Touched by Vorlons: Difference between revisions
m
→Literature
m (→Literature) |
|||
| (7 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|''You cannot harm me. You cannot stop someone who has been [[Trope Namer|touched by Vorlons]].''
|'''Lyta Alexander''', ''[[Babylon 5]]''}}
A character, initially having no unusual powers, [[Contagious Powers|gains them]] through interactions with [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|powerful aliens]] or [[Alien Space Bats|supernatural beings]]. Alternately, they might have very weak or useless powers amplified to godlike levels.
Line 16 ⟶ 17:
For the other kind of "touched" see [[Mars Needs Women]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[Bleach]]'':
Line 38 ⟶ 39:
* In ''[[Tenjho Tenge]]'', certain characters possess powers known as "Red Feather Powers." In addition to giving certain characters supernatural abilities that put them on a level far above that of normal humans, these powers have an additional effect known as Resonance, which means that people with powers, latent or otherwise, are stimulated by proximity to other people with powers. This results in either causing people with latent abilities to suddenly awaken their powers or enhancing the powers of people who are already awakened. Furthermore, the more people involved in the resonance effect, the greater its range and potency. This aspect leads the [[Big Bad]] of the series to try and use the resonance effect to awaken the supernatural abilities of every person in the entire world.
* In ''[[Tokyo Underground]]'', the main character Rumina gains the ability to manipulate air, after dying, and being brought back to life from a kiss by Ruri, the "Maiden of Life".
* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has numerous girls getting supernatural powers by way of a magical contract with Negi. At least those that didn't have powers to begin with.
* In ''[[Baccano!]]'', a number of eighteenth century alchemists [[Deal with the Devil|summon a demon]] to grant them [[Immortality]]. The demon complies, tossing in the extra of being able to kill other immortals and [[Ghost Memory|steal their memories]], mostly for the the [[Hilarity Ensues|inevitable lulzy results]] of [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|giving twenty quarreling people stuck on a boat a reason and the means to kill each other]]. He is not disappointed.
* Near the end of ''[[Hellsing]]'', it turns out that the Doctor created Millenium's "vampires" by {{spoiler|infusing people with tiny bits of the corpse of Mina Harker, one of Alucard's aka Dracula's past victims, who survived and died as a human but still carried some of his power inside herself. So all of Millenium's vampires were Touched By Alucard.}} Small wonder that none of them really stood a chance against him.
* In ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' and its sequel, nearly all the original Digidestined were children who had been present personally for a massive battle between two Digimon, and the majority of the others seem to have witnessed the battle that took place on the internet. This seems to suggest that the only way to get a VIP pass into the [[Cyberspace|Digital World]] is by being touched by Digimon.
* This was [[Fan Disservice|played for horror]] in ''[[Berserk]]'', when {{spoiler|Femto viciously raped Casca, who was pregnant with her and her lover Guts's child at the time. The baby was at first developing as a normal human in the womb, but when the fetus came in contact with Femto's demonic essence, it became [[The Grotesque|deformed]] and took on [[Fetus Terrible|a nature of evil]], and was eventually miscarried due to the trauma Casca endured. However, due to it being a supernatural being born between worlds, the Child survived and continued to linger around its parents, [[Love Redeems|actually helping]] and [[Parents in Distress|protecting them]].}}
** In retrospect, all Apostle Spawns are created this way, since an Apostle can taint a normal human's life with their demonic powers.
Line 67 ⟶ 68:
* A number of the supers in [[Empowered]] gained their abilities through "contact" with aliens. Alien STDs interacting with humans = [[Hilarity Ensues]].
* ''[[PS238]]'' had a few kids who met the Lords of [[Order Versus Chaos|Order and Chaos]] develop ability to see their minions (mostly [[Shoulder Angels]]/[[Good Angel, Bad Angel|Imps]]). Which appears to have been part of said Lords' plan all along. Alec after meeting those minions, a descendant of ''both'' and visiting a place from where they tried to invade his world ''en masse'' began to [[Geometric Magic|draw pictures]] that did strange things, like opening portals somewhere else or trying to devour other pictures. Even when he ''doesn't'' try to do something like this.
* [[Dr. Doom]] has the ability [[Body Surf| to psionically transfer his consciousness into another nearby being]], while transferring said being's consciousness into his body; he claims he learned this "trick" from an alien race called the Ovoids.
==
* In ''[[Divine Blood]]'' there are several examples.
** Ranma early on commiserates that she's not quite a "non-magical" being any more given the changes that constant exposure to supernatural energies has wrought on her, not the least being her [[Rape as Backstory|rape and]] [[Child by Rape|impregnation]] [[Half-Human Hybrid|by three]] [[Divine Parentage|of the Greek Gods]]
** It is shown that both Demons and Gods have used their method of achieving immortality to recruit mortals of random sentient species to their ranks. Currently, the target is human (and assorted subraces) since there aren't many other sentient species that aren't immortal. {{spoiler|and humans have recently stepped up to produce their own immortals}}
*
{{quote|'''Varx:''' I don't think we have a choice, Shag, unless you want half of our heroes feeling ''real'' inferior to the other half.}}
== Film ==
Line 118 ⟶ 119:
* In ''The Featherbedders'' by Frank Herbert it's a reason why telepathic Slorin only rely on [[Metamorphosis|polymorphing]] to infiltrate societies they are parasiting upon.
{{quote|[[Jedi Mind Trick|A nudge from the Slorin mind-cloud]] helped, of course, but this carried its own perils. The nudged mind sometimes developed powers of its own - with terrifying results.}}
{{quote|Next time you find a blob of something jes' lyin' in a field, you leave it alone, hear? [...] It was you made him so dang strong, pokin' him that way. Slorin aren't all that strong 'less'n you ignite'em, hear?}}
* The Great Race of Yith are a [[Proud Scholar Race]] of [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] who first appeared in [[H.P. Lovecraft]]’s story “The Shadow Out of Time” and are referenced in many later stories in the [[Cthulhu Mythos]]. These interdimensional beings have a unique way of exploring and studying the universe; they use their potent [[Psychic Powers]] to [[Body Surf|swap their minds with natives of the worlds they wish to study]], placing the victims’ minds in their bodies. Now, victims of this mind swap are prisoners, but the other Yith are smart enough to know such prisoners are no threat to them and have no means of escape (where would they go?), so a human stuck in a Yith’s body is allowed to do whatever he wants. Many of them use the time to peruse the Yiths’ vast libraries containing knowledge accumulated over eons of this practice (done with countless races other than humans, including primordial beings who inhabited the Earth before humans) and when the Yith’s project is complete and it reverses the process, the human retains that knowledge - which is often the type [[These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know|humans were never meant to learn.]] Several human villains in Lovecraftian stories have been “touched” in this way by a Yith.
== Live Action TV ==
Line 153 ⟶ 154:
* In ''[[Threshold]]'', people exposed to the Alien signal gain superhuman strength, resilience, and the desire to infect others. [[Your Head Asplode|Or they die]].
* In a way, the demons of ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]''. They were [[Was Once a Man|once human]] souls that were twisted in hell (The first one turned by Lucifer himself) and became what could be described as Uber-Ghosts.
* Naturally, the ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' were given their powers by their mentor, Zordon. This Trope held true for most teams in the franchise up until ''[[Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue|Lightspeed Rescue]]'' where the team's benefactor was a government military organization.
== Religion ==
Line 204 ⟶ 205:
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', Immortals can imbue a person with subtle magical abilities and start them down the road to more magic if they have a strong yearning for something or if they have an affinity for something specific. They can also unlock a person's natural latent magical abilities to be able to start getting access to and using explicit spells. Mainly by giving a [[Power Tattoo]] that grants one spell to someone who had any sort of affinity to it, even if normally the user could never acquire it. Actually having power to ''use'' a given spell is another matter, but straightforward channeling of raw power into a magic user also falls within "[[Alien Non-Interference Clause|empower and advise]]" limitations; in the continuity it was only used once, to boost a "summon [tiny familiar]" spell into "summon [small army]" (which also dazed the newly baked magic user enough to think using it this way was a good idea, but since no actual harm to him was done, it's still considered "fair game").
* In ''[[Black Adventures]]'', [[The Missingno|Missingno.]] bitch-slaps Mary, injuring her eye. Her next appearance reveals that she has obtained some of [[Missing No]].'s powers, which she uses to help her and Joseph get the upper hand against Black.
* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', the [[Filler Strips|filler story]] "Stick Figure Tales of Cotton", Torg and Riff both gained superpowers from a group of aliens ([[It Makes Sense in Context|that were actually the author's hand]]) after going through some parodic superhero origin stories that didn't actually give them any powers.
* In ''[[The Order of the Stick]],'' Vaarsuvius briefly receives power-up from several fiends in exchange for a seemingly minimal price to {{spoiler|stop a vengeful black dragon from killing V's mate and children.}}
== [[Web Original]] ==
| |||