History Main / PoweringVillainRealization

* ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'': Played with. Tarot, the avatar for the goddess Dragon, knew Dragon's power was slave to the rules of her CosmicChessGame, which required Tarot's cooperation to function. it was ''Dragon'' who was too short-sighted to see how disastrous mistreating that power-supplier would be. Tarot put up with so much during her career with Dragon, the goddess never thought for a moment Tarot would turn against her, or even disliked her; But as soon as Tarot and King have time to talk without being spied on by their respective gods, the two agree to put their weapons down and cease combat entirely, which takes away their power and ends The Game.

* ''Film/GirlVsMonster: The BigBad, Deimata, is powered by fear, same as all monsters. Skylar overcomes her fear of Deimata, but still isn't able to defeat her. She eventually realizes that her parents are powering Deimata with their fear for her safety and encourages them to trust her and not be afraid. When they do, she's finally able to defeat Deimata and put her back in containment.

[[folder:Literature]]

* ''Literature/ArifuretaFromCommonplaceToWorldsStrongest'': The final challenge of the Frost Caverns in volumes 8 and 9 is for the dungeon-delvers to battle {{Doppelganger}}s of themselves, which are meant to mirror their [[FatalFlaw character flaws]] to them and encourage them to overcome them--lest [[BigBad the god Ehit]] use those flaws against them. The duplicates are powered up by the flaws and weakened by overcoming them. Most of the characters figure this out and find ways to address the flaws, breaking the duplicates' power. [[SubvertedTrope However]], Hajime instead uses the duplicate to spot small flaws and inefficiencies in ''his fighting style'' and thereby destroys it by simply becoming a better fighter on the fly ({{justified}} by the fact the duplicate was based on a magical scan from when he entered the dungeon and has CreativeSterility), while Kouki [[spoiler:fails utterly to overcome his FatalFlaw, gets possessed by the duplicate and turned AxCrazy, and has to be beaten into submission by Hajime]].

*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E7DayOfTheDove Day of the Dove]]": An entity that feeds on hate and violence invades the ''Enterprise'', setting Kirk and Klingon Captain Kang and their crews against each other. Realizing that they're being manipulated, Kirk and Kang refuse to fight each other, Kang even giving Kirk a good-natured (for a Klingon) slap on the back that almost has the Captain reeling, but they manage to drive out the entity by refusing to feed it with their hatred.
*** "The Menagerie": Pike realizes that the Talosians cannot read strong, violent thoughts, and also that they rely on him to supply the imaginations they use to fuel the illusions they attempt to trap him in. So he sits in his cell, stewing in hatred and anger until the Keeper gets careless and Pike seizes him. [[note]]Footage came from the unaired pilot episode "The Cage".[[/note]]
*** In the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E4AndTheChildrenShallLead And The Children Shall Lead]]", the evil entity called Gorgan gets its power from the fact that the children believe it has power. When that belief is taken away, Gorgan dies rather messily.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E4Gambit "Gambit"]], Picard realizes that an ancient Vulcan weapon that a terrorist group has been trying to reconstruct was discarded by the ancient Vulcans because the weapon relied on the aggressive emotions of the victim to power it, and the Vulcans had no use for it when they embraced a path of total logic. He orders his security team to empty their minds of any aggressive thoughts, including Lt. Worf, who manages to do so, rendering the weapon utterly harmless against them.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "Hearth's Warming Eve", some ponies from ancient times are dealing with Windigoes -- demons that [[AnIcePerson cause blizzards]]. Eventually, it's revealed that the Windigoes feed on hatred, so the ponies need to [[PrejudiceAesop put away their prejudice for the other types of ponies]] in order to survive.

* At the end of ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'', the Nameless One meets the Transcendent One -- a godlike being that has been haunting him for the entire game, because [[spoiler:TTO is actually TNO's own mortality, which he had cast off millennia ago and which has been growing more intelligent and powerful each time he has cheated death ever since. One way to defeat TTO is for TNO to reintegrate it into himself, becoming mortal again and negating the source of its power]].

-> ''"Get off my ship. You're a dead duck here. You're powerless. We know about you, and we don't want to play. Maybe there are others like you around. Maybe you've caused a lot of suffering, a lot of history, but that's all over. We'll be on guard now, ready for you, so ship out! Come on! Haul it!"''
-->-- Capt. Kirk to the HatePlague entity, ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E7DayOfTheDove Day of the Dove]]"

[[folder:Web Comics]]

Not every villain has power of their own. Some are {{Emotion Eater}}s or run on the power of imagination. They may also cause, or take advantage of a HatePlague. As such, they tend to draw their strength from their victims.

** Aku brings to life a manifestation of Jack's anger and aggression, referred to as Mad Jack. Jack does battle with this being in one episode, until seeing himself reflected in a pool of water, he realizes the ugly truth, that he's the source of Mad Jack's strength. He embraces a form of inner tranquility to depower Mad Jack, even as the EnemyWithout is charging at him with his sword. He vanishes before he reaches Jack.
** In Season 5, Mad Jack returns, angrily demanding a monk return his sword to him. But Jack recognizes that Mad Jack is the worst part of himself, and utterly renounces him. This causes the gods to deem that Jack is once again worthy, and [[HesBack restore him to his proper form]], along with his sword.

* ''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'': [[spoiler:After being chased half of the movie by The Wolf, Puss has TheReveal that he's [[TheGrimReaper The DEATH himself]], who was bored about his "[[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu Puss in Boots laughs in the face of death]]" CatchPhrase so the Death himself goes for Puss' last life, being especially fueled with his fear after the reveal. In the FinalBattle, Puss decides to fight for his last life and his friends and fights back Wolf without hesitation or fear of death, which in the end makes Wolf frustrated, leaving him alive.]]

However, this has a tendency to backfire on such villains, as once the hero or heroine realize this, they are able to stem the flow of power, and take control of the situation.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'': In both encounters with the Boogeyman, the demon's nature on feeding on the fear of his victims is turned against him. In his first episode, the Carter kids decide that they aren't going to be afraid of him anymore, casting out such insults as his head is too big and he looks stupid. This allows the Ghostbusters to get past him and temporarily seal him in his own dimension. In his second appearance, a near fatal fall off of the World Trade Center has Egon in a state of primal fear, though he refuses to admit it. This allows the Boogeyman to free himself from his dimension, as Egon was one of the Boogeyman's former victims. But when the Boogeyman decides to go after the Junior Ghostbusters, Egon goes into PapaWolf mode, his anger and outrage overpowering his fear. He is thus able to free himself and his fellow Ghostbusters from the restraints that the Boogeyman had put them in, and whip up a plan to convert the Boogeyman from demon to ghost so that they could trap him in the Containment Unit once and for all.

** In Season 5, Mad Jack returns, angrily demanding a monk return his sword to him. But Jack recognizes that Mad Jack is the worst parts of himself, and utterly renounces him. This causes the gods to deem that Jack is once again worthy, and [[HesBack restore him to his proper form]], along with his sword.

* ''WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder'': In "The Troll", a troll attacks the fortress of Baaaaa-halla. As the Baaaaa-hallans attack, Wander just curls up by the fireplace. Sylvia at first thinks he's just being lazy, but as it turns out, the troll is an EmotionEater; it taunts the Baaaaa-hallans, and their angry reactions [[MakeMyMonsterGrow make him bigger and stronger]]. When he gets to Wander and starts taunting him, Wander does nothing... and the troll starts shrinking. Sylvia sees this and realizes what Wander is doing, and convinces the Baaaaa-hallans to also ignore the troll, until it shrinks down to a few inches small.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live Action]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''Franchise/StarTrek''

*** "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E7DayOfTheDove Day of the Dove]]". An entity that feeds on hate and violence invades the ''Enterprise'', setting Kirk and Klingon Captain Kang and their crews against each other. Realizing that they're being manipulated, Kirk and Kang refuse to fight each other, Kang even giving Kirk a good-natured (for a Klingon) slap on the back that almost has the Captain reeling, but they manage to drive out the entity by refusing to feed it with their hatred.

** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E4Gambit "Gambit"]], Picard realizes that an ancient Vulcan weapon that a terrorist group has been trying to reconstruct was discarded by the ancient Vulcans because the weapon relied on the aggressive emotions of the victim to power it, and the Vulcans had no use for it when they embraced a path of total logic. He orders his security team to empty their minds of any aggressive thoughts, including Lt. Worf who manages to do so, rendering the weapon utterly harmless against them.

This is a common way of defeating an EnemyWithout.Could lead to HeroicSuicide if the character has to die to cut off the villain's power.

* ''Film/TheMuppetsWizardOfOz'': At one point, the characters must cross a bridge guarded by two trolls who resemble [[TheHeckler those two grumpy old men in the audience]]. Their taunts make people fall off the bridge, but Dorothy realises that if they ignore their words, they won't fall.