The Power of Love/Playing With

Basic Trope: Love is the Strongest Force in the Universe.
 * Straight: The heroes' love for each other lets them overcome their trials.
 * Exaggerated: The heroes embrace each other as they are set on fire, and when the fire dies down the heroes are unharmed.
 * Alternatively, their love becomes an actual, tangible weapon or forcefield.
 * Justified: The villain tells the hero that his love interest betrayed him, but the hero doesn't believe him, and doesn't fall for the villain's trap.
 * The setting's deity (or one of them) has True Love Is Exceptional as a "pet trope."
 * Inverted: The Power of Hate. (Hate is the Strongest Force in the Universe.) The hero's overwhelming hatred for the villain and all the horrible things he's done sees him through all his trials just so he can take that son of a bitch down hard.
 * Love Makes You Evil
 * Subverted: The hero makes a stirring speech about how his love will prevail over all, but when it gets to the fight, the villain beats him handily. As the hero lies dying on the floor, the Mooks lead his love away to be executed.
 * Alternatively, an Anti-Hero dismisses the Power of Love and proceeds to slay the wicked demigod with the Power of......POWER
 * Unimpressed by the hero's speech about love, the villain responds with a filthy limerick and a whuppin'.
 * Double Subverted: The hero makes a stirring speech about how his love will prevail, before he is punched out by the villain and left for dead on the floor. The next day, as his love interest is led to her execution, the hero's reincarnation charges in, skewers the villain in mid-gloat, and rides with his love off into the sunset.
 * However, fighting a demigod is extremely dangerous. While he survives, he was so injured in the battle that he can't do anything but wait for the release of death... but is ultimately saved by the White Magician Girl as she gives him an Anguished Declaration of Love.
 * The Power of Love doesn't stop him from dying, but it doesn't stop his love interest from continuing to lead a happy life for both of them.
 * The hero's love interest is apalled that the villain would say such things in front of a lady (and his callous treatment of her boyfriend), and bitchslaps him into next week.
 * Parodied: "I love you" becomes a command word that creates Deus Ex Machinae.
 * Alternately, the power of love is used as a literal power source.
 * Deconstructed: The hero's adventures are narrated by a psychologist giving a lecture on the chemicals of the brain that cause love, and their effect on a person's physical capabilities.
 * Combination of the last two: the power of love is used as a literal power source, causing an increase in the divorce rate.
 * "The Power of Love" is revealed to be something more mundane such as simple extreme devotion towards a goal or person. Other emotions, such as hatred, would grant the same magnitude of power (if not more-so as it is easier to hate than love).
 * Asexual (well technically aromantic) characters are incapable of tapping into the power (for obvious reasons) and find themselves inferior to those who can actually have love in their hearts.
 * The Power of Love has a dark side of its own. A break-up or an unrequited crush can turn it into a self-destructive force, and make the affected character depressed and/or suicidal. And then there's the Stalker With a Crush...
 * Love of a bad thing (such as causing others misery and/or Oneself to the detriment of all others) makes the villain just as powerful as the protagonists.
 * Love Makes You Crazy/Yandere
 * Love Makes You Evil
 * Reconstructed: Said psychologist falls in love himself and is at a complete loss when asked to explain his new-found powers in chemical terms.
 * The Asexual character is nevertheless capable of feeling emotional attachment.
 * Loving to make people happy, or love for another, is much more powerful than sadism and/or selfishness because there's more people involved.
 * Zig Zagged: The Power of Love saves the heroes one minute, then fails to save them the next. Then later, love saves them later on when their love is "renewed".
 * Averted: The hero and his love interest clearly love each other very much, but it does nothing to help them with most of the troubles they face throughout the story.
 * No one loves anyone.
 * Enforced: We can't just let the hero fail here, but him and his love interest have no sort of weapon or tactic to get them through this. Let's have their love let them make it through.
 * Lampshaded: "Oh, look. Our love helped us win some random challenge again."
 * Invoked: Something bad happens, so the hero shouts "I LOVE YOU!" at his love interest in the hope that this will save him.
 * Defied: The Evil Overlord chooses all marriages for minimum possible attraction.
 * Discussed: "You know, I wish this was like one of those movies, where our relationship would somehow get us through all these stupid unrelated troubles in life."
 * Conversed: "Have you noticed how many shows have the heroes survive because of their love for someone?"

Back to The Power of Love