Making a Splash

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Hydroblast!!!

"There is nothing softer and weaker than water, And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things. For this reason there is no substitute for it." —Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, Ch. 78

You attack with the stuff that makes up 60% of your body mass, covers 70% of the Earth's surface, and falls from the sky on an regular basis: water. Just plain old reliable water. It may not scream "explosive devastation" like fire and lightning does (until you see the water-mage drop a tsunami on an entire battalion of enemy mooks), but you can't trump water's versatility and availability. Flood 'em, drown 'em, frost 'em, steam 'em, wash 'em, whatever. And no, we don't use that water to heal someone, that's for the White Mage. Use it to kill someone!

Many philosophers, like Lao Tzu above, wax poetic far beyond Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness about how nothing in the world is weaker and more malleable than water, and yet water wears away the hard and strong. The mountain stands tall and proud, but the sea will eventually grind it to sand. Water always, always, always wins in the end.

A water controller's biggest weakness is that they usually must be in the vicinity of water to be effective. Not a problem in a modern city if they can affect underground plumbing, but if it's not raining and they're nowhere near a source of water, they might be SOL. It's very rarely addressed that they could just sap the water directly from a person's body, killing or weakening them instantly, but this could be an issue of dramatic license, since that would result in some very short and uninteresting fight scenes.

There are also beings like Marvel Comics' Hydro-Man and Darkwing Duck's Liquidator, who are sentient masses of water. Beating them can be tough as bullets and fists can simply punch through them to no effect while energy weapons' beams can be scattered though the substance. Furthermore, they usually change their shape at will, pass through anything that is not watertight and hit with concentrated blasts of their own mass. However, there are ways of defeating them: you can freeze them, you can evaporate them, you can make them lose cohesion by hitting them with electricity to induce electrolysis, or you can contaminate their bodies with a solidifying material, like cement or bake mix, to immobilize them.

Water is also required for Super Drowning Skills and Hazardous Water.

In most cases, this power beats Playing with Fire. A Sub-Trope of sorts is An Ice Person; both can be very dangerous indeed, if the two are combined. See Kill It with Water for cases where this is Super Effective. Soft Water may still be in effect—you just drown 'em. Often, Water Is Blue.

If you came here looking for Splash Damage tropes, you would do well to go to Splash Damage Abuse, and to Shockwave Stomp for situations where the stomp isn't purely decorative).

May overlap with Elemental Shapeshifter.

A Sub-Trope of Elemental Powers.

Examples of Making a Splash include:

Anime and Manga

• According to the video games, Bleach's Jushiro Ukitake's Zanpakutou is water-based (the only power it's been shown with in the actual manga so far is absorbing and redirecting energy attacks). Whether it is actually water-based is unknown, but its release command ("All waves, rise now and become my shield! Lightning, strike now and become my blade!") and translated name ("Law of the Twin Fish") strongly suggests that it is. His former lieutenant Kaien Shiba's Zanpakuto, Nejibana, is 100% water based.
  • There were some Bount twins in the anime arc that used water-based dolls. In a twist that one expects to happen more, they usually created masses of water around the target's head to drown them instead of, say, sweep them away with a torrent. And just to make things as difficult as possible for Ichigo and the others, it was raining when the twins attacked, neutralizing the Elemental Baggage and taking the threat level Up to Eleven.
  • In the Fake Karukura Town arc, Lieutenant Hisagi fought against a Fracción that used high-pressure water to attack.
  • Also, the Third Espada, Tier Harribel, when she uses Resurrección.
• Umi Ryuuzaki of Magic Knight Rayearth uses mostly water magic, although her ultimate one is ice.
• Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury and Michiru Kaiou/Sailor Neptune of Sailor Moon, though Mercury occasionally dabbles in ice to differentiate the two.
• In the manga/anime X 1999, Dragon of Earth Yuto Kigai is a water master, able to summon floods and hurl water bolts.
• Air Gear has Om the Water Queen and Orca, both of whom use water in the form of bubbles.
• Any water-based jutsu users in Naruto, particularly Momochi Zabuza, The Second Hokage, and Kisame. Ice is actually a combination of the wind and water elements and is limited to certain bloodlines. Acid is a combination of fire and water (a burning water). Water can be combined with lightning to make Storm (a quasi-Light thing) and with earth to make Wood.
  • Special mention goes to Suigetsu, who can turn himself into water and change body parts.
• In the "Big Trouble in Nekonron, China" Ranma ½ movie, Ranma was able to punch the water spurts coming from the geysers around them in order to create steaming hot water projectiles that could hit his opponent, no matter what his defenses.
  • In what is arguably Cologne's personal Crowning Moment of Awesome, very early on, she was able to blast seawater at Ranma in the shape of a great white shark. This, after effortlessly whirling her staff while underwater to create a massive waterspout.
• The Watery from Cardcaptor Sakura. There are other cards called The Rain (though the main threat presented by it is that it was making The Wood grow out of control; it could still chase you around and drench you, though) and The Storm (which is more of a hurricane, but still used water as the basis of its attack).
  • As well, the antagonist of the first movie utilizes water-based powers.
• Mitarai "Seaman" Kiyoshi of Yu Yu Hakusho has the ability to animate water to attack people with by mixing his blood in it.
• The final Jewel Seeds in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha created giant waterspouts that Fate and Arf tried to fight off.
• One of the enemies that Taikoubou faced in Senkaiden Houshin Engi has a paopei (magic artifact) that controls water. She used it to summon a megatsunami in the desert, create a sticky water dome, and waterspouts. And oh, yes, she did use it to try drowning Taikoubou by creating a permanent, inescapable water bubble just large enough to engulf his head.
  • Another used it more epicly. Fugen Shinjin (a deliberate Expy of Kaworu Nagisa) controls atoms with his paopei. He warns his enemies before blasting them. He used light water mist as the first warning, sharp ice formations as his last warning, and when it didn't work, he used the hydrogen atoms to create deuterium and tritium and initiate a nuclear fusion reaction instantly. Cue Stuff Blowing Up.
• In Flame of Recca, Mikagami Tokiya uses a water sword, which he can form whenever there's a water source. His water-based power works well against Recca's flame powers, but during the rematch, Recca amplified his flame powers so that the water boiled to steam, nullifying the effect. Note that the water around the sword is finite (meaning he needs another water source to "recharge"), while Recca's flame is infinite.
  • It should be noted that he can make his sword even stronger simply by absorbing more water. Hell, before one early battle, he absorbs all the water from an entire Olympic-sized swimming pool, for crying out loud.
  • Also, once, when his sword had its water removed or something, he used his own blood to reactivate it.
• In Battle Angel Alita, one of the enemies Alita fights uses a molecule-thin stream of water fired at supersonic speeds. It cuts through steel with shocking ease.
• Hajime, the Leafe Knight of Water, from Prétear; and it's just water—the reason he doesn't have powers over ice is because these are handled by his buddy, Mannen.
• One half of Fate Averruncus' abilities in Mahou Sensei Negima.
  • Also the stated elemental abilities of the newly appeared Sextum.
• Juvia Loxar from Fairy Tail has water powers as an Elemental Four member. She can turn her body into water and prevent physical attacks and initially had rain surrounding her constantly, which she can heat up and scald you when she gets angry.
  • Also, Mirajane is a powerful Water Madoshi. Among other things.
• The Water Orb of Suijin grants you this power. Also, Rain the Water Demon. She can easly give lessons on how to Kill It with Water.
• In Yes! Pretty Cure 5, Karen becomes Cure Aqua. Guess what she uses to fight. Go on, guess.
• Shizuku, aka Snake girl loli, from Omamori Himari. Seeing as how her family of mizuchi were worshiped as water gods before their extermination and their traditional depictions, it makes sense.
• Wagaya no Oinari-sama. has Kou, a Miko whose impressive hydrokinetic powers are a result of a water dragon god ("Mizuchi") sealed within her body.
• Suzumiya Haruhi: With Haruhi subconsciously blurring the line between reality and her movie, one of the devastating abilities Mikuru's toy guns take on is recoillessly firing terrifically-powerful blasts of water.
• Eisen in Harukanaru Toki no Naka de has water-based powers.
• Lala Lu's power with water in Now and Then, Here and There may not be offensive per se, but she certainly uses it that way.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood's first episode introduced (and promptly killed) Isaac MacDougall, the Freezing Alchemist. Don't let his title fool you, though. The Freezer uses water for everything, from ice-based weaponry to high pressure cutting tools, and can kill you by either flash freezing or boiling all the water in your body. This is a guy who definitely knows how to Kill It with Water.
• While no one with the ability to remotely manipulate water has shown up in One Piece yet, many of the Fishmen do it the old fashion way - by hand. Arlong could fling water with the force of a bullet, while his archerfish underling Chew could spit water with the power of a cannon or the speed of a machine gun. Standing above both of them is the whale shark Jinbe, whose mastery of Fishman Karate lets him manipulate water like cloth, manually throwing waves or lances of water that can blast through battleships at his opponents.
  • It turns out that this is the principle to Fishman Karate. By controlling all the water around them, as well in the atmosphere and even in the bodies of living things, Jinbe is able to hurt even Luffy.
    • Merfolk have their own version of Fishman Karate called Merman Combat, although it seems to be a lot more basic than Fishman Karate.
  • Whitebeard uses his quake powers to trigger two giant tidal waves.
  • In One Piece Strong World, Shiki can do the remote aspect with his levitation powers, entrapping Luffy in a ball of water to incapacitate him. Remember, being submerged in water renders a Devil Fruit user powerless.
    • And, quite frankly, that pretty much eliminates any possibility of a water-based Devil Fruit. Even Oda couldn't come up with enough Nonsensoleum to explain how that could be possible.
  • From the second movie, Honey Queen ate a Logia Devil Fruit that lets her turn into a pink liquid, and she always takes her clothes off when doing so.
• In the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime, Kirby can become Water Kirby, who can blast water out of his mouth. Water Kirby went on to become an ability in Kirby's Return to Dream Land.
• Mew Lettuce of Tokyo Mew Mew can control water and breathe underwater. She doesn't use the latter ability much, however.
• Archangel Gabriel's dominion in A Certain Magical Index is water, first shown when it accidentally falls down from heaven due to an accidental spellcasting. Later on, we are introduced to Acqua of the Back of God's Right Seat, who is aligned to Archangel Gabriel and thus the most powerful water magician in the series.
• Mio Mizumori from Ten Yori Mo Hoshi Yori Mo.

Comic Books

• Aquaman himself doesn't have any abilities that influence water itself, per se, but his wife, Mera, could control it to the point of a Green Lantern Ring, as could the destructive denizen of Sub Diego, the Eel.
  • ...and don't forget his little buddy Aqualad, currently Tempest, whose magic powers grant him elemental control over water.
  • The Tangent Comics version of Aquaman was a Diabolical Mastermind turned sentient ocean, as well.
  • Silver Age Aquaman did have the ability to gather seawater into a hard ball and hurl it at his underwater foes. It could knock them off their seahorses.
• Marvel Comics villains Hydro-Man (who is basically made of water in a similar way to Sandman with sand and usually uses his powers to produce flash floods) and Water Wizard/Aqueduct (who can control liquid in any form). Despite his big-league powers, Water Wizard is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who was once spared a gruesome death when his Volkswagen's tire blew out and later surrendered to the police because he was afraid of a vigilante targeting losers like him.
  • The Ultimate version of Namor also displayed water controlling abilities.
• New Wave, a villainess in The DCU who can transform her body into any form of water, including steam and acid rain.
• The Bill Willingham's Elementals had Fathom, who could shoot, control, turn into, or breathe water (and the vampires of that 'Verse were the water-killed variety too). The newer but unrelated Top Cow Fathom is part of a whole race with similar powers.

Fan Works

• In Keepers of the Elements, Bridgette has this as a power, along with ice.
• In With Strings Attached, John gains complete control over water, thanks to the magical Kansael that embedded itself in his chest. Being an Actual Pacifist, he doesn't do much more than play with it (though he did some pretty heavy-duty undead ass-kicking in the Plains of Death), but in several places, it's implied that he could be incredibly scary if he did some of the things the Kansael suggested to him. He seems to have some degree of control over the weather as well.
• Rise of the Galeforces gives us David Squall/Splashdown. It helps to remember that he is essentially an Expy of Aquaman.

Film

• In Carrie, Norma Watson (P.J. Soles) is killed when a fire hose, controlled by the titular character, hits her in the face, breaking her neck with the pressure.

Live Action TV

• H₂O: Just Add Water: although the three girls have powers over water, Cleo is the only one who can actually control it and manipulate it. Emma is definitely An Ice Person while Rikki leans more towards Playing with Fire.
• In Heroes, Tracy gains this power after coming Back from the Dead during the Volume 4 finale.
• In the Doctor Who episode "The Waters of Mars", a flood of water controlling viruses from the planet Mars infected the water supply of a human base. In a rare example, they could take over a human's body, making them akin to zombies.
• The main character in the 1998 Merlin series.
• Kamen Rider has had a few water users in its history, including Kiva's Basshaa Form, Abyss, and OOO ShaUTa Form.
• Super Sentai has featured a few heroes who can manipulate water - chiefly the Blue Rangers of each team. Examples include the Gingaman, Hurricangers, Magirangers, Shinkengers, and Goseigers. Driven home by Milestone Celebration installment Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, where GokaiBlue uses a finishing move referencing said Blues against a Monster of the Week.

Literature

• Water is the totem (and weapon) of Translucent of the Apprentice Adept series.
• Water Lily, aka Jane Doe, in Wild Cards is able to control water in lethal ways. She once sucks out the water out of a person.
• There was a short Sci-Fi story where a worker at a salvage yard used a portable Water Jet Cutter to dismember his attacker.
• The Fantasy trilogy Chronicles Of The Raven has a wonderful example where three dimensional mages open a gate to a dimension made entirely of water and use it to flood a whole valley of invaders.
• Watercrafters in Codex Alera may be better known for being healers and Empaths, but they can also drown you on dry land if you piss them off. They can also control water, though not to the same dramatic effect as earthcrafters or firecrafters with their respective elements. They also look much younger than they really are, as a side effect of their healing prowess, and specialist watercrafters known as "witchmen" also use their talents to keep powerful ocean beasts from detecting their ships as they pass over.
• Percy Jackson and The Olympians: Percy Jackson is born with this ability, being the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea (who is presented in a much more favorable light in the books than the myths, but then, so is everyone else).
• In the Star Trek Novel Verse, the aquatic Alonis do not possess opposable digits. In order to build a civilization, they instead use their limited but effective telekinetic control over water. They essentially "shape" the water into "tools". The exact limit on the ability has not been determined (yet) but, possibly, it depends on the individual.
• In The Dresden Files, Warden Carlos Ramirez is one of the few water mages who takes advantage of water's ability to dissolve and erode. His shielding spell turns a hail of bullets into lead powder (and turns a ghoul that tries to force its way through into ghoul-ade) and his primary offense is a blast of disintegrating green light.
• The Elemental Masters series by Mercedes Lackey has several Water Masters/mages, the main ones being Peter Scott, Lord Peter Almsley, and Marina Roeswood.
• In Shadow Ops, hydromancers can control water. They can also either heat up or cool down water, allowing them to generate ice or steam as needed, which makes them useful as medics for burn victims, or as breachers for knocking down doors or walls.

Myth and Legend

• Flood myths are pretty common. Gilgamesh goes to find the survivors of the Flood, who has been granted immortality.
• Don't make Poseidon angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.
  • Incidentally, he's also a god of earthquakes. So he doesn't just kill you with water.
• Many other gods, obviously, both of the sea and freshwater bodies. Examples include Oceanus (also from Classical Mythology), Mannan Mac Lir, Njord, and Sobek, as well as the many kinds of nymphs and fairies and the like.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering has Jokulhaups, one of the earliest Reset Button (i.e. kill everything!) cards of the game. But why does it use mountain mana? Because Jokulhaups are the result of melting a glacier, which would require a lot of red mana.
  • A student mage in the Kamigawa novels tries to explain the strength of water by talking about the strength of a tsunami breaking apart a ship.
• A few Dungeons & Dragons monsters and prestige classes get in on this, particularly water elementals, water-based Elemental Savants, and Wavekeepers. There's also a species of aberration in the Pathfinder setting that's damaged by salt water.
• Rifts features an optional (and somewhat underwhelming) Psychic Character class called the Soaker, a character with hydrokinetic powers.
• In Anima: Beyond Fantasy, one can specialize in Water-based magic, which allows both for the control of water and ice.

Toys

• The Water Element in Bionicle. One example of use is Gali, a Toa of Water, who has literally killed the realm of Karzahni with a massive flood attack after evacuating all the traumatized Matoran.
  • Don't forget the tidal wave she summoned against Icarax when he pissed her off...
    • That was the same incident. Icarax beat down the five other members of Gali's team, and when he started gloating on top of that, she took the opportunity to charge up her Nova Blast. That is, she drew in every bit of moisture within a radius of several kilometers, then unleashed it all as a giant tidal wave. Icarax escaped with the MacGuffin because Gali couldn't control the wave well enough to wring it from his grasp (most likely due to already having spent all her elemental energy on creating the wave in the first place), but at least the six Toa survived.

Video Games

• Ōkami has Nuregami, a snake goddess who gives you the Waterspout Brush.
• Sougetsu Kazama of Samurai Shodown.
• Rikuo/Aulbath in Darkstalkers.
• Tytti Noorbuck, herald of Water Elemental Lord, in Super Robot Wars
• Kira Daidouji in Arcana Heart has the default Arcana of Water.
• Metal Gear Ray can shoot a high-pressure stream of water from it's "mouth", and it's a devastating attack that even looks like a laser.
• Water-type Pokémon, with attacks like Water Gun, Surf, and Hydro Pump. In keeping with the frequent subtrope of water-based attackers also being able to use ice-based attacks, almost all Water-type Pokémon can also learn Ice-type attacks like Ice Beam and Blizzard.
  • Water-type specialty Trainers include Misty, Wallace, Juan, Crasher Wake, and Cress.
  • One of the available starters for any generation of Pokémon games is always a Water-type. They are generally very useful in the early game - in three of the five generations, the first Gym Leader is a Rock-type specialist - but not so much against the Elite Four/Champion.
  • Somewhat played straight (by name) yet subverted.

MAGIKARP used Splash! But nothing happened!

• Mercury Adepts in Golden Sun are both this and the White Mage version in one handy package. Most of their later moves seem to involve encasing their opponents in ice. Mia is a classical White Magician Girl and Piers is a much more offensive version. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn includes Mia's son, Rief, as a Staff Dude and Alex's son, Amiti, as a Magic Knight. Mia's daughter also makes an appearance and is stated to share her family's element.
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, to round out their roster of Palette Swap ninjas, added the water-manipulating Rain. (He was purple.) Later installments expanded upon his water-cotrolling abilities, and he made a reappearance in the Mortal Kombat 9 as DLC.
• Robot Masters Wave Man and Aqua Man from the Mega Man series. Toad Man can also summon a screen-filling acid rain attack. Pump Man creates a shield out of globes of water and can throw them out. Oddly enough, Splash Woman doesn't fit this, as her weapon is the armor-piercing Laser Trident.
  • Stardroid Neptune yields the Salt Water weapon, allowing Mega Man to short out and corrode robots with globs of ionised saline solution.
  • Also, Bubble Man in II.
• Mario uses the Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device in Super Mario Sunshine.
• Cagnazzo the Drowned King of Final Fantasy IV. When he gathers water for his Tsunami attack, he can absorb ice attacks (but zap him with a Thunder spell and he won't be able to use it). In the DS version, Tsunami has a chance of killing your party members instantly, regardless of HP. Oh, and you can get said Tsunami as an Augment move after beating the boss.
  • In later installments, player characters can learn various Water spells, from the high-pressure Aqua Rake to the Tsunami and Clean Sweep spells; Summoners can even call Leviathan and other summoned monsters to deliver such water-elemental attacks.
• Frog of Chrono Trigger. Being a, well, frog, Spekkio gave him Water magic.
  • Ice is not considered its own element in the game, and so all ice attacks do water damage (which means that Marle, who is the healer/ice user of the team, is given a water element).
• One of the more powerful attacks for the flamethrower in Makai Kingdom is a torrent of water that also pushes the victim a long distance.
• Demyx, from Kingdom Hearts 2. Dance, water, dance!
  • Aqua from Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, as well, though she's a subtle example. Unlike Terra and Ventus, her only spell that actually fits her name is her initial shotlock; instead, she's cross-trained in Blizzard and Fire spells, gaining advanced versions of both that only she can use. And what do you get when you mix the two?
• Lots of dams get destroyed over the course of the Command & Conquer: Generals campaigns. Half the time, you're the one doing it, half the time, you...umm...get wet.
• Carlo Belfrond, Psychiccer of Water from Psychic Force 2 and second-in-command of the Psychiccer of Ice, Keith.
• The Chrono Cryo soldiers cleanse with water. By freezing their enemies to death.
• The Bubble Bobble games have water-filled bubbles which can be used to rinse down enemies. It can also stun the protagonists while they're being pulled with the current.
• Frost Mages in World of Warcraft have the ability to summon water elementals (not ice, for some reason) to fight by their side for a little while. Shamans also use water to restore their mana and help them heal. The graphic of their final healing spell, Riptide, looks pretty much like you just dumped a bucket of water on the target.
  • Probably related to the fact that they were the Summon Magic of Alliance Mages in Warcraft III and of Conjurers in Warcraft I. Ice elementals are also extremely rare, being the result of conflict between the elemental lords of air and water.
    • Also, a few select NPCs are also able to cast Waterbolts, Tsunamis, or water geysers that hurl the opponent into the air.
• Chaos of the Sonic the Hedgehog games is more or less a water elemental, ranging from a humanoid to a gigantic Tentacle Monster.
  • And Marine the Raccoon is like Blaze the Cat, only with water, but she tries to keep it a secret until the end of the one game she appears in.
• The spitball in Backyard Baseball is more this than an actual spitball.
• Tyurru, the loli wizard from Ninety-Nine Nights, who drowns people in bubbles.
• Water is the element of the Shadow Hearts characters Margarete (first game), Anastasia (Covenant), and Mao (From The New World). This applies more to their physical attacks than their magic, due to the second two games using Powers as Programs.
• Kraken from Heroes of Newerth uses this trope: his abilities include tsunami-powered running, summoning whirlpools, and actually making a splash, with which he delivers splash damage to everyone around his target.
• Bubble Kirby from the Kirby series.
• Captain Murasa of the Touhou games uses water for some of her spellcards, fitting her sailor theme.
  • Let's not forget resident kappa Nitori Kawashiro, with the power to control water.
  • There's also Patchouli Knowledge, who has it as one of the 7 elements she uses, and Suwako Moriya, who has a few water-based attacks (mainly in the fighting games, which is why the term spellcard is not used - she has a water based spellcard in her first appearance, though.)
• Splash Warfly from Mega Man X 7.
• From Dust allows the player to pull water from the sea, lakes, rivers or even puddles, morph it into a ball, and hurl it about. Whether you're using it to install a water feature, combat a forest fire, or flood a village is up to you, however...
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has Morpha, the boss of the Water Temple. Morpha is a giant amoeba that can create tentacles with the water it resides in. These tentacles are capable of striking and even grabbing and throwing Link. Though Navi does mention that the "water" Morpha inhabits is not normal water.
• The Aquahopper skill in Battle Golfer Yui lets Yui bounce her golf ball across water hazards to avoid landing in them. It is learned after beating her clone in golf.

Web Comics

• Panthera: Onca Aquae, Jaguar of Water.
• In Beyond the Canopy, Cascadian foot soldiers are trained in this. Which is odd, because they live in a desert. They carry water—with explosive fish inside—on their shoulders to shape into weapons.
• Wayward Sons: Saiden. He can control its state of matter too, allowing him to form his weapon of choice, a trident, out of ice. He can even move a fleet of ships around, though he runs the risk of passing out from exhaustion when he does so.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe examples: Riptide, the girlfriend of protagonist Chaka, and Aquamaster of the West Coast League.
• Strangely, only Sabella in Trinton Chronicles has any water-based powers. She also has one ability that she tends to mix with her hydroblasts to make them especially deadly. Aside from her liquid control, she also has the added gift of freezing water.
• Water Human. He can attack people with masses of water, apparently has a propensity for sitting in water for no reason, and may very well be an Elemental Embodiment, actually.
• In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, there's Vulnapyezdka ("Wave Rider" in Russian), who can turn into water, blast it from his hands, and survive underwater; Saraswati, an Indian superheroine who cannot generate water, but can telekinetically manipulate water in the environment (including pulling it out of a human body, if absolutely necessary); River, another Whatevermancer. Archdruid could control water telekinetically as well, as part of his overall control of the four classic elements. Maelstrom and Typhoon, who both could generate and control storms, could exercise some control over water, but their use of this power wasn't very precise, to say the least.
• In Elemental, the element of water goes to Nachtis, symbolized by internal shifting and change, just like his element.

Western Animation

• Waterbenders in Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra tend both toward this and the White Mage version. Water can be used for healing along with manipulation of chi flow, but in its attack forms, it's used as a malleable weapon (wall-of-water ram, razor-whip, ensnaring tendrils). Waterbending also involves solidifying shapes as ice and, in rare cases, it can be leeched from surrounding plants, and creatures can be physically manipulated through their blood.
• Gi of Captain Planet and the Planeteers.
• Zan of The Wonder Twins from Superfriends. "Shape of...a monsoon!"
  • Downpour, the character based on him from Justice League Unlimited, actually makes it look badass by, among other things, attempting to drown Max Lord, sweeping a few dozen lava monsters off an oil rig, and turning himself into a tsunami. And then he tries to drown Aquaman.

Aquaman: King of the Seas, remember?

• • Speaking of Aquaman, in his own animated series, he could toss high-pressure concussive water balls, a power which has since been adapted into several animated, live-action, and comics versions of the character.
• In Xiaolin Showdown, Omi is the Xiaolin Dragon of Water when he's not An Ice Person.
• Darkwing Duck gives us the Liquidator.
• Aqualad in the animated series Teen Titans has these sorts of powers, which don't seem to work while he's UNDER water for some reason.
• Aquamaria of Static Shock. She actually does well against Static (he's prone to shorts) until he realizes, hey, electrolysis!
• The Fairly OddParents has H2Olga.
• Subverted in Winx Club: while Layla comes from an ocean-based realm, and seems connected to water, her powers come from plasma, which appears in the show to be shiny, pink clay. This is very evident in the 4th season when, twice, the girls had to stop a housefire and Layla could not use her powers to douse it. Her Sophix seems to give her this power, though.
• The water demon Bai Tza from Jackie Chan Adventures.
• The new Aqualad in Young Justice has this power to not only telekinetically control water, but turn it into weapons like a sword or hammer.
• Irma Lair of W.I.T.C.H. is this for the Guardians. She can control water, as well as create it seemingly from nowhere.

Real Life

• Water cannons, although they're primarily used to push people.
  • There are also the so-called "Disrupters" (not to be confused with the energy weapons from Star Trek), which fire water at extremely high speeds. Bomb defusing robots are equipped with these to short out the trigger mechanism of a bomb. Thanks to water creating no heat on impact, it normally doesn't trigger the explosive to go off.
• Super Soakers...What?
  • Hey, it works for the archerfish.
• Water jet cutters, going as high as 50,000 PSI to cut through thin sheets of things like titanium with pure dihydrogen monoxide. For thicknesses up to eight inches, an abrasive component is added, but it's still mostly water.
  • High pressure water (or other liquids) can also have a nasty effect on human flesh. This is particularly a problem for submarines and machinery that involved liquids at high pressure (engine fuel injection systems can be nasty in this respect), where a leak can cause serious injuries.
  • And when they need to take the paint off roads, they use sandblasting: high pressure water and sand.
• As solvents go, water is pretty strong - lots of stuff dissolves in it. We don't notice because we're mostly made of stuff dissolved in water.
• Given enough time, water can (and eventually will) do more damage to the landscape than any nuclear weapon ever created.
• In the Tomorrow Land part of Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, a fountain uses a high pressure stream of water (ascending over 250 feet into the air uncovered) to lift a one ton ball off its base, allowing an average six year old child to spin it with ease.
• For a long time, the Netherlands' main form of defense was breaching one of their dykes near where the enemy was and watching them drown.
• Sonoluminescence is the result of using ultrasonics to make water explode. Admittedly, the explosions are very tiny, but pistol shrimp use the effect to stun and sometimes kill small fish.
• Look at natural disasters like floods and tsunamis. Water probably causes more damage overall than fire.
  • In hurricanes, it isn't the wind that kills people most of the time. It's the storm surge and the flash flooding. And afterwards, the infrastructure is messed up because of the flooding, leading to more deaths as vital services are cut off.
  • In floods, just 6 inches of water moving at just 4 miles per hour will destroy most houses in the path of the water.