the skyscraping Mount Targon. As a result, a few playable champions have some ties to star magic.
- There are several champions known as "Aspects", essentially humans who are physically and mentally cohabited by celestials representative of constellations and their respective symbolism. The most obvious two are Leona, the Aspect of the Sun, and Diana, Aspect of the Moon, but others incorporate at least a slight star motif in them, including Zoe, the Aspect of Twilight, Pantheon, the Aspect of War, and Taric, Aspect of the Protector.
- Soraka, the Starchild, is a celestial herself who chose to descend to Runeterra and assume a humanoid form to protect and care for its inhabitants. Her star magic is almost exclusively used as a support power, including an offensive ability called "Starcall".
- Aurelion Sol, The Star Forger, is an impossibly ancient celestial dragon that forges stars and claims to be responsible for every star in the sky. He also uses them in combat, sometimes in tandem with creating a miniature galaxy and breathing white starfire.
Aurelion Sol: I'm going to throw a star at you now. Good luck.
- Non-canonically, there's also the "Star Guardian" alternate universe which reskins several champions as Sailor Moon-esque magical girls. As the name implies, they all share a very bright, cartoon-y star motif, each having earned their power through a mysterious entity known as The First Star.
- Star Man from Mega Man 5. He was followed by Astro Man in Mega Man 8 (as well as Mega Man & Bass).
- Ironically, Bob and George literally gave Star Man Star Power; during the First Annual Robot Tournament (the events of Mega Man 6), Star Man could only be intimidated by a more popular Robot Master (i.e. Shadow Man) and he was only defeated during the retelling of 5 when Ran threatened to blacklist him with "the taint of Communism."
- The Starburst spell from the Might and Magic series.
- Pokémon:
- There's a Normal-type special move called Swift, an attack that fires star-shaped rays to the opponent (or two opponents during double battle) and it cannot miss.
- The name of the Stellar Type comes from the Latin word "stella", meaning "star."
- The signature move of the Legendary Pokémon Terapagos is Tera Starstorm, which causes stars to rain down on all adjacent opponents.
- Otani Yoshitsugu from Sengoku Basara is astrology-obsessed (his title is "Sky Watcher") and believes in a red comet that is a harbinger of human misery and that he will invoke it. All his powers are astrology-themed, named after constellations, stars, planets, or mythological beings associated with stars.
- Star Ocean: The Second Story, among its overload of elements, had "Star" as distinct from both "Light" and "Vacuum" (which itself was distinct from "Void"). Most of the Star-elemental spells were cast by Celine. When the PSP version greatly simplified the element system, Star-elemental spells were merged into Light.
- Zerase from Suikoden V has the unique Star Rune, which uses Star Power to completely eviscerate foes from the early going.
- The Super Mario Bros. franchise has always had a strong association with stars, starting with the Starman Invincibility Power-Up and strengthened by Star Shaped Coupons later on.
- Super Mario 64 served as the franchise codifier, as Mario's goal was to collect Power Stars to open up new areas. Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 also focused on collecting Power Stars.
- The Mario Party series and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker also have Power Star collecting as the main goal, based directly on the mainline platformer games featuring them.
- Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario have the star spirits, a group of wish granting deities, and Geno a warrior from their world inhabiting the body of a wooden puppet.
- Star Power is also revealed to be the source of Mario and Luigi (as well as Wario, Donkey Kong, Peach, and Bowser)'s abilities in Yoshi's Island DS.
- Rosalina also appears to be a Star Powered-character. Not only does her character often use stars as a visual motif, in Super Mario 3D World she can do the spin move Mario had in Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 without needing a Luma (a star creature), implying that she already has Star Power within her. Across various games she has also been shown to be able to things such as create shooting star showers, create Launch Stars, and manipulate light and energy.
- Terraria:
- The game has the Star Cannon, a powerful pre-Hardmode weapon that uses Fallen Stars as ammunition. While somewhat impractical due to the rareness of Fallen Stars, a well-prepared Star Cannon can demolish most early bosses easily.
- The Stardust Pillar is able to summon a constellation of "stars", which spawn alien mooks to attack the player. The mooks that accompany it are also star-themed.
- In Touhou Project, Marisa Kirisame uses spells themed around stars (and to a lesser extent, galaxies, comets, and so on). Likewise for Mima (who is widely assumed to be Marisa's teacher). And the fairy Star Sapphire is literally powered by starlight, as well as having a star-based spellcard theme.
- Star Magic in Wizard101 places a bubble around the caster for four rounds, having an effect on all incoming and/or outgoing spells.
- In Puyo Puyo and its parent series Madou Monogatari:
- Witch's spells (Meteor, Tachyon, Black Hole, Quasar, Big Bang) are mostly themed around stars and celestial bodies. Even the spells she uses that aren't inherently space-themed tend to have a star motif added to them; her version of Fire creates start-shaped blazes in Madou Monogatari: Tower of the Magician, and her Accelerate spell creates a small star animation that buzzes around its targets in Saturn Madou Monogatari.
- Witch's Grandmother, Wish, is well-known for her mastery of Star Power, and Big Bang was her signature spell before it was Witch's.
- The Fever era introduces Klug and Feli, who use two opposing brands of Star Power. Klug uses astronomical magic, which he uses to overwhelm his opponent with sheer power and, occasionally, summon an ancient demon...
- ...while Feli uses astrological magic, which she uses to see the future, try to cast love-spells and predict her opponents' moves. Naturally, Klug and Feli don't get along well. It's worth mentioning that both, Klug and Feli, are more or less disciples of Lemres, a famous mage given the title "Warlock of Comets"... despite not actually using Star Power himself.
Webcomics
- Homestuck: Those with First Guardian powers get them from the Green Sun, a giant star that's twice the mass of the universe.
- Sleepless Domain: The former magical girl Starlight Spear had star-themed powers, fitting her team's theme of Cosmic Motifs. Aside from wielding a guandao, her primary ability was to dash at high speeds, temporarily becoming a "shooting star".
- Unknown Lands: Elves' intrinsic magic comes from and is tied to the stars, and their "starry death lands".
Western Animation
- In The Dragon Prince, the stars are one of the Primal Sources of Magic. This also means that they have their own race of elves and dragons who draw on their power. The official website specifically identifies this particular type of magic as mysterious and associated with divination, which is more or less consistent with the astrology side of things.
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic pilot, there's a prophecy regarding the return of Nightmare Moon that states, "The stars will aid in her escape," and sure enough, every time Twilight Sparkle checks out the moon, four stars appear to be approaching it.
- Twilight herself has a star based cutie mark (Stars are known to sparkle) and with magic being her natural talent, she is basically an Infinity +1 Red Mage.
Real Life
- Apparently, stars fall under Metal in the Wuxing
system, a branch of Chinese philosophy using five classical elements.
- Every element in the universe besides hydrogen and helium was created, directly or indirectly, by the nuclear fusion that powers stars
. The three that aren't (lithium, beryllium, and boron) were created by a different process
, but the cosmic rays that set that process off wouldn't exist without pulsars, black holes, and supernovae, which are all created from stars themselves.