Lava Adds Awesome



""We need... lava, of course, more lava and... deadly traps! Oh yeah!" (adds "even more lava" to the diagram)"

- Bowser, Bowser's Evil Plan

Figuratively speaking.

One way to make an artifact, weapon, or situation even better is to get lava involved somehow. After all, if something is already pretty awesome on its own, that said something would be really freakin' awesome if it happens to be using burning magma in the process. It doesn't matter if the lava is even relevant; just the inclusion of a flowing fiery-orange flow is enough to invoke the sense of raw power -- strong enough to melt MOUNTAINS! -- barely held in check.

Broadly speaking, this trope covers instances where lava or magma is added to something just to make it better.

A Super-Trope to:
 * Climactic Volcano Backdrop (a lava backdrop)
 * The Lava Caves of New York (secret underground lava caverns)
 * Lava Pit (pits of lava dot the landscape)
 * Lethal Lava Land (entire worlds made of lava)
 * Magma Man (a character made of lava)

Often invokes Convection, Schmonvection. Also see Awesomeness Is Volatile and Incendiary Exponent.

And to be clear: Magma refers to the material while it's still underground and not yet erupted from a volcano. Lava is the stuff when it's above ground.

Advertising

 * The snarky narrator for this commercial (for Hershey's chocolate, of all things) dunks the poor woman in lava to make the pitch.

Anime and Manga

 * In Mahou Sensei Negima, the ultimate spell of Earth element wouldn't be awesome enough without it.
 * Mazinger Z: Mazinger-Z's Home Base was located on the foot of Mount Fuji. Such a perfect setup was used for animating many battles and squirmishes would have been less cool without the Climactic Volcano Backdrop, the characters brawling around a Lava Pit or soaring above Mount Fuji's crater. In one episode, Dr. Hell attempted to set an eruption off to bury the Photon Research Institute beneath tons of lava. In another episode, Mazinger-Z was tossed into a volcano. In the Gosaku Ota manga episodes, The Dragon Baron Ashura's master plan involved to set volcanic eruptions off throughout Japan...
 * Great Mazinger: One of the weapons of Marquis Janus' Island Base was an artificial volcano built on the island could vomit rocks and lava when Janus needed.
 * Naruto's Mizukage Mei can use Lava as a combination of fire and earth, in addition to her water, fire, earth and acid skills. She pulls this outta her sleeve.

Film

 * In The Incredibles, the main dining room in Syndrone's island base features flowing lava walls as decor.
 * The final showdown of Revenge of the Sith has Anakin and Obi-Wan duking it out on the lava planet of Mustafar.
 * Dragonball Evolution has one inside a volcano where the MacGuffin is located.

Literature
"Luke walked across the lake of fire. He did not think about it. The lava refused to touch his feet. Only The Force burned bright around him. One step after another, he strode across the flaming rock, letting himself see nothing but his goal until he stood again on solid ground on the far side of the lake of fire, with Gantoris and his people."
 * Many depictions of Fire and Brimstone Hell, especially visual works, will have bubbling pools and flowing streams of lava as background elements.
 * Luke Skywalker spontaneously develops the ability to walk on lava in the first book of the Jedi Academy Trilogy.

Tabletop Games

 * Dungeons & Dragons has the druid spell "Vulcan Bomb", which attacks a target with a stream of lava.
 * Complete Arcane also has the arcane spell Transmute Stone to Lava.
 * Magic the Gathering has 37 cards that refer to lava or magma. They're all red.

Toys

 * From Bionicle, one of Toa Tahu's subsequent weapons is a Magma Sword.
 * Toa Norik has the Lava Spear, which can shoot lava.
 * The sport of Lavasurfing on the island of Mata Nui.
 * Hakann has a Lava Launcher as his main weapon.

Video Games

 * Not only does Super Mario Galaxy feature Melty Molten Galaxy, a planet made of lava, but it's caught between two other planets also made of lava—a lava solar system.
 * The sequel has Melty Monster Galaxy, which is inhabited by the titular monsters, who are often the same size as the planets they live on.
 * One of the weapons in Ratchet and Clank is the Lava Gun, a modified flamethrower that shoots a continuous stream of lava.
 * Demon's Souls has the Lava Bow, which instantly transforms any arrow fired from it into a flaming lance.
 * Dark Souls has two Lethal Lava Land levels. There are also the Chaos Pyromancies, the most powerful fire spells, which leave pools of lava on the floor when used.
 * Diablo features the spell "Volcano", which spews forth lava. "Molten Boulder" applies as well, but is a round, condensed form of lava.
 * World of Warcraft: Many fire-based spells, such as the Shaman spell "Magma Totem", features spell effects giving the impression of lava. Their icons also depict lava/magma in different forms.
 * Molten Core has Ragnaros the Firelord, who wields Sulfuras, a gargantuan lava warhammer. In the Warcraft D20 RPG and trading card games, Sulfuras is available as a treasure.
 * Players can craft a miniature version.
 * Dwarf Fortress: One of early objectives usually is digging down to magma sea due to extreme usefulness of this liquid. Magma allows you to run furnaces without consuming fuel and makes a great source of weapon-grade high value stone, as it reacts with water, producing mineable obsidian (and steam). It can be pumped around and even scooped with minecarts and interacts with floodgates and pressure plates much like water, as long as equipment touching it is heat-resistant enough - there's even an internal token for "magma-safe" materials. Ask for help on the forum, and someone will suggest solving your problem with lava. If you're already using lava, you should try using more. DF wiki used to be on domain "df.magmawiki.com" for a reason.
 * If your problem is too much lava, then what are you? Some kind of Elf?
 * Metroid Prime: Hunters features the Magmaul, which is basically a magma grenade launcher.
 * The underground realm of the Deep Roads in Dragon Age has a lot of lava, to the point that the dwarves have lava fountains and lava waterfalls as decorations in the same way surfacers might use water.
 * Minecraft allows you to collect and use lava in constructions. If you can avoid being burned by it, of course. Lava also happens to be the longest-lasting heat source for furnaces; unfortunately, using a lava bucket in a furnace will destroy the bucket, and depending on the map you may have to construct a portal to the Nether just to have a steady source of lava.
 * Of course, there you run into the problem that getting the obsidian to create the portal is best done with lava... GAH!
 * Any fire-base dungeon in The Legend of Zelda series, especially volcano levels in the Death Mountains. Usually, you also have to fight burning bats and huge monsters that set themselves on fire.
 * The strongest crafting material in Terraria is Hellstone. Which appears in lava pits. And emits lava when mined.
 * Obsidian is created by dumping water into lava—in relatively small quantities in the normal game and enormous quantities if you build a generator.

Western Animation

 * One episode of Star Wars the Clone Wars has a character killed in battle behind enemy lines. He's "buried" by having his shrouded body placed on a river of lava, whereupon it catches fire and drops over a lava fall.
 * Why have a standard Disney Villain Death for the Big Bad in Teen Titans when you can have a Disney Villain Death with lava?

Real Life

 * A favorite game of young children is to climb and jump all over the living room furniture while avoiding falling into the "lava" floor below.
 * This childhood game is Played for Laughs in this xkcd strip.
 * And in an episode of RWBY Chibi.
 * Lava lamps are quite popular for their aesthetic qualities, but that's not necessarily “real” lava…
 * xkcd's what if? has other ideas.