Magic Feather: Difference between revisions

[[File:itwaswithyouallalong.gif|link=Chainsawsuit|right]]

 

 

In comic books, a retooled [[Super-Hero Origin]] sometimes shifts a character's gimmicky power to being innate, with lampshading that the famous prop or incantation was simply a focus.

A supertrope of [[Placebotinum Effect]] and of course, ''is'' the [[Placebo Effect]]. A common subversion of the [[Amulet of Concentrated Awesome]]. May or may not be a character's [[Charm Point]]. Somewhat of a [[Dead Horse Trope]] in newer works.

 

{{examples}}

 

 

== Advertising ==

{{quote| '''Shaman:''' Bro, what are you talking about, man? I was just messing with you. I got this for like 35 cents at a garage sale. The real adventure - was in your heart all along.}}

 

* Pretty much the most awesome example ever: in ''[[One Piece]]'', for the Luffy vs. Foxy duel, Usopp hands Luffy a ''[[Funny Afro|giant afro]]'' to give him strength...and then the entire crowd goes wild when he appears sporting it. And when he starts to show his [[Heroic Resolve]], it was apparently because "THE AFRO POWER MADE HIM GO BERSERK!". In short, the [[Magic Feather]] that ''everybody'' (except [[Only Sane Man|Nami]]) believed. Even more confusing is that he effectively won ''because'' of the afro {{spoiler|or rather the piece of glass that was hidden in it}}!

* In ''[[GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class]]'', innocent protagonist Kisaragi was conned into buying what she believed was "God's pencil" from an old lady at a stationary store. Using the pencil on her exams did help her get into the school, but that may have been more due to her practising like hell (enough to completely use up ''20'' of them) the day before. Either way she was still conned into buying old excess stock. Even after this fact is revealed, she still buys them, at least for sentimental value (since the granny died).

* It's revealed towards the end of ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' that {{spoiler|the head maid of the Sohma household tried to do this for little Akito back when her father Akira died and she was expected to take over leadership of the anti-Ren faction, giving her a black box that the maid claimed contained her father's soul. The maid expected that Akito would realize the truth, but the fact that Akito knew so very little about the outside world's common sense helped destroy her self-confidence even further.}}.

** To make things even worse, {{spoiler|Ren (Akito's [[Evil Matriarch]] mom) tricked Akito's cousin Isuzu into stealing the box, thinking it had trinkets belonging to Akira. Not only Isuzu fails and is brutalised by an Akito in full [[Yandere]] mode, she then confronts Ren with a knife about it. Then the box is opened...and it's empty.}}

* The lucky crystal necklace Chieri uses in ''[[The Cherry Project]]'' turns out to be this.

* Luke in ''[[Mon Colle Knights]]'' once went to find an axe of bravery that would remedy his shyness around his crush. He found it and got his courage during a desperate moment, then lost it the moment the crisis was over and he learned the axe was fake, and he returned to bumbling. In the end, he instead gets over his shyness by confessing, which required a crisis as big as the world ending.

** {{spoiler|Later on, he reveals that there really ''is'' a magic water in the tower. However, since it kills anyone who isn't a Determinator, Korin doesn't keep it on display.}}

* In the ''[[Sakura Wars]]'' OVA, Sakura Shingouji attempts to figure out the secret of her father's super special technique and refuses to join the special team she's been recruited to until she learns it. She goes through every possible way to read the scroll it's said to be on before realizing that there ''is'' no secret - everyone knows it and it is brought out in their own way.

 

* The first Morlun story in ''[[Spider-Man]]'' had Ezekiel, another man with spider-based powers, explain to Spidey that he didn't get his powers due to the fact that the spider that bit him was radioactive, but that the spider gave Peter superpowers magically and was nearly killed by the radiation in the process. This retcon has since been re-retconned away again.

* Large swathes of the [[DC Comics]] universe were [[Retcon|retconned]] with the [[Meta Origin|metagene]]. Basically, random chemical spills or a radiation zap or looking into the core of an alien warp engine -doesn't- give you superpowers. The metagene, present in most humans, instead does an Instant Evolution bit to save you from the dangers. In short, most people do get crispyfried when zapped with the experiemental magic ray.

** Similarly, loony supervillain Madcap uses a bubble gun that makes people lose all inhibitions...except the power is actually tied to his gaze, and he just uses the bubble gun as a distraction to get people to look at him.

* In an 80s ''[[Daredevil]]'' story, DD's mentor Stick reveals that the radiation that gave Matt Murdock his superhumanly acute senses (and also blinded him) had a temporary effect--but that temporary boost taught Murdock to use his normal human senses to their full potential. (Alas, the blindness wasn't temporary. Sorry!)

* In ''[[The Smurfs|The Olympic Smurfs]]'', Papa Smurf gives to the puny Weakly Smurf a reddish doping jelly to put on his nose, in order to help him compete in the Olympic Games. When he eventually wins, he is about to confess his cheating, but it turns out that the substance was only raspberry jelly, and that Weakly smurf owes his victory only to his newly-acquired self-confidence.

** This same "doping jelly" plot was carried over in an episode of the [[Hanna-Barbera]] animated series, where it was used on Weakly Smurf to make him stop thinking he really was weak. He ends up saving the village from a collapsing bridge during a storm and being crowned a hero as a result.

 

 

== Film -- Animated ==

* Happens in the second ''[[Ice Age]]'' movie, to an extent: Diego, the saber-toothed tiger, has a fear of water, but he needs to swim to save his friend. Said friend told him earlier that "Most animals can swim as babies," and he uses this to go after him. Once saved, the friend tells him baby tigers can't swim; he left that part out.

 

 

== Film -- Live Action ==

** [[Harsher in Hindsight|How long before Bugs and Jordan are subpoenaed to testify by Congress...?]]

** Even after learning it was fake, the toons still ask for more.

** This is a variation, as it turns out that even though they had the ability to win the whole time, they actually had been receiving help.

* In the over-the-top [[Blaxploitation]]''/''[[Martial Arts Movie|martial arts]] parody film ''[[The Last Dragon]]'', the "magic amulet" that Bruce Leroy's [[Trickster Mentor]] gave him when he began his "great quest" turns out to be a belt buckle.

** It's more than that, when Leroy discovers that {{spoiler|the master Sum Dum Goy doesn't even ''exist,'' and that The Master he's been searching for is Leroy himself.}}

* ''[[Pootie Tang]]'': {{spoiler|Pootie's magical belt is eventually revealed to be a completely non-magical item purchased from a Piggly Wiggly for 95 cents.}}

* [[Austin Powers|Austin had his mojo all along!]]

* Played with at the end of ''[[Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny]]'', when the club owner gives his "the Devil is in all of us" speech, convincing Kage and JB not to worry about {{spoiler|the pick breaking. Of course, immediately after we discover the club owner is actually Satan, and just wanted the pick to complete himself.}}

* Used on a large scale in ''[[Kingdom of Heaven]]'', where, in response to the Patriarch of Jerusalem asking him how he plans on defending the city with no knights, Balian of Ibilin immediately knights every peasant and commoner within the sound of his voice.

* In ''[[The Luck of the Irish]]'', the protagonist's grandfather ({{spoiler|a leprechaun}}) is watching the protagonist and his [[Black Best Friend]] play basketball against an evil leprechaun. A large part of the plot involves the protagonist losing his lucky coin (stolen by the [[Big Bad]]), with his family suffering bad luck since then. At the game, the grandfather sees that their team is losing and throws his grandson's friend a coin, claiming it's lucky. The guy's game immediately improves. The protagonist confronts his grandfather, as he knows the coin is fake. The grandfather invokes this trope, causing the protagonist to realize that he can make his own luck without relying on some coin. Subverted in that the stolen coin is really magical.

* Inverted in the ''[[Inspector Gadget]]'' movie where Gadget requires a computer chip in order for his cyborg body to function. However, after the chip is taken out and smashed by Claw, it turns out that he can still operate without it.

 

 

== Literature ==

* In ''The Divide'', the main character is {{spoiler|cured of his illness by a literal feather.}}

* Played straight in the novel ''[[Harry Potter]] and the Half-Blood Prince'', wherein Harry tricks Ron Weasley into thinking that he (Harry) has just poured some "Felix Felicis" luck potion into Ron's drink to improve his Quidditch game (which had been suffering due to an extreme case of nerves). Hermione saw Harry do it, and warned Ron not to drink it, as it would be cheating to use a potion in a Quiddich game. Ron drinks it anyway, and his game improves hugely. Then, when Hermione confronts Harry again afterward (once Griffindor has won with over 200 points), Harry shows both of them that he hadn't poured a drop; he faked it. Ron mocks Hermione, who tries to compliment Ron/backpedal, but fails. (Harry had ''not'' foreseen his play backfiring...)

** Unlike most examples of this trope, the ''real'' potion actually ''works'', as Harry found out when he {{spoiler|used it to convince Slughorn into giving him and Dumbledore a memory that contains information vital to defeating Voldemort (it also had the bonus effect of starting a rift between Ginny and Dean)}}. The potion also demonstrates [[Winds of Destiny Change]] abilities later on, when several of Harry's friends use it to avoid getting hurt while fighting {{spoiler|the Death Eaters invading Hogwarts}}.

* In Sylvia Louise Engdahl's SF novel ''[[Enchantress From the Stars]]'', Elana gives Georyn a stone that she says will give him magical powers. It's intended to give him enough confidence to use his innate [[Psychic Powers|psionic abilities]].

* In the short story ''[http://www.bartleby.com/237/33.html The Fifty-First Dragon]'', Gawaine, the nervous dragon slayer, was told he would be invincible to dragons upon the utterance of the word "Rumplesnitz". He was quickly able to shed his fear and became remarkably efficient at slaying dragons, but also cocky. After a night of heavy drinking, he faced his fiftieth dragon, and couldn't remember the word when the time came to use it, but was still able to kill the dragon, much to his confusion. When he was told by his headmaster that the word was just a placebo, he fell back into his old nervous ways, and died trying to kill his fifty-first dragon.

* In the ''[[Goosebumps]]'' book ''The Blob That Ate Everything'', Zackie thought that his reality altering powers came from a magical typewriter, only to find when he couldn't get the typewriter to work was actually within himself.

** And of course, Dorothy had the slippers to get home the ENTIRE time.

* In ''You can do it Desmond Dragon'', an educational children's book about an asthmatic young dragon, Desmond is given a 'magic' satchel to wear during a smoke-blowing contest. Of course, when he opens it after the contest it just holds a note saying he could do it all along if he believed in himself. And used his inhalers...

* A large number of ''[[Wild Cards]]'' characters require a "psychological focus" to use their powers, most notably The Great And Powerful Turtle's armored Shells, to the point where he eventually becomes so cripplingly dependent on them that he loses his powers entirely when outside them.

* In Eva Ibbotson's book ''Which Witch'', there's an interesting variant and in the end even subversion: Belladonna is a white witch, so good, kind and beautiful that she borders on a [[Parody Sue]], but longs to be a black witch and do evil deeds -- partly because that means the other witches might accept her as one of their own, and partly because she's in love with a dark wizard. However, she's utterly incapable of doing even the slightest dark magic, until she meets a young, orphaned boy with a pet earthworm that both of them think are magical. As long as the boy and his earthworm are present, Belladonna is capable of doing black magic stronger than anyone else. When the worm, unknowingly to Belladonna, disappears, she still manages to perform black magic -- but instead of the normal "all you needed was confidence" story, it turns out that while the earthworm ''is'' a completely normal, unmagical earthworn, the ''boy'' is without knowing it a powerful dark wizard, and it was ''his'' presence that gave Belladonna the dark powers, not the worm's.

* In 'The Valor of Cappen Varra' by [[Poul Anderson]] the eponymous hero is able to face down a troll because he has a charm that negates magic and so renders him immune to her super strength. At the end he is told that trolls are just naturally very strong so the charm was worthless

** Headology, the main branch of Witch magic relies mostly on the application of common sense with a light sprinkling of Magic Feathers, once handily supplied by the patient himself.

* In [[Incarnations of Immortality|On A Pale Horse]], while fighting [[Satan]], [[The Grim Reaper|Death]] realizes that he doesn't actually need his scythe and cloak to use his powers, reasoning that if that had been true, Satan would have attacked him earlier while he was off duty.

* Subverted in ''[[Mistborn]]'', where the [[Magic Feather]] given to Yeden's army by Kelsier (a promise that his mistborn abilities could be channeled into others) {{spoiler|leads Yeden to send out his still unprepared army prematurely out on a raid because of overconfidence, killing them all}}. Kelseir gets a serious [[What the Hell, Hero?]] by his entire crew for his efforts.

* In the children's book ''The Good Luck Pony'', the main character is nervous about her horse-back riding lessons until her mother gives her a horse necklace that she says will bring her good luck while riding. The girl is told at the end that the necklace just gave her confidence, and that was all she needed to succeed.

* A theme from the ancient Sumerian tale ''[[The Epic of Gilgamesh]]'' can be seen as a predecessor to this trope. Gilgamesh goes on this elaborate quest for immortality, eventually laying hands on a magical coral flower with the power to extend his life. A snake steals the flower when he's not looking and Gilgamesh is crushed, but {{spoiler|in the end he realizes he had immortality all along -- through the legacy of his contributions to the enduring power of his city, Uruk.}}

 

 

* On ''[[MASH|M* A* S* H]]'', Hawk and B.J. give placebos to a shy, nebbish soldier, telling him they're Confidence Pills. They also give the same pills to Klinger, telling him they're a new drug that will help keep him cool -- later, during a boiling hot day, he walks around in a fur coat, warning everyone else that they would freeze to death.

** More seriously, when the camp runs out of morphine, they pass the pills off as painkillers via psychology, telling the current batch of wounded soldiers they can only have one each of these "super-powerful" new wonder drugs. The scene is subverted on a somber note as the doctors discuss the results, noting that it didn't work for everyone.

** A rather darker example is Isaac, who thinks he can't paint the future without heroin.

** Also, Niki, who believes that she can't use her [[Super Strength]] unless her [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] is in control.

* In one episode of ''[[My Wife and Kids]]'', Michael pulls this on his son Junior, using grandson Junior Jr. as the "magic baby" and saying that holding him will make Junior smarter. Eventually, when Junior drifts into annoying territory, Mike lets him in on the truth, saying that his own father pulled the "magic baby" trick on him, using Junior.

* ''[[Flight of the Conchords]]'' did this with hair gel which supposedly made the boys look cool. When the hair gel is all used up, they can't bear to even leave the house, and Murray, their manager, tells them that the gel didn't make them cool, it just gave them the confidence to show everyone how cool they really were. Inspired by his words, they go to perform their gig sans gel, only for the entire crowd to walk away once they start playing. Murray concedes that yes, it really was the hair gel that made them cool.

** The on-screen moral being: apparently self-confidence can [[Broken Aesop|give you an actual makeover]] -- complete with makeup and a new hairdo!

* In the big crossover between ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' and ''[[The Suite Life On Deck]]'', Hannah's anklet acts like this. It's a keepsake of her mothers, and when she loses it everything goes wrong until Robbie Ray tells her that her mother is always with her, regardless of the anklet.

* One episode of ''[[Wonder Showzen]]'', one of the puppets trips out on what is ostensibly 'liquid imagination', but is later revealed to be just water.

{{quote| '''Brittany:''' And you let me comb my hair with it?}}

* ''[[The Suite Life On Deck]]'': Bailey uses a placebo to raise London's intelligence. Subverted in that [[Status Quo Is God|after realizing that it's a placebo]], London [[Flowers for Algernon Syndrome|returns to normal]]. Then she [[Too Dumb to Live|takes]] ''[[Too Dumb to Live|another]]'' [[Too Dumb to Live|placebo]].

 

== Tabletop RPG ==

** Some mages also use 'unique foci' for some of their magic, which if lost render them partially or wholly incapable of casting anything.

 

== Video Games ==

** It's because {{spoiler|he isn't a Spirit Monk, and the amulet acts for him as it did for you early on, as a magical focus.}} But since your power and focus have grown so much, you no longer need it. It would be like using a flamethrower until you learned how shoot fire from your hands, yeah the flamethrower still works, but you don't really need it anymore do you?

*** [[Completely Missing the Point|Flamethrowers do not work that way.]]

** There's also an in-game book in ''Fable III'' about a magician who created a homunculus to protect himself from disease and the ravages of age. At the end of the story, the homunculus is accidentally destroyed, but luckily for the magician nothing happens; turns out he just had a naturally strong constitution all along.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Dissidia]]'' features a ''literal'' Magic Feather in the form of Bartz's good luck charm from his chocobo companion Boko. He gives it to Squall as part of a promise to meet up again - which the feather helps to facilitate. At the end of Bartz's storyline {{spoiler|it turns out that the crystal Bartz had been searching for all along was in fact embodied by his Magical Feather.}}

* One of the characters from ''[[Tears to Tiara]]'' seduces [[The Hero]] using a magical [[Red String of Fate]] she bought from the far east. While it did in fact have a functional, working [[Love Potion]] power, she tied the string to the wrong finger, meaning the two of them actually made out without its spell in effect.il

* In Episode 4 of Season 3 of ''[[Sam and Max|Sam & Max]]'', Max has to fight the [[Big Bad]] but has no Toys of Power. Then [[Eldritch Abomination|Dr. Norington]] tells him that he doesn't really need the toys. Max suddenly starts glowing and takes to the sky, now able to use his powers without the aid of the Toys.

{{quote| BUT THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL... ''was inside you all along''. It's blood! Turns out you can sell it! See you at the plasma center! }}

* Much of the early campaign in ''[[Battle Realms]]'' involves Kenji trying to hunt down his family heirloom, the [[MacGuffin|Serpent's Orb]], because of its 'magic power'. In the Dragon campaign, the Dragon eventually reveals to him that the orb itself is little more than a focus and an ancestor of Kenji's who used it to break the world was only able to do so because he (unwittingly) channelled his own [[Ki]] power through it [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|because he believed it had power.]]

* In ''[[Mana Khemia]]'', one of the characters' familiar spirits doesn't actually do anything and isn't actually magical at all; they're just a psychological crutch for the character, who is magically quite powerful and not human, but doesn't know it.

 

 

== Web Comic ==

* ''[http://www.cheshirecrossing.net/ Cheshire Crossing]'' plays this straight with Dorothy's ruby slippers; however, the slippers do possess some intrinsic power, since other characters can use them normally.

** And this intrinsic power is actually the power to mimic the abilities of the last person to wear them.

* In ''[[PvP]]'', Brent Sienna gives up coffee for health reasons. When the magazine is in crisis and desperately needs help, he insists on going back to coffee to give him his "edge." After his all-nighter, his girlfriend reveals that she has been bringing him [http://www.pvponline.com/2005/03/19/sat-mar-19/ decaf].

* In ''[[Angel Moxie]]'', when Alex's staff was broken, she seemingly lost her magic. Miya tells that staff is only act like focus to get her started, [[Lampshade Hanging|while saying how cliched it is]].

* At least for [[Questionable Content|Marten]] initially, the [http://questionablecontent.net./view.php?comic=1203 Worry Hat].

** It gets passed on to Hannelore later on.

** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0777.html Later], the trope gets a parodying. Just...because.

** Events seem to be heading this way, with [[Character Development|Maytag able to go on with her comedy act]] despite being magically stripped by a rival at the start of it. After a moment's hesitation, she even manages to joke about her situation.

* [http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F148.jpg This] ''[[Erfworld]]'' page heavily implies that Thinkamancy, and to an extent Foolamancy work this way

* [http://www.explosm.net/comics/1801/ Another parody], this time by [[Cyanide and Happiness]].

** {{spoiler|A slightly more sinister example is Rose's wands. Doc Scratch suggests that the real power was given directly to Rose by the horrorterrors and that the wands are a way to make her think she's working alone while actually doing their bidding.}}

* ''[[Amazing Super Powers]]'' shows a [http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/2009/11/all-on-your-own/ case] of overdoing this.

** Done a second time when Kim feels like she's lost her mojo when her signature costume gets shredded and is discontinued. However it was subverted in that it was less those specific clothes as having a distinct set of mission clothes, and with the help of some criminal fashion designers she's soon back to her ass-kicking ways.

* Played straight in the ''[[Powerpuff Girls]]'' episode "Cover Up" with [[Action Girl|Buttercup]] and a security blanket. Buttercup needs to be thoroughly convinced she can fight without the blankie after it's misplaced. Once she is, she gives it up and the girls' father Professor Utonium snatches it up claiming it had recently helped him create his newest invention.

* Used several times in episodes of the children's animation ''[[Dragon Tales]]''.

** [[Lovable Coward|Ord]] believes that he can only do aerial tricks with a lucky stone, but, upon unknowingly losing said stone, still is able to do the tricks. It turns out [[Anvilicious|as expected]].

* An episode of ''The New Adventures of [[Winnie the Pooh]]'' had Christopher Robin give Piglet a pair of "magical earmuffs" so that he could ice skate. Piglet loses the earmuffs, and believes that he cannot skate without them...until his friends are in danger. Naturally, Piglet saves the day, even without the "magic."

* On ''[[Wonder Showzen]]'', Chauncey chugs a vial of pure liquid imagination and becomes addicted. Later, the revelation that it was regular tap water all along instantly cures him.

** That's more of a subversion in that one would build up muscle using it, anyway (since the item in question is really heavy).

*** Also due to the fact that they stop your wrists from hurting after punching metal.

* A unique version was used in ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'' when XR's [[Black Sheep]] brother XL attacked him and stole a component from him called an AFD, which was believed to be the most important part of XR. Naturally, XR felt that without it, he was useless. In the end, however, it was revealed that the AFD was merely an Air Freshening Device and that what XR had in him that made him great was not in a robotic sense.

{{quote| '''Michelangelo:''' Oh, that's awesome stuff! What ''are'' those things, Sensei?<br />

'''Splinter:''' I believe they are commonly called...mothballs.<br />