When someone has powers that relate to Casting a Shadow, a very common way their attacks may manifest is as black tendrils or tentacles of darkness that grab or swipe an opponent. Sometimes they operate like normal tentacles and simply restrain or crush the target, other times they may actually blast the target with energy as a way to harm them. Almost always Combat Tentacles.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Bungo Stray Dogs: Ryunosuke Akutagawa Ability is called "Rashomon". It allows him to alter the his black Badass Longcoat into various shapes, including black tendrils.
- Fullmetal Alchemist. The homunculus Pride has tendrils of darkness that appear from shadows and function like normal tentacles, though they can also sprout eyes.
- This is basically what the Quirk “Blackwhip” is in My Hero Academia. It allows the user to summon tendrils of dark energy. The first user, the pro hero Lariat, also became a wielder of One For All, and now it can be used by the current One For All user, Izuku Midoriya.
- In Naruto Shikamaru's "Shadow Stitching" jutsu causes thin tendrils of his shadow to impale opponents.
- Shadow type magic in Negima! Magister Negi Magi acts in this manner: creating physical darkness in the form of black tendrils which violently cut things, which one shadow-user Kagetarou used to slice the titular character's right arm clean off. Being that they were in a magic world which had advanced medicinal techniques, he had it re-attached. Recently, a shadow mage has appeared who's so powerful he's capable of pulling Haruna's Cool Airship out of the sky (along with several others). It's explicitly compared to Cthulhu.
- Radiant: It is revealed through the Sidh that when Seth as well as all of his horned brothers enters his Superpowered Evil Side a large shadowy being takes over his will with hundreds of tendrils making him go berserk but still being conscious of his situation, however after Myr's training is possible to hide his presence from it while retaining the power boost, it's unknown what it is, except that has a relation to their elder brother Piodon.
- Yaiba, the Kishin of Darkness Dark can summon tentacles of darkness to attack anyone who sunk inside his Delta Zone.
Card Games
- Magic: The Gathering: The card Grasp of Darkness
shows tendrils of tangible shadow reaching out from the ground to ensnare a robotic angel.
On a world with five suns, night is compelled to become an aggressive force.
Comic Books
- The Darkness: Jackie's powers (Which actually come from a source called "The Darkness") include a pair of Combat Tentacles with maws that can grab people or tear them in half, among other things.
- The DCU has a number of shadow manipulators who can do this such as Raven, The Shade and Nightshade.
- Venom: Venom (Donny Cates) reveals that the symbiotes are comprised of "living abyss" — the Power of the Void wielded by the primordial god of darkness Knull, and therefore all the tendrils and pseudopods that symbiotes project are this by default.
Film — Animation
- BoBoiBoy: The Movie: Fang stealthily grows tendrils of shadow from behind him while Bora Ra is busy talking in order to connect everyone for Ochobot to teleport them all out of harm's way. Unfortunately, Kiki Ta foils this by shooting Ochobot just before he can activate his power.
Film — Live-Action
- Thor: Love and Thunder: This is Gorr the God Butcher's forté. He uses his tendrils to trap Thor, his companions and their weapons during their encounters with him multiple times.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons: The Evard's Black Tentacles spell creates a large number of black tentacles within an area. They grab anything in the area and try to squeeze it to death, including inanimate objects.
- The third power of the Obtenebration Discipline in Vampire: The Masquerade allows the user to create black tentacles that act on the creator's will and do as they command.
Toys
- In BIONICLE the Makuta have a variation of this with the "shadow claw" ability, which has been seen to harm or kill those grabbed by it, simply grab a hold of objects, or pull things (and people) into their body to be absorbed.
Video Games
- In Dark Cloud the true Dark Genie uses these to restrain the sun giant before destroying it.
- Both The Darkness games have shadow combat tentacles. They become more powerful in the second game, offering several brutal methods of instant killing enemies.
- Hollow Knight: The Void Tendrils are enemies found late in the game. Unlike most examples of this trope, they appear to be independent forces...maybe.
- In Kingdom Hearts, whenever Sora taps into dark powers with Anti-Form or Rage-Form, tendrils of shadow will be radiating from his body and will lash out at enemies with certain radial attacks.
- Pokémon Diamond and Pearl: both the forms of Giratina have tentacle-like wings made of shadow. As shown in Pokémon-Amie, they can't be grabbed or cradled, for they're as transparent as you may expect from a ghost.
- [PROTOTYPE] and [PROTOTYPE 2]: Both Alex Mercer and James Heller can form black and red Combat Tentacles.
Webcomics
- Black Mage's superpowered form displays these in 8-Bit Theater, even using them to spear White Mage.
- In Concession Joel's astral form fights with shadowy Combat Tentacles.
Western Animation
- Di-Gata Defenders: Seth's Twisting Chaos spell has two effects; it either creates a giant worm of black energy or it grants him four shadow tentacles which increase his physical strength and mobility.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Nergal and Nergal Jr. can both create shadowy tentacles from their backs.
- Aku, from Samurai Jack is the shape-shifting master of darkness. Many of his forms have tentacles of darkness.
- In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, the Nibiru Entity's original form looks like a disembodied shadow, with tentacles coming out of it every which way.
- Raven from Teen Titans (2003) can do this. She has powers similar to those of Green Lantern and can cast objects and body parts made of pure darkness. But when black tendrils come from under her robe, that's a sign that things are getting dangerous.
