All The Tropes

Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Difference between revisions

← Older edit
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
added link
 
(10 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown)
Line 15:
 
{{examples}}
 
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'': Mystical ancient Shinto creatures and ghosts are disappearing and leaving Japan because not just the people of Japan but also Japan himself don't believe in them anymore. There's always England...
Line 65 ⟶ 64:
...he '''worships''' at the altar of the New Gods.'' }}
* Used in [[Marvel Comics]] in [[Thor]] # 301, where it was revealed that, while the gods themselves ''could'' exist long after they had no more worshipers, those who STILL have some had greater amounts of power. Also, a god is stronger in his home plane than gods from another.
* In ''Thor Meets Captain America'' by David Brin, this trope is used by the hero. His actual words are [https://web.archive.org/web/20120712170314/http://www.davidbrin.com/thor1.htm "I don't believe in you"].▼
* When the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] faced off with Dracula, Kitty Pryde tries using a crucifix against Dracula and achieves nothing. Dracula then grabs her throat, and burns his hand on her Star of David necklace. No points for guessing Kitty's religion, folks!
** Wolverine is unable to repel Dracula with a cross, but when devout Nightcrawler takes up the symbol, Drac is driven back.
* In ''Crimson'', it's apparently the vampire's religious background that counts, as one man learns when the vampire he's trying to ward off takes his cross away and beats him with it, remarking "My name is Steinman, [[Gratuitous Yiddish|schmuck]]! Why would this work on me?"
 
 
== Film ==
Line 100 ⟶ 97:
** The ''[[Fright Night (2011 film)]]'' remake did this too, except with Charley holding the cross instead of Peter. The vampire simply feigns weakness before grabbing the cross with one hand and pinning Charley to a car with the other. The cross catches fire as he touches it, but he blows it out without even flinching.
* In the Jim Carrey vehicle ''[[Once Bitten]]'', The Countess shrugs off the religious symbol ("Put down the cross, Robin. It only works in movies. Besides, I'm an atheist.") Then Mark shows up with a torch, and the Countess recoils, declaring, "Fire, on the other hand..."
 
 
== Literature ==
* The [[Trope Namer]] comes from a famous scene from ''[[Peter Pan]]''. In this [[The Verse|verse]], a fairy is mortally wounded any time a child says "I d*n't believe in fairies;" in the scene in question, Peter uses the effect in reverse to save the fairy Tinker Bell's life by calling on children everywhere to indicate that they ''do'' believe in fairies. (In [[Older Than Radio|the original]] stage version - which predates the novel and the various film and television adaptations - this was an audience[[Audience participationParticipation]] bit...and, in case you're wondering, if the audience is a bunch of heartless bastards who won't clap the orchestra is instructed to begin the applause.)
** [[Tom Holt]] spoofed this scene in ''Open Sesame''; a fairy provides medical care by shouting "I do believe in humans!"
*** And again in ''Paint Your Dragon'':
{{quote|''There's an urban folk-myth that every time a human says he doesn't believe in dragons, a dragon dies. This is unlikely, because if it were true, we'd spend half our lives shovelling thirty-foot corpses out of the highways with dumper trucks and the smell would be intolerable.''
''There's an old saying among dragons that every time a human says he doesn't believe in dragons, a human dies, and serve the cheeky bugger right.'' }}
** The Christopher Durang play ''Dentity Crisis'' references this scene and the ensuing subversion from the fed-up actress playing Peter Pan who decides to sabotage it in the worst way possible:
{{quote|That wasn't enough. You didn't clap hard enough. Tinkerbell's dead.}}
** [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]]: On the first night the original play was performed, they didn't know ''what'' would happen. When Nina Boucicault as Peter called out "Clap your hands!" there was an immediate deluge of applause, some people even stood up. Boucicault was so overwhelmed she began to cry.
Line 128 ⟶ 124:
* In ''[[I Am Legend]]'', vampires fear the holy symbol of what they believed in before they became vampires. The Protagonist's archenemy is terrified by the Star of David.
* In Christopher Stasheff's ''[[Warlock of Gramaraye]]'' series, the planet Gramarye has a native fungus known as "witch-moss" which can assume animated forms based on the thoughts of those with latent [[Psychic Powers]]. Since five centuries of inbreeding has spread those genes to half the population, a lot of fairy tale creatures have since become real; if they become ''too'' real, and there's some of both genders, they can even mate and have fixed-form offspring, essentially creating a whole new species. The Wee Folk were born this way and can somehow interbreed [[Half-Human Hybrid|with humans]], producing ''[[You Fail Biology Forever|fully fertile offspring]]''.
* ''[[Good Omens]]'' not only explicitly uses this concept as the core of its magic system, but actually introduces a system which measures the intensity of belief in one of its footnotes.
* This appears to be the driving force behind mythological beings in the ''Logical Magician'' series of books by Robert Weinberg. In the second book, an Amazon (naturally, exceedingly beautiful) serving as a weapons instructor is explicitly confronted by the main character with theories regarding the rather hideous appearance of historical amazon women; he's rebuffed with "Maybe the real ones were. We aren't." Applies to myths both old and new; one of the most feared mythological beings around is 'The Man'. Also given an interesting inversion; {{spoiler|Nergal, the Babylonian god of disease, has been hauled into the modern world. With no believers to get rid of, he seems invincible, until the main character gets an article about him published in several supermarket tabloids. Since people automatically disbelieve what they read in those, this does Nergal in.}}
* I'd mention [[Michael Crichton]]'s ''The [[Sphere]]'' but that would spoil that plot.
** Oops.
* A variant occurs in the [[Harold Shea]] stories by [[L. Sprague de Camp|L Sprague De Camp]] and Fletcher Pratt, in which it's possible to travel to another world by believing in the logical principles that govern that world. The place you're going was real to begin with (even though [[All Myths Are True|they're all based on mythology or literature]]), but believing the right things makes it accessible to your senses.
* [[Lord Dunsany]] uses this. To say where would spoil an excellent short story.
* [[Gone Horribly Wrong|Goes horribly, horribly wrong]] in regard to the "Stuff" in ''[[The Gone-Away World]]'' by Nick Harkaway. It becomes not what you believe, but what you're ''thinking of''—and if you're thinking of ten things at once, it'll become a splice of all 10 things. This gets [[It Got Worse|even worse]] if you [[Transformation Trauma|get covered in Stuff]].
* The gods in the ''[[Discworld]]'' series work like this. The climax of ''[[Discworld/Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]'' involved {{spoiler|a beloved leader who had died and was being tormented by the prayers of those who put her on a godlike pedestal.}} In ''[[Discworld/Hogfather|Hogfather]]'', when the [[Big Bad]] was magically preventing people from believing in the [[You Mean "Xmas"|local equivalent]] of [[Santa Claus]], the extra, unused belief-energy made any imaginary creature that was even slightly plausible (like a creature that eats odd socks, and a bird that eats pencil stubs) come into existence. ''[[Discworld/Small Gods|Small Gods]]'' describes in detail how gods come into existence and become powerful.
** "Belief" is stated as a very powerful force on the Discworld - if enough people believe something to be true, it will become true, however there are limits. The rules have never been fully stated, but it appears there needs to be a "space" that makes it somewhat reasonable such a thing could be true (hence the non-existence of the Give-The-Dean-A-Big-Bag-Of-Money goblin). In ''[[Discworld/Pyramids|Pyramids]]'' the mess of [[Crossover Cosmology|multiple combined mythologies]] that made up the religion of Djelibeybi, much of which was self-contradictory, and a lot of which could be contradicted by simple observation, only became true when the kingdom was pushed into an alternate reality with an even lower reality threshold than the Disc.
** An evil witch set herself up as secret ruler of the Magic Kingdom of Genua in ''[[Discworld/Witches Abroad|Witches Abroad]]'' by manipulating the lives of people and reality itself by bending fairy tales around herself.
** In ''[[Discworld/Carpe Jugulum|Carpe Jugulum]]'', one family of vampires have developed the ability to resist religious symbols (as well as most things that vampires are traditionally vulnerable to) through extensive psychological conditioning. {{spoiler|This later backfires when their conditioning wears off under the influence of a witch, but the study that went into it leads to them being able to recognize - and as a result be affected by - "hundreds of the damned holy things! They're everywhere! Every religion has a different one!"}}
*** later expanded into the Black Ribbon Society, which provided a better integration with a multicultural modern city
** The ''New Discworld Companion'' has as Watch standard gear, "One holy symbol of recruit's choice, vampires, for the discouragement of. One Critique of Pure Reason, vampires, for the discouragement of (Freethinker's option)." This was before a vampire ''joined'' the Watch...
** What happens to people on the Discworld after they die is [[Ironic Hell|determined by what they believe]]. Not necessarily what they want, but what they believe. In ''[[Discworld/Small Gods|Small Gods]]'', there is a character who believes in Om, but after he dies he thinks about what he believes and it's implied that he has a slightly different outcome than other Om believers. He has a different outlook on life than other Om believers, and therefore, something different would happen to him.
{{quote|"What happens to people after they die is what they believe will happen. The people who go to hell are the ones who believe, deep down in their hearts, that they deserve it. However, if you've never heard of hell before, it's impossible to believe in it. [[Spoof Aesop|That is why it is important to kill missionaries on sight]]."}}
* [[Fred Saberhagen]]'s ''[[Book of Swords]]'' series had this as a plot development. The gods, including such familiar names as the war god Mars and Vulcan the smith, are bored. To entertain themselves, they play a game with humanity: 12 highly powerful magic swords are created, and spread throughout the lands purely to incite wars amongst the various nations. The plan backfires when, thanks to the highly visible power of the various swords, mankind's belief in the gods wane and is replaced by belief in the swords. Consequently, the gods rapidly weaken and die.
** In the interquel novel ''Ardneh's Sword'', which was written years later and is widely regarded as [[Discontinuity]] by many fans, it is explained that the Gods {{spoiler|Are really humans who put on some [[Applied Phlebotinum|Sufficiently Advanced Technology]] suits that turned them INTO gods}}. It seems likely that their apparent dependance on belief was psychosomatic at first, but became this trope over time.
* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Chronicles of Chaos]]'', this is one technique of [[Functional Magic]], where the character can make true what he wants to be true. Its weakness is that he really has to want it; if you do not actually feel the malice necessary, you can not curse someone, for instance.
* Subverted in F. Paul Wilson's ''[[The Keep]]'', in which a "vampire" ''pretends'' to be affected by a Christian cross, but not a Star of David in order to cause a Jewish professor to question his faith. {{spoiler|Later it's revealed that the vampire is actually affected by the symbol of a magical sword, and the Christian cross just happens to be very similar to this sword symbol.}}
* In ''[[The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray]]'', there's an interesting case: {{spoiler|when humanity believed that disaster was God's anger, everything was fine. Then came the beginning of the Age of Reason, and we [[Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions|outgrew such silly superstitions]]... or so we thought. Because we had no-one left to blame, but lacked the emotional maturity to take responsibility for our actions, our subconscious minds started to blame ''every fairy-tale-style monster ever'', at which point they appeared and began to terrorise the world's cities.}}
Line 171 ⟶ 167:
* Subverted in ''[[Blindsight]]''; the vampires and crosses thing is [[Doing In the Wizard|not because of anything religious or mystical]] but because their brains go into seizure [[Weaksauce Weakness|when exposed to straight vertical and horizontal objects in their visual field forming a 90 degree angle]] (not as dumb as it sounds: there are people who have similar types of problems due to head trauma). That sort of thing is not that common in nature, and it wasn't much of a problem until their food source went and invented architecture and drove them into extinction.
* Subverted in Christopher Golden's ''Shadow Saga'' in that the effects of the cross on vampires is purely psychosomatic because {{spoiler|the Roman Catholic Church captured a bunch of vampires during the dark ages and brainwashed them into believing in a number of myths.}}
* This is given as the reason the Seelie are so much weaker than the Unseelie in the ''[[Jack of Kinrowan]]'' stories:
{{quote|"But I don't know ''anybody'' who believes in any of you," Jacky protested.
"Now that's where you're wrong. There's few that believe in the Laird's folk, that's too true, but the Host... I've seen the books you read, the movies you see. They speak of the undead and of every horror that ever served in Gyre the Elder's Court. Your people might not say they believe when you ask them, but just reading those books, watching those movies... Jacky Rowan, every time they do, they strengthen our enemy and make us weak."}}
▲* In ''the short story "Thor Meets Captain America''" by David Brin, this trope is used by the hero. His actual words are [https://web.archive.org/web/20120712170314/http://www.davidbrin.com/thor1.htm "I don't believe in you"].
 
== Live -Action TV ==
* ''[[Power Rangers Mystic Force]]'': The key component to being able to use magic is, it seems, believing in magic. In the premiere, Nick is unable to use magic because he doesn't believe - even after he's seen others using it (and despite considerable effort 'trying' to believe). He gains the ability to cast spells only after announcing that he really does, after all, believe in magic. In the finale, the entire city's belief is used as a [[Combined Energy Attack]].
* An episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' has the crew find a pulled-from-myth planet of Ancient Greece, presided over by Apollo, who laments that the rest of the gods perished, more or less, from a lack of followers.
Line 200:
* In the 1998 ''[[Merlin (TV miniseries)|Merlin-1998]]'' series, [[The Fair Folk]] and gods of [[Celtic Mythology]] don't necessarily require followers and prayers (though it helps), but they absolutely need to have people believe in them. If people stop believing in them and ascribing importance to them, they will simply cease to exist.
* In ''[[Being Human (UK)]]'', vampires recoil from George's Star of David pendant. But George's affection for his best friend Mitchell (who is a vampire) makes Mitchell immune to its deleterious effects. Mitchell even keeps the necklace safe when George [[Wolf Man|transforms]].
 
 
== Professional Wrestling ==
* During one storyline in the early-to-mid-nineties Kama stole [[The Undertaker]]'s urn of power. [[The Undertaker]] said that he now had to rely on his [[Fan Community Nicknames|Creatures of the Night]] (his special nickname for his fans) to provide him with the power he needed to win the match.
 
 
== Tabletop Games ==
Line 218 ⟶ 216:
** Elsewhere in the [[New World of Darkness]], spirits of things reflect what people ''believe'' that thing should be—a dog spirit, for instance, is nearly the platonic ideal of a dog—but it's left deliberately unclear whether this is because human belief shapes spirits, or spirits shape human belief. Is a spider spirit the way it is because we believe a spider should be this way... or do we think spiders should be this way because this is how spider spirits are?
* In ''[[In Nomine]]'', the Marches, the land of dreams separating the corporeal realm (Earth and the rest of the physical universe) from the celestial realm (Heaven and Hell) is populated by the power of human imagination with pagan gods and creatures of myth.
** In the case of one ethereal character edited out of the ''Liber Servitorum'', the trope name is ''very'' literal: an incarnation of [http://accessdenied-rms.net/tinkerbell.shtml Tinker Bell] from ''[[Peter Pan]]'', born of the force of belief applied by millions of children clapping to save her life in audiences around the world.
* The ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' campaign setting ''[[Planescape]]'' revolves around the idea that belief shapes the planes. It can also move mountains, as the beliefs of the inhabitants of an area determines it's actual geographic location.
** Exploited several times in the video game ''[[Planescape: Torment]]''; for example, the player at one point unlocks a memory of a previous incarnation who had just debated a man into the conclusion that he did not exist, which caused him to vanish.
Line 225 ⟶ 224:
** In the 3.5 core rules, clerics were able to gain power by revering a cause. ''[[Eberron]]'' actually had attempts to train clerics of ''nationalism'' (although it failed).
** The 2E supplement ''Shaman'' used this trope extensively, with the twist that any spirits generated by such power of belief weren't considered "real" by deities, or at least, not as "real" as the deities themselves.
** ''[[Ravenloft]]'', like ''[[Eberron]]'' prefers to keep its gods' legitimacy subject to doubt. At least one of the major deities of the Land of Mists, Zhakata, is ''expressly stated'' to be the figment of a crazy darklord's twisted imagination. This doesn't prevent clerics of Zhakata from receiving divine spells when they pray. Downplayed, however, as it is also expressly stated that the Dark Powers of Ravenloft is what truly grants their divine spells.
* In ''[[Deadlands]]'', this device works in both short and long term. When visiting the [[Spirit World]] of the setting, exactly what one sees is colored by exactly what one expects. A Protestant might see Mount Zion, with Heaven at the top and Hell at its base. A Native American might instead see a [[The World Tree|World Tree]], again with pleasant things at the top and bad things at the bottom. And most of the "Abominations" in the game world are drawn straight from people's worst fears; sometimes, a house is haunted not because someone died horrifically there, but because people ''believe'' it is haunted.
* ''Beyond the Supernatural'' features a reversal of sorts with the nega-psychic class. Most character classes in this game have psychic and/or magical abilities. The nega-psychic has psychic powers, but is so convinced that supernatural phenomena are bunk that his power is used unconsciously to suppress all psychic and magical phenomena in his area. For example, a character who can normally lift things with telekinesis will find it difficult or impossible to do so around the nega-psychic, thus bolstering the nega-psychic's belief that there is no such thing as telekinesis.
Line 243 ⟶ 242:
* ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'' features something of an [[Inverted Trope|inversion]] with Bardos. When enough people believe in something, and then suddenly ''stop'' believing (like, say, if it's publicly disproven), the energy of all those minds changing their opinion releases Mania into the world. This has created, among other things, an underground world full of dinosaurs, an army of Martian invaders, and a race of Aryan "[[The Ubermensch|Übermenschen]]" of genuinely superhuman ability.
* The card game ''[[Munchkin (game)|Munchkin]] Bites'' has an item ''The Yarmulke of Religious Obfuscation'' which gives the wearer an extra bonus against ''The Vampire Hunter'' and ''The Meddling Cleric''.
 
 
== Video Games ==
Line 272 ⟶ 270:
* Many magical items in ''[[The Game of the Ages]]'' turn out to contain no intrinsic power, but your initial belief in them imbue them with actual magic.
* How deities in ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'' gain the power of mantra.
 
 
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Dream Catcher]]'' does it for laughes as a bonus page [https://web.archive.org/web/20111231195138/http://dreamcatcher.smackjeeves.com/comics/604884/the-next-page-o/ FAN SUPPORT POWER BOOST!]
* In ''[[Elf Life]]'', magic is portrayed as only having an effect on those who believe. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071024141557/http://www.elflife.com/d/20000917.html Knowing this doesn't seem to help.]
* In ''[[Zebra Girl]]'', magic works along these lines. As one character explains, Magic fundamentally doesn't work, but as long as you don't believe that it does. For example the main magic user tells a character to close his eyes as the magician heals him because as long as his eyes were open he wouldn't be able to accept the spell working. This same wizard then starts on a one man (but occasionally one werewolf) mission to bring back magic into the world through teaching people (mainly kids) to believe in it again. He does this as a really, really, really, good street magician.
Line 294 ⟶ 291:
"That should do the trick." }}
* In ''[[Fans]]!'', the "crosses are only effective in the hands of those who believe" rule is used as an indication that a particular character's faith is wavering. In desperation, one of the fans (Rikk, a Christian whose faith had been weakening at the time) instead tries a symbol he ''does'' believe in: the Vulcan salute. It works, {{spoiler|but not really; the vampire was faking it.}}
* ''[[Unwinder's Tall Comics]]''. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120517130314/http://tallcomics.com/?id=108 Here:]
{{quote|'''Howard:''' Excuse me. All of the women at that table would like to meet you.
'''Dr. Minivan:''' A-Are you sure? How do you know?
Line 300 ⟶ 297:
* [[Built With Lego|Legotech]] in ''[[Troops of Doom]]'' runs on this. If you can make an agglomeration of Legotech vaguely resembling the device you want, ''it will function perfectly as such''.
* ''[[Rusty and Co.]]'' has Madeline the paladin, [[The Ditz]] who purchased gardening tools as "magical weapons" from the local [[Honest John's Dealership|untrustworthy looking gnome]]... [[Running Gag|repeatedly]]. In part, because she is never ends up disappointed - if Madeline is convinced that a [http://rustyandco.com/comic/level2/level-2-3/ hoe] has properties of Holy Avenger, or a spade is "[http://rustyandco.com/comic/level-6-5/ vorpal halberd]", in her hands the object ''will perform accordingly''. This turns her naivete into a ridiculously strong asset. And no, it's not "she's just that good a warrior": once she was told a [http://rustyandco.com/comic/level-7-17/ pitchfork] is an "enchanted weapon" and decided it must be a Trident of Warning - then it [http://rustyandco.com/comic/level-7-60/ actually detects] "dangerous fishies and such", which allows her to discover a hidden [[Trap Door]] over [[Shark Pool|pit of piranhas]]. She's just [[Crazy Awesome]] like this.
* In ''[[Chasing the Sunset]]'' Fey magic is based on this. A dragon [https://web.archive.org/web/20171001080042/http://www.fantasycomic.com/index.php?p=c360 dropped in a conversation] some implications, before he [[Oh Crap|remembered]] that the other party is a [[The Fair Folk|pixie]]:
{{quote|'''Feiht''': Wait... are you saying that whatever I can convince myself I can do, I can do?
'''Dragon''': Er... I have said too much already. I should go now. Maybe to another universe. }}
** Fortunately for the rest of Multiverse, other Fey creatures are more sane, and pixies are [[The Ditz|too scatterbrained]] to remember this for long, let alone figure out on their own. Others aren't, so after this accident Leaf more than once tricked Feiht into fixing problems with magic, as he convinced her that things ''always were'' this way by exploiting a pixie's short attention span and vulnerability to [[Circular Reasoning]].
 
 
== Web Original ==
* ''[[Tech Infantry]]'' borrows the explanation of the magic of Mages from the [[Old World of Darkness]]'', so it follows this trope. One of the characters even tries to ''weaponize'' this fact of life, using a [[Mind Control Device]] to change what everyone believes about how the universe works, and thus change the way the universe actually works.
* In docfuture's hilarious "[[Let's Play]] ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Special Edition]]''," in [https://web.archive.org/web/20120522051842/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1149863216010157450&hl=en Mystic Cave Zone], he points out that the game engine is belief-based, and consequently the graphics looked bad because not enough of the viewers believe that this game exists.
* The [[PPC]] [http://starshadowhall.tripod.com/ppc/menu.html Substance Menu] has this to say about [[Brain Bleach|Bleeprin]], a medication made of bleach and aspirin: "Please refrain from reminding the PPCers that this is chemically impossible. They already know that. They don't care. However, if you remind them, it may no longer work; then they will probably kill you."
Line 316 ⟶ 312:
* ''[[I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC|I'm a Marvel And Im ADC]]''. When [[Deadpool]] runs out of bullets he asks the audience to do this to make new bullets appear in his guns. When this doesn't work he calls the audience a bunch of amputees.
* [[Gaia Online]]'s ill-named "Demonbusters" event in 2009 ends with the titular gods depowered and turned into humans. The following Christmas event had them getting Gaians to believe and pray to them so they could become divine again. {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|It didn't work.]]}}
 
 
== Western Animation ==
Line 333 ⟶ 328:
'''Santa:''' *smack*
'''Bender:''' Oh GOD, the pain! }}
* In an episode of ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'', the city was visited by two benign ghosts who appeared to be Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, and a very nasty one who appeared to be Professor Moriarty (who eventually conjures up a demonic version of the Hound of Baskervilles). Egon at first thought this didn't make sense; as fictional characters, these people were never alive to begin with, and thus could not be ghosts. When it became clear that they were indeed the real deal, he brought up a theory he had read about called "belief made manifest". What this meant was, if enough humans believe that a fictitious character is real and he has enough fans, it can give the character a pseudo-life, which seems to be what happened. Once they figured this out... The game was afoot!
** "Belief made manifest" was also an important plot point in an episode of the [[Sequel Series]], ''[[Extreme Ghostbusters]]''.
* In ''[[South Park]]'', the Imaginationland storyline revealed this to be the case (technically [[Doing In the Wizard]] in doing so). Everything and everyone ever imagined by someone on Earth is real in [[Magical Land|Imaginationland]], including all religious figures (even including real people believed to be gods and prophets, such as Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith). This is made hilarious if one remembers that Jesus has a public access television show in the real world.
* An episode of ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' revealed that laughter (or, perhaps more correctly, the Power Of Fandom) helped cartoon characters stay young.
* In the [[Christmas Episode]] of ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'', it's the power of belief that allows [[Santa Claus|Santa's]] sleigh to work fast enough.
 
== Other Media ==▼
 
▲== Other ==
* There is a joke about some Jews coming to a rabbi and asking him if he can pray for a rain. He says it won't work since they have no faith. How does he know they have no faith? They didn't bring umbrellas.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyqUj3PGHv4 WE'RE GONNA YES SO HARD, WE'RE GONNA BRINK KIKI BACK TO LIFE. BELIEVE IN THE YES.]
Line 346 ⟶ 342:
* A classic joke has a beautiful woman trying to drive a vampire away by brandishing her crucifix; the vampire's response is an amused, "Sorry, lady, 'svet gornisht helfen" (Yiddish for "It won't help a bit").
** A bit odd, since it's usually the ''wielder's'' faith that counts. (Maybe she's actually [[Boomerang Bigot|a self-hating Jew?]])
* This is generally how the occult practice of chaos magic works—if someone believes in it, you, too, can believe in it, and channel it for power. [[Grant Morrison]], being delightfully wacky, has written articles on channelingchannelling the occult significance of everything from the [[Classical Mythology|Greek pantheon]] to the [[New Gods]] to [[James Bond]].
* This is a common feature of New Age beliefs in general. In Wicca and some other Neo-Pagan religions, a variant is taught: you can perform magic(k) by visualizing the desired results and focusing your will upon them, but doubts in the efficacy of the technique will rob you of the necessary focus and prevent it from working.
** Some practitioners of magic(k) claim that any symbol has the power the magic(k)ian invests in it. This can lead to two conclusions: One, the whole subjectivist interpretation (the idea of all persons living in a reality of their own making (thus not the same as the one everyone else lives in), or two, that humans actually innately possess some huge magic power, but have developed mental blocks to prevent the world's destruction by a toddler [[Eldritch Abomination]], and such symbols are ways around these psychic walls.
* "The Law of Attraction" and "Universal Magnetism" and "Like Attracts Like" are concepts explored in at least two books, ''The Science of Getting Rich'' by Wallace Wattles and ''Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting'' by Lynn Grabhorn, as well as at least two films: ''[[The Secret]]'' by Rhonda Byrne (also a book) and ''What the Bleep'' by J.Z. Knight. Both films feature followers of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment in Washington State, which also teaches this concept.
** A lot of megachurches have co-opted this by calling it "prosperity theology".
* The Indian deity Hanuman, the "monkey god," is so caught up in his devotion to Lord Rama that he needs his followers to remind him of his own divinity for his powers not to dwindle.
* The [[Logical Fallacy]] known as ''argumentum ad populum'' implies this. For some reason that doesn't stop people from using it, even though the implications should be obvious.
 
 
== Real Life ==
Line 375 ⟶ 370:
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Magic and Powers]]
[[Category:Urban Fantasy Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Clap_Your_Hands_If_You_Believe"