Face Your Fears: Difference between revisions

* Kevin has to face his fear of his basement furnace in the first ''[[Home Alone]]'' movie.

* In ''[[Mortal Kombat (film)|Mortal Kombat]]'', Raiden talks to Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage and Liu Kang about confronting their own fears: fear to admit the need of help, fear to being a fake, and fear to destiny, respectively. The latter is important to the plot, though, as {{spoiler|Shang Tsung tries to exploit it near the end, with no results.}}

* Jason Voorhees ends up facing his fear of water in [[Freddy vs. Jason]], and Freddy has to face his fear of fire... sort of. It should be noted that Jason apparently faced that same fear in [[Friday the 13th]] Part 4, with better results.

 

* In [[Tamora Pierce]]'s ''[[Tortall Universe|Tortall]]'' books, this is the purpose of the Chamber of Ordeal. A heroic character will emerge stronger, having confronted and conquered his or her greatest fear. An unworthy character will be utterly broken by the experience, which may include actually dying.

* The Litany against fear from ''[[Dune]]'' expresses this trope perfectly:

Only I will remain. }}

** There is also the nerve-induction box, better known as the Gom Jabbar test. A student must place his hand in the box, which makes flesh feel like it's on fire. If he removes the hand, he'll be killed by the Gom Jabbar, a poisoned needle. The purpose of the test is to prove that the student is truly "human", in that their reason is more powerful than their instincts. The test is more about pain and instinct than fear, but fear plays into it somewhat.

* In [[L. M. Montgomery]]'s ''[[Jane of Lantern Hill]]'', Jane is afraid of cows until one day, as she is going about their pasture rather than face them, she realizes that she is wrong to scorn her mother for being afraid to face down her own mother when she's afraid of cows. So she faces them and is so cured that later, when her cousin is afraid of cows, Jane doesn't even remember it.

* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''[[Freckles]]'', Freckles's nerves are much restored when he lives to collect his first paycheck, and then when he first kills a rattlesnake.

His heart seemed to be leaping when his first rattler disputed the trail with him, but he mustered courage to attack it with his club. After its head had been crushed, he mastered an Irishman's inborn repugnance for snakes sufficiently to cut off its rattles to show Duncan. With this victory, his greatest fear of them was gone. '' }}

 

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' had Xander punch [[Monster Clown|an evil knife-wielding clown]] right in its evil knife-wielding clown face during a fear-based episode in one of the earlier seasons. In fact all the characters had to face their fears, but he was the only one who literally knocked his out.

* Joey on ''[[Friends]]'' advocated facing your fears:

* In [[Deep Space Nine]] when held in a Dominion dungeon Garek is found to have claustrophobia. None the less he goes into a tight space to work on the escape. After all when songs were sung of the deeds of Worf and Martok, a verse about the tailor who proved to be a wuss might have ruined the song.

* Happens a couple of times in ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'', with Zack's fear of spiders and Billy's fear of fish.

* ''[[Recess]]'': When TJ develops a fear of "The Box" (which is basically solitary confinement), Gretchen suggests framing TJ for a crime so he'll have to face his fear. However, she does lampshade the fact that this would either force him to face his fear or just make things worse.

* Pinkie Pie's "giggle at the ghostly" song from ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'':

you'll see that they can't hurt you, just laugh to make them disappear! }}

* [[The Legend of Korra|Korra]] is terrified of [[Big Bad|Amon]] and spends an entire episode in fear of potentially facing him. Once she starts to gain her confidence back, she decides to face him. Unlike most instances of this trope, this actually makes it WORSE! Amon and his Equalists easily subdue her and [[Break the Badass|Amon proceeds to psychologically rip her to pieces]] leading to a [[Heroic BSOD]] right afterwards.