Casting a Shadow: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"I have seen the night torn into thin darkling strips and woven into shapes too bleak for dreams."''|'''Crovax''', [http://magiccards.info/wl/en/24.html Strands of Night], ''[[Magic: The Gathering|Magic the Gathering]]''}}
A form of [[Elemental Powers]] dealing with shadow and darkness, it can take several forms. Darkness as an element is frequently portrayed as acting nigh-identically to its polar opposite, [[Light'Em Up]], with characters "projecting" darkness (technically inactive photons, which appear as black) as you would light (despite this [[Artistic License Physics|not making any sense]]). Shadow element, on the other hand, is usually focused on creating copies of something
Given the prevalence of [[Dark Is Evil]], darkness as an element is often used by [[Villain
Darkness is sometimes associated with gravity, presumably by conflating darkness, black holes, and gravity into basically the same thing. For gravity-based powers, however, see [[Gravity Master]]. Also related to the [[Power of the Void]]
{{examples}}
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*** There's ''also'' Kotaro Inugami, who has at his disposal the ability to summon vast swarms of autonomous spirit wolves made of darkness/shadow.
* Hayate Yagami of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', the Queen of the Night Sky who has Diabolic Emission, a [[Sphere of Destruction]] that envelopes the land in pure darkness, as her signature spell. Oh, and [[Dark Is Not Evil|she's the cheerfully optimistic]] [[Big Good]] of the series. [[Artifact of Doom|The Book of Darkness]], [[Super Empowering|the one she inherited her powers from]], probably fits the personality type a bit better.
* In ''[[Digimon Frontier]],'' darkness is just one more element and not inherently evil. The original Legendary
* Pumpkin Doryu, from ''[[Rave Master]]''
** Haru's [[Morph Weapon]] sword also has a darkness aligned form, Sacrifar. It turns Haru into [[The Berserker]], [[Dark Is Not Evil|though it wasn't entirely the fault of the sword itself.]]
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** It's also interesting to note that the shadows she manipulates aren't restricted by the presence or absence of the sun, meaning she can manifest a weapon at noon just as easily as she can at midnight.
** Notably, her shadow is always drawn darker than all others, even when she's not manipulating it.
* ''[[Bleach]]'' has Kyoraku's [[Empathic Weapon|zanpakuto]], Katen Kyokotsu. One of its 'games' is to attack through
* Pride from ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' slices, dices, and [[I'm a Humanitarian|eats]] with his extensible shadows. {{spoiler|He's powerless in complete darkness, though. [[Achilles' Heel|Shadows cannot exist without light]].}}
* Kageyama, Jose, Simon, and Zero from ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' are all users of this type of magic, the first one weaker than the other three.
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* The Dark court in ''[[Wicked Lovely]]'' are a combination of types one and two. They are emotional parasites and, at the hight of their power, can manipulate shadows and form strange 'shadow creatures', which follow their leader of the time, although they serve little purpose. Generally, the edginess comes from the darkly seductive nature of them - one subspecies, the gancanagh, are addictive to mortals and the embodiment of [[Death by Sex]]. They also like tatoos, although this half-applies to all the fey in Melissa Marr's work. It's [[Author Appeal]], as Marr herself has several tatoos.
* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'', the [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Dark One]] manifests an [[God in Human Form|avatar]] with the power to create black fire, a "sphere of black light", and generalized darkness in rooms. This may be [[Justified Trope|analogous]] to its other unique ability, to block access to the One Power: it can destroy physical light as it can magical [[Light Is Good|Light]].
** Myrddraal are terrifying, though that just may be because of their [[Eyeless Face
* In ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'', the [[The Dragon|Nazgul]] generate terror in their enemies and are the most powerful in darkness. Since their chief weapons are fear, terror...um, and a [[Monty Python's Flying Circus|fanatical dedication]] to the Dark Lord, they are [[Weakened by the Light]].
* In ''[[The Silmarillion]]'', the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Unlight]] of [[Eldritch Abomination|Ungoliant]] falls somewhere between
** Frighteningly, while her heir Shelob is [[Weakened by the Light]], Ungoliant actively ''[[Big Eater|consumes it]]'' and spits out blackness.
* In ''[[The Black Company]]'', the ''Shadowmasters'' are aptly named. Ironically, one is afraid of the dark. Make of that what you will.
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** Elise from ''[[Tales of Xillia]]'' is an odd case, as she's one of the game's two primary healers, yet all of her offensive magic is dark element, as opposed to light (Which practically all of the other healers in the series use).
* In [[Pokémon]], Ghost-types have plenty of type 2 shadowy attacks.
** Dark Pokemon are good indicators of what kind of
*** To clarify what the person above me said, the latter only applies for 'Shadow' Pokemon, who were named Dark Pokemon in Japan. Dark type = Evil type, and Shadow Pokemon = Dark Pokemon.
*** Certain Dark-Type attacks cross into this, such as Dark Pulse and Night Daze. Interestingly, there has yet to be a Dark Gym Leader. Elite 4 [[Pokémon Gold and Silver|Karen]], [[Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire|Sidney]], and [[Pokémon Black and White|Grimsley]] use Dark types, however.
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