Emotional Powers

"Happiness! My floating power's tied to my emotions. [facepalm] Ugh, right, just like all my stupid powers!"

— Steven, Steven Universe, "Steven Floats"

Did you ever notice how many supernatural abilities, superpowers, or forms of Magic by Any Other Name are controlled by emotion? Kind of a part of Magic Versus Technology where Magic is emotional, and Technology is rational. In other words, you're about to learn exactly why you have to Beware the Nice Ones.

A more general version of Defence Mechanism Superpower and Traumatic Superpower Awakening without the required danger, Emotional Powers manifest themselves through emotion in the characters. What the emotions are will vary.

A character trying to work out How Do I Shot Web? may learn that the answer is Don't Think, Feel.

Compare Wild Magic. Supertrope to Angst Nuke and You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!. Compare and contrast with Psychoactive Powers and Personality Powers. Not to be confused with Emotion Bomb, The Empath, or Emotion Control. See also Unstable Powered Woman, for when feminine feelings and attitudes don't mix well with great powers.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• In Ah! My Goddess, although Goddesses have full control over their powers, emotion sometimes trigger unconscious outbursts of magic. For example, Belldandy loses control on herself when she gets jealous of other women flirting with Keiichi.
• A short manga story titled "Shouko of the Twilight" had the title girl making a contract with a vampire for magic. After futile attempts at Mundane Utility, Shouko loses her temper at the vampire...and it's discovered the magic is directly tied to her anger.
• Natsu of Fairy Tail is an example of this, as the flame of emotion that is the source of power for his Dragon Slayer magic causes him to actually become stronger the angrier he gets.
  • The same goes for other dragon slayers though Natsu is just such a hot head it's more noticeable.
  • Even the Juvia's magic power work in this way and in her is even more evident than Natsu. Not only does her power get a boost, when under particularly strong emotions she can cause her entire body to boil.
• In Ranma ½, Ki Manipulation is focused via the emotional state of the user (regardless of the type of emotion), and the deeper the emotion felt, the more powerful the attack. Also, the Counter-Attack "Hiryu Shoten Ha" requires that the user be calm while the opponent is excited/enraged.
• This is often implied in Nurse Angel Ririka SOS. No one talks about it in-universe, but the heroine's attacks are more dramatic when she's angry or has tapped into a new well of Heroic Resolve. Her Childhood Friend/sidekick often exhibits Defence Mechanism Superpowers.
• The power of Hokuto Shinken from Fist of the North Star is directly proportional to how angry its user is. At normal levels of anger, Kenshiro can break concrete with his fists. At full power, he can explode a goddamned TANK by punching the driver.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica has the characters' emotional stability double as their Mana meter. Accumulating too many negative feelings and/or overexerting from too much magic use causes the user to transform into an Eldritch Abomination that has to be killed by its former comrades.
• Dragon Ball Anyone with Saiyan blood has the potential to reach new levels of strength if sufficiently enraged. Human/Saiyan hybrids find it easier to pull off since by default it's in a Saiyan's nature to repress their emotions, while their human half nullifies this out.
• Bleach: Orihime's power to reject fate is directly tied to her emotions. Unfortunately, being an Actual Pacifist limits her combat abilities since her one offensive skill runs on Killing Intent. Which she doesn't have a whole lot of.
• Kagerou Project: All of the protagonists' powers were created when Azami, the original Medusa, felt strong emotions; for example, her offensively powered snakes were all born from the pain, confusion and anger when humans tortured her. Even when one of the leads has their powers under control, strong emotions can make them use it by accident.
• Though not outright stated, the powers seen in Pretty Cure are implied to be ran on emotional states. Some notable examples:
  • In The Movie of Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star have Saki and Mai's Cure forms cut out on them as they get into a terrible argument. Once they realize the error of their ways, apologize and mend bridges, their powers return.
  • Karen of Yes! Pretty Cure 5 was actually refused her powers the first time around because she wanted to act on selfish reasons. A change of heart thanks to a very determined Nozomi finally gets her her powers.
  • Tsubomi of Heart Catch Pretty Cure fluctuates in power because of her rebuilding self-esteem. By the end of the series, she's still pretty weak, but she makes up for it with the bonds made by her friends.
  • Part of the initial storyarc in Suite Pretty Cure ♪ had Hibiki and Kanade trying to work together as friends and Cures after finally overcoming an initial incident that ended their friendship. Since they need to be "in harmony" to get their powers to work properly, this is initially tough.
  • Hime of HappinessCharge Pretty Cure! is incredibly weak, having started out as a sheltered, shy and selfish princess scared out of her mind by the monsters she accidentally released and having what little self-esteem she has left crushed by Cure Fortune making sure she'd never hear the end of it. She gets better as time goes on, earning herself friends and gaining the confidence to overcome her fears. Also doesn't hurt that Cure Fortune eats a hefty helping of humble pie later on.
  • Doubled down in HuGtto! Pretty Cure as Homare is initially refused her powers due to her fear of failure stemming from a past trauma, which she ends up overcoming. Later on, Hana is hit with depression when she realizes that she's just a Jack of All Stats and has nothing unique going for her that it prevents her from transforming.
• One poor sap in My Hero Academia has embarrassment-powered Super-Strength. Later, a villain is introduced who has a similar superpower related to repressed stress.
• Getter Robo: Overcharged Shin Getter at the end of the Getter Robo Go manga is stated to draw power from its pilot's emotions.
• Black Clover:
  • The more out of control Asta's emotions get, the more his devil's power encroaches onto its host.
  • Because Rill's Picture Magic is based on his imagination, happiness gives Rill more fuel while negative emotions like frustration restrain it.
• Blue Reflection Ray: Reflectors are powered not only by their own emotions, but also the bond they share with their partner. They become weaker if they’re feeling doubt about themselves.
• Yui Kamio Lets Loose: Mushi abilities work when the victim expresses a specific feeling (fear for Honoka and peace for Ayako). Those who are emotionally prepared in advance don't get affected much.
• One Piece: After the Time Skip, Sanji becomes able to channel his anger to set himself aflame, a technique he calls "Hell Memories". Non-canon variant techniques are fueled on memories of Nami's sexiness, or his own dreams.

Comic Books

• Green Lantern: DC Comics has a whole slew of "Lanterns" from the modern mythology whose powers, via the entities from the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum, are based on their ability to feel and channel certain emotions; the two most notable in the context of this trope however are arguably the Star Sapphires (who apparently need to feel love to even have, let alone use their powers) and the Red Lantern Corps, whose powers are likewise fueled by Unstoppable Rage and who are recruited and given superpowers by their Power Rings in the first place only after they've hit an irrevocable Rage Breaking Point.
• Paperinik New Adventures: Xadhoom: According to what she says, if she ever loses control of her powers, she would GO NOVA'', and then she would become a black hole and swallow the entire solar system she's occupying.
• Saga: The fulmo spell is powered by doubt, meaning it's easier to cast if you aren't sure you can do it.
• Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan makes a ton of people around him asking questions disappear when he is really stressed.
• X-Men: Storm's powers are tied to her emotions- the stronger her feelings get, the less control she has. This is why she's so calm and serene most of the time- if she gets too upset she can accidentally cause devastating weather like tornadoes and thunderstorms by accident.

Fan Works

• Bird features this as a major theme. There are several parahumans that have an emotional element, Elle might be the best example, actively shaping her imaginary worlds using her emotions as a blueprint. On the other end of the spectrum, Mimi's powers directly alter her brain chemistry, encouraging reckless behavior and inducing a state that is not unlike Sociopathy or Psychopathy.
• Child of the Storm has Harry as a particular example, largely because he's psychic - due to his tendency to bottle up his emotions until he masters his powers, he tends to have a fairly epic case of Power Incontinence whenever he loses control of said emotions. The results of this can vary from giving a fellow psychic a nasty Psychic Nose Bleed and/or causing every object in a room to start floating, to accidentally trapping himself in a memory of a vicious superpowered pitched battle where Your Mind Makes It Real. It is the latter instance that convinces him that he has to learn how to control his powers, because if he doesn't, he will end up doing someone permanent damage.
  • More generally, when he gets angry the air tends to heat up around him and his powers pack significantly more of a wallop when he's angry. As of the sequel, if he gets really angry, a smell of wood-smoke begin to develop, as a sign of the Phoenix's emergence. This is generally an excellent time to start running.
• Cinders and Ashes: the Chronicles of Kamen Rider Dante marries this trope with Elemental Powers, to the point where a lot of the emotional spectrum is covered by a lot of the elemental spectrum and then some. While several of them are easy to guess (for example, the protagonist's main power is Burning with Anger), others aren't as obvious, such as Ice needing someone to be cold-blooded, which is speculated in-universe to either be doing something without mercy or just outright being dead.
• A Game of Cat and Cat: "The Hunt Begins" shows that when Soma uses the Ukoback souls' fire magic, it can get hotter if he gets angry.
• Paradoxus: Fairies need positive emotions (and good mental health) to fuel their magic. In the Winx Club canon, this was more of an informed drawback. The authors of Paradoxus, however, exploit the idea so their main characters (Altalune, Trisha, and Stacy) actually struggle to call on their magical affinities and fairy transformations because of too much trauma from the war. That's the reason we almost always see them relying on the abilities they learned in Azeroth, where magic is more about channeling external sources than drawing from oneself. Only when Character Development kicks in, they are able to access their fairy magic.
• In Take a Stand: The Broken Mirror, Retsuko's power —causing the ground to quake— is triggered when she gets angry.
• In Zero Context: Take Out the Trash, this is the basis of Callista's Super Mode. Focusing on her anger and sadness turns her ears black and amps up her speed, subsequently making her claws much sharper but also making her much more combat-happy. If she's able to get a grip on her emotions while in this state (which is a feat in itself), her ears turn white and she becomes much more stable and serene, belying her ability to invoke You Are Already Dead on the poor fool that underestimates her.

Film — Animated

• In Hercules, Hades' ordinarily blue Flaming Hair flares up and turns orange when he's angered. When he hears that his heroic nemesis is still alive, he incinerates part of a forest in a flash fire.
• Frozen (2013): Elsa's powers of ice and snow go haywire when she feels fear or anxiety. Unfortunately, her parents' attempts to help her control them do more harm than good; because she's kept isolated and encouraged to "conceal it, don't feel it," Elsa ends up bottling up her emotions and avoiding almost all contact with those she loves. The end result is a massive panic attack that plunges the kingdom of Arendelle into Endless Winter. Fortunately, as Anna helps her discover, genuine love lets her not only control her powers, but reverse their effect completely.
• Encanto: Pepa’s powers are weather-based depending on her mood. If she’s ever in a bad mood, she could potentially cause severe weather like a tornado or a fierce thunderstorm. She tries to keep herself calm by repeating her little mantra, “clear skies, clear skies” to prevent herself from getting upset. She once created a hurricane at her own wedding because Bruno told her “it looks like rain”, which she interpreted as him predicting her wedding would take place in a storm.
• Turning Red: Mei's family ability to turn into a red panda is caused by feeling strong emotions such as excitement or anxiety. Before getting a handle on it, she often transforms against her will and becomes stuck that way because of the anxiety of transforming, best exemplified when her excitement from calming down enough to turn back immediately transforms her again. Unfortunately, in this form emotions are also stronger, and a negative mental state can easily be tipped over into rampaging, which inspired a culture of strict emotional control in the family.

Film — Live-Action

• In the Star Wars movies, Jedi focus their Force training on calming the mind and keeping emotions under control. The Sith focus their Force training on exploiting emotions.
• In Ghost (1990), Sam seeks out the subway ghost and refuses to leave until the other ghost teaches him how to actually touch and move solid objects. The secret involves gathering up as much intense emotion as he can - good and bad - in order to move things around:
  Subway Ghost: You've gotta take all your emotion, all your love, all your pain and push it way down deep into the pit of your stomach and let it explode like a reactor. Pow!
• In the film version of Matilda, Matilda's telekinesis first displays itself when her father rips up her library books and tries to force her to watch TV with the rest of the family.
• X-Men Film Series
  • X2: X-Men United: Discussed by Jean Grey and Scott Summers. She dismisses her short bursts of Power Incontinence as stress; he says her nightmares make the whole bedroom shake.
  • X-Men: The Last Stand: When Storm is upset, the clear sky suddenly turns into a very cloudy one.
  • X-Men: First Class:
    • Erik Lehnsherr is originally only able to use his powers when extremely angry. The first two times, it involves maternal separation. However, he can't properly focus it until Charles coaches him to concentrate on happier emotions.
    • Raven Darkholme's mental state influences the effectiveness of her mutant ability. ^note While Raven had intentionally used her powers in that scene, Charles seemed to accept that she does sometimes lose control.
      Raven: You know I can't control it sometimes if I'm stressed or I'm tired.
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past: In the "X-Men Unguarded" group discussion on The Rogue Cut Blu-Ray/DVD, James McAvoy explains why his character's distress causes his telepathy to go haywire, and more specifically, why Xavier can no longer separate everyone else's pain from his own.
    "[...] Charles as I've had the opportunity to play him, is a voyeur. So he's a genius, and he's got this ability to read people's minds. But his real power is a very human thing, his real gift is empathy. He can empathize with people's problems and he can help them. But as a young man, I think, certainly the way I tried to play him, is that he was much more kind of like a posh guy fascinated with working class guys. [...] And then what happens in this movie and the end of [First Class], you give him his angst, you give him his thing that makes him just like everyone else. And therefore he can't be a voyeur inside people's minds anymore. He's a passenger on the same train, and the train is going to hell."
  • X-Men: Apocalypse: Because of her insecurities, Jean finds it exceedingly taxing to deal with her telepathy and her increasingly unstable "dark power." With the Professor's guidance and encouragement, however, she learns to let go of her apprehension at a critical moment during the climax, and Jean's newfound assertiveness enables her to achieve total dominion over the Phoenix.
• In Batman & Robin Poison Ivy's plants respond to her emotions and desires. When Robin was lured to her lair so she could seduce him the plants helped set the romantic mood by slowly closing behind him as he journeyed deeper into the lair and when he finally reached the center several leaves moved out of the way and a giant rose bloomed revealing Ivy, like curtains closing and opening. After Ivy became angered after discovering that Robin had tricked her though, she shoves him into the pond and her plants immediately turn on him, trying to drown him.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), this is how Sonic's offensive abilities actually work. His body starts producing blue lightning whenever he starts feeling anger, extreme joy, sorrow, etc. - while his eyes would turn from green to glowing blue. The first example of this power being shown was during the baseball scene where Sonic realizes that he is completely all alone and all the stress of being alone on Earth for 10 years causes Sonic to emit a powerful electromagnetic blast that caused a blackout across the Pacific. Come the end of the film, The Power of Friendship causes Sonic to consciously bring out his full power, and it is implied that he has learned to control this.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Wanda Maximoff's powers are heavily tied to her emotions, and they tend to act unconsciously when she loses control. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, feeling her brother's death leads to her emitting a telekinetic blast wave that handily obliterates all the Ultron mooks swarming her position. And in WandaVision, breaking down on the vacant lot where Vision planned to build a house for them to grow old in leads to her unconsciously creating a giant hex around Westview where everyone acts out roles in fantasies based on the American sitcoms Wanda grew up watching as a child.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): Yondu has to have a special crest installed in his head to control his Yaka arrow, but he guides the arrow with his heart. It's when he has strong emotions that he's able to use the arrow for maximum effect, such as wiping out a platoon of Sakaarans who demand he turn on the Nova Corps in the first movie because they struck a nerve regarding his backstory as a Kree slave, massacring the hundreds of Ravagers in the sequel who mutinied against him and killed his loyalists, or using the arrow to protect his adopted son during the climax as they work to stop Ego. This is even seen in lesser cases, like threatening one of his crew in the first movie who says they should have given Quill to Ego.

Literature

• Circleverse: Ambient magic is tied to the user's emotions. Niko starts training Tris before the other students, telling her that when she gets mad, bad things happen. He's not wrong.
• In the original novel of Matilda, her telekinesis first appears when she grows uncontrollably angry over being (loudly and violently) accused of something she did not do.
• Harry Potter: Bouts of involuntary magic happen to younger wizards in moments of strong emotion.
  • The Patronus Charm can only be cast by focusing on a very powerful happy memory.
  • Riddikulus, a spell that can be used to defeat boggarts, requires the caster to focus on something they find funny.
  • The Cruciatus Curse causes immense pain upon a victim is described by Bellatrix Lestrange to require the castor "to mean them" and to actually "want to cause pain", when taunting Harry after he attempts to use it on her for killing Sirius.
• In The Dresden Files, emotions can be a serious source of fuel for magical ability. In White Night in particular, Harry saves himself and another character by having the other character - a succubus - kiss him and supercharge his spells with lust. In Blood Rites, Murphy asks Harry why he just doesn't do the "pocket full of sunshine" trick on the Red Court vamps. Harry states that it turns out you have to be genuinely happy to make the spell work.
• Warbreaker used hair changing colours with emotions for the royal family.
• In The Underland Chronicles, Gregor has rager outbursts when he is angry.
• Manifestation: One of the main characters displays this. Gabby Palladino radiates a field of magical energy, which gets stronger when she is emotional. The effect is noticeable at key points throughout the story, but most noteworthy is when she kills a boy by overloading him with mana in a moment of sheer rage.
• Of Fire and Stars: At first Dennaleia's magic only works when she's feeling strong emotions, though also without control over them.
• In Spoonbenders, Frankie's telekinesis is dependent on his state of mind and he has little control over it even in adulthood. It seems to rely on his emotional wellbeing and is utterly powerless when he lacks confidence in himself, his constant failures not doing him any favors.

Live-Action TV

• Crash McLarson from The Aquabats! Super Show! can sometimes grow huge when his emotions are riled up.
• In Bewitched : Tabitha's powers are shown to develop in tandem with her wishes and feelings.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Willow is a partial example. Though her magic isn't explicitly stated as being emotional, an arc in season 6 has her going out of control after her lover Tara is killed. Willow is also offered a job as a Vengeance Demon in season 4 because her despair impresses D'Hoffryn.
  • After he leaves for a while, Oz reappears and he can't stay in control/human when he's emotionally unstable.
• Charmed:
  • The Charmed Ones all have powers that are linked to their emotions. Prue accidentally pushes everything off the shelves in a supermarket when she gets angry with Phoebe in the pilot. Piper first freezes something when she panics because she has run out of time while being tested in an interview to be a chef.
  • It is later elaborated that all powers are emotion-based, hence why Prue can enter Super Mode when she is cursed with Empathy, or why Phoebe can turn a demon's energy attack back on him when she receives Empathy as an active power.
• This comes up in Elseworlds (2018), the 2018 Arrowverse crossover event, when Oliver Queen and Barry Allen wind up in a kind of "Freaky Friday" Flip and have to figure out how to use the other's abilities. Oliver, a dark and brooding sort, has to tap into his joy and positivity to use the powers of the Flash, while Barry, who is very happy and optimistic, has to channel rage and pain in order to use the Green Arrow's Badass Normal skills.
• In Fate: The Winx Saga, this is the basis of everything related to magic, every fairy to use and effectively control their powers must have a good control of their emotions from which they draw their magical energy. Conversely, being overwhelmed by negative emotions can lead to both cases of unexpressed magic and Power Incontinence, as seen with both Bloom, Aisha and Stella.
• A large percentage of the Troubles on Haven are activated by strong emotional situations, and usually the only ways to end the Trouble is to resolve the Troubled person's emotional problem, or kill them.
• Jessica Jones (2015): In the first episode of season 2, Whizzer's speedster abilities only come out when he's scared.
• Kamen Rider Drive: Aside from Type Speed and Deadheat, Shinnosuke Tomari can only achieve Drive's Types by mastering a certain emotional state.
  • Type Wild: Shinnosuke must let his passion blaze to achieve this form.
  • Type Technic: Shinnosuke must become cool, calm, and collected to achieve this form. This was initially difficult as he's Hot-Blooded, until one enemy pushed him into the Zen of rage.
  • Type Formula: Shinnosuke must firmly believe in his bonds with his allies to achieve this form.
  • Type Tridoron: Shinnosuke must believe in his dedication to protect others to achieve this form.
• Mayfair Witches: Rowan getting really angry with someone results in her telekinesis activating to induce an aneurysm that kills or at least harms them.
• Common in Misfits. Curtis can only turn back time when he feels regret, and Simon at first can only turn invisible when he feels ignored.
• In Once Upon a Time, magic works from emotion, and characters channel their emotions in order to use their abilities. Most evil characters use their abilities by thinking about something bad that happened in their life and bringing that anger forward.
• The Power (2023): A lot of women and girls can only use the power initially when angry or fearful, such as while being attacked, with this spontaneoulsy activating due to their stress.
• The Rising: It turns out that Michael murdered Neve just because, in his mind, she disrespected him. He'd murdered Victoria for her insulting him and not returning his love.
• Roswell, New Mexico: Main character Max's Shock and Awe powers are tied to his emotions. His siblings' powers don't seem to be, though.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In "Acts of Terror", Louise Simonson has been subjected to terrible physical and emotional abuse by her husband Jack for years. After she receives a porcelain Doberman from her sister Susan for her birthday, her long repressed anger manifests in the form of a Doberman that tries to attack Jack. The angrier Louise gets, the more vicious the Doberman becomes. When she tells Jack that she hates him, the Doberman mauls him, injuring his face and arm. Louise is able to call the dog off and it is absorbed back into her. After she does so, she learns to accept her anger and finally musters up the courage to leave Jack. When Jack threatens to follow her wherever she goes, Louise retorts that he won't, and the Doberman appears in the seat next to her. She has seemingly learned to control her ability to manifest the dog.
• Zero (2021):
  • At first Omar can only turn invisible when he's very emotional.
  • Awa's ability is also triggered when she sees her boyfriend is kissing another girl.

Tabletop Games

• Pathfinder: Downplayed with Psychic Magic, which uses "emotion components" and "thought components" in place of Magical Gestures and Incantations. A psychic spellcaster suffering from an Emotion Control effect can't cast spells with emotion components, but otherwise, it's assumed that they can achieve the necessary emotional state at will.

Video Games

• Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: The Unversed are literally the embodiments of Vanitas' emotions.
• Super Princess Peach plays with this by giving the usually meek and pacifistic Princess Peach four powers based upon her temperament.
• Asura's Wrath gives the seven guardian generals their supernatural powers as a result of "mantra affinities" based on different emotion (in this case pertaining to the Seven Deadly Sins ). The stronger the emotion, the more powerful they become. One can guess from the title alone what the main character's mantra affinity is.
• In Disco Elysium, most of your skills are considered this. Not only do they chime in now and then with advice, but they all also have logical downsides to being over-leveled as well as under-leveled. "Shivers," your danger-sense (and your "sense of the city") can lead to blatant paranoia and anxiety when amped up. "Inland Empire," your imagination, more or less, can lead to you being surrounded by hallucinations. Your "Empathy" skill is not safe either, as it can become too eager to please everyone. Even the supposedly-emotionless skills will involve emotion when sufficiently invoked; Logical reasoning will leave you susceptible to intellectual flattery due to your pride in your intellect, and people with very good hand-eye coordination (and thus good fighting skills) will be too quick to jump to violence as a solution. The only notably exception is the Volition skill, which basically represents your self-respect and willpower; the only downside to overleveling it, is that you will keep you acting sane and normal and steer you away from crazier and self-destructive acts, making it a bit of a party-pooper.
• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • Bards are Archers who strengthen their allies through Magic Music. The source of their magic is the empathy they feel with those they fight beside. The first Bard was an Archer who sang to himself to calm his nerves during battle. As more of his fellow soldiers died around him, he continued to sing and hope they all survive the day, his song carrying a power that empowered his allies and win the day. The art of the Bard nearly went extinct because the empathy that made them Warrior Poets was dying out either due to military commanders hiring minstrels who never knew combat to perform as ineffective Bards or existing Bards embellishing the tales of their battles to the point of fiction and emotional disconnect.
  • The Endwalker expansion introduces a new source of energy to the game's universe separate from aether, first called akasha, then later dynamis. Dynamis is weaker than aether, but is more plentiful, estimated to be around 60% of all cosmic energy in the universe. Dynamis is influenced by powerful emotions to perform as many miraculous feats as aether can, sometimes to even greater effect. Dynamis is revealed to be the source of the Final Days as the Meteia (empathic Familiars created from dynamis) are using its power and the collective despair and hopelessness of extinct worlds to end all life in the universe. It's also suggested that your Limit Break ability is based off of this.
• In OMORI, having emotions in battle will confer specific effects to the character. Being Angry will increase the character's Attack but reduces their Defense. Being Sad will increase their Defense at the cost of Speed, as well as transferring some damage to Juice. Being Happy increases Speed and Critical Hit chance, but reduces accuracy. There are also higher tier Emotions (Enraged/Depressed/Ecstatic for second tier, Furious/Miserable/Manic for third tier) that will further increase/decrease the stat modifiers.
• Destiny 2: As revealed in Lightfall, this is the true nature of the Darkness. Whereas the Light governs physical forces in the universe, Darkness focuses on emotional forces, with Stasis representing El strong emotions and a desire for control, while Strand embodies peaceful emotions and an open mind. The negative aspects of this are explored with Stasis, as it will consume anyone who doesn't have the ability to stand up for themselves. This causes Eramis, the Kell of Darkness, to be frozen alive at the end of Beyond Light because she doesn't have any convictions of her own.
• This is how the spells in Perihelion work. The caster must enter an artificially-induced state of heightened emotion, which unlocks their latent psychic powers.^note These are different from godly powers, where the caster uses a small portion of their chosen god's living energy. It helps that the gods in the game's setting operate on an emotional alignment rather than a D&D-like moral alignment.

Webcomics

• Shigeo Kageyama from Mob Psycho 100 tries to keep his emotions firmly under lock and key due to the fact that feeling strong emotions can amplify his powers, something he has a decent reason to fear. This has gone on long enough he's developed a complex and usually expresses very muted emotions. But when put under enough emotional stress (represented by the percentage meter ticking up) his emotions, and therefore powers, break through his repression and surge, with Mob becoming expressionate, usually with the emotion that broke through.
• Muted: While the Severin family tends to favor seals and blood pacts to direct their magic, the LeRoux have powers that are more closely tied to their emotional state. Camille is initially confused when she asks Dendro for instructions on how to utilize plant magic, asking for incantations or signs that she can use to shape her magic instead of having Dendro tell her to "just feel it". After her formalized pact with Dendro, Camille discovers that plants around her will react strongly to her negative emotions like rage and fear.
• In UC, Kelsi’s doesn’t seem to have any conscious control over her shorting out electronics power. Instead it activates every time she is surprised or embarrassed. Like when her fellow cast member thinks she’s dating her friend Nicodemus.

Web Original

• A rarely used power of Trayen from Phaeton is to convert his emotion into energy and release it. Which is bad news for anyone when he gets mad, and it seems that it's taking less anger to make bigger blasts.
• In Worm, most parahumans' powers are more potent when they are in a similar emotional state to when they had their trigger event.
• Hanazuki: Full of Treasures: The Green Thumb abilities of Moonflowers need an emotional trigger to work, the emotion influences the form the new Tree takes.
• The Call of Warr: As much as she tried to keep her cool and play nice with the soldiers, Mabel had a moment of anger directed at Glintz-Terry, causing her to unleash a magical Hand Blast at him. Later, she admits that she was always emotional, and that sometimes it just comes out, no matter how hard she tries to prevent it.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender has a thing about Benders' emotions affecting their bending, and specific states of mind were required for each element. For instance, Zuko firebends by tapping into his anger. Later he discovers that his firebending is stronger when inspired by positive emotions, like a given love and passion for it. Conversely, Iroh states that a firebender can only bend lightning if they are sufficiently in control of their emotions and able to separate them.
  • A large concern in the earlier seasons is Aang's temper. His Avatar State, which turns him into a Person of Mass Destruction, is awakened by extreme distress or immediate danger. A large focus of his character development involves learning to accept and later control the Avatar State.
  • In the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, light and darkness are closely connected emotions. As Iroh put it, "In the Spirit World your emotions become your reality." Unalaq was capable of turning spirits dark by projecting his own anger and negative emotions, while Korra eventually learned to purify spirits by using her own inner peace and balance.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: The villain named Father can coat himself with and manipulate fire, but he flares up accordingly as he gets angrier.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Strong emotions can actually increase the power of spells being casted, which can account for some of the Strong as They Need to Be moments the cast (particularly Twilight) have. Starlight Glimmer, the Big Bad of Season 5, pretty much admits that part of the reason her magical abilities are so strong is that she channels her emotions into them (and she had lots of feelings of hate and revenge to tap into when she was a bad guy).
  • "Top Bolt" implies that a pegasus pony's flight skill is at least partially tied to their confidence, which is borne out by other episodes — for example, Fluttershy is a poor flier, while Rainbow Dash is the fastest pegasus alive. The former has shown bursts of far greater ability than normal out of unusual states of confidence while the later has shown severe drops in her ability when her usual confidence wavers.
• Samurai Jack: "Jack and the Creature" involves a big, clumsy, simple-minded, oafish creature following Jack around and causing Jack all kinds of trouble by accident. Eventually Jack becomes fed up and yells at the creature to go away. Obviously heartbroken, the creature leaves and starts crying by itself. Then Jack is ambushed by some of the deadliest robotic villains he's ever faced. Normally, robots are minor roadblocks at best, but these ones easily defeat Jack. The oafish creature witnesses this and suddenly transforms into a terrifying berserk monster who shows no mercy and easily destroys the robots with little effort, even though one tries to flee. Once the robots are destroyed, the creature calms down from its berserk state and turns back into its prior innocent self. Jack wakes up and figures out what happened, even though the creature doesn't seem to remember. Jack lets the creature know he forgives it, and while the creature doesn't seem to understand why it's happy that Jack is its friend again.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "An Embarrassment of Dooplers", Dooplers are a species that involuntarily duplicate in response to emotional stress, usually embarrassment. Inversely, duplicates merge together when angered or offended.
• Steven Universe: Most of Steven's Gem powers first activate when he's in a heightened emotional state, fitting his status as The Empath and an All-Loving Hero (traits he inherited from his mother). He initially suffers from some Power Incontinence as a result, but he gets the hang of it over time.
• Teen Titans (2003): "Switched" has this as the premise. Raven and Starfire switch bodies and each has to learn to use the other's powers in other to save the rest of the team. The problem is that, while Starfire's abilities are based on freely expressing her emotions, Raven's require complete emotional control lest she inadvertently destroy her surroundings. As a result, the two have considerable trouble controlling each other's abilities.
• Winx Club: When villains do something that pushes Bloom too far, she becomes Burning with Anger and Wreathed in Flames, letting them know that they're completely and totally screwed because she's about to unleash the full force of the Dragon Flame power on them.

Real Life

• A chameleon's color-changing ability is not tied to its surroundings, but rather a combination of temperature as well as its current mood. What color each emotion represents can vary depending on chameleon, but they generally darken their colors when frightened and turn brighter colors when excited.

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