Basic Trope: What makes a character strong is his friends.
- Straight: With the help of his friends, Bob becomes strong enough to defeat Emperor Evulz.
- Exaggerated: Everyone in the world is Bob's friend, and together, they all defeated the ultra-powerful, incomprehensible deity to save the universe with a friendship powered Zerg Rush.
- Downplayed: Bob's friends help him out but he does most of the work.
- Justified:
- As much as Bob is a powerful hero, Emperor Evulz is two times more powerful than him, and he can't defeat him without their help.
- Bob's advantage is less from any special powers friendship gives him, and more that having powerful friends fighting on his side gives him an eight to one advantage against Evulz.
- Combined Energy Attack.
- Evulz and minions backstabbing each other at the worst possible moments is what gives Bob and his friends the upper hand.
- Bob and the gang become Combat Pragmatists, and proceed to gang stomp the living shit out of Evulz.
- Inverted:
- Bob's worst enemies and detractors are what make him strong enough to defeat Emperor Evulz.
- Bob's solitary nature is what makes him strong enough to defeat Evulz because of the Conservation of Ninjutsu principle.
- Bob's solitary nature is what makes him weak in every battle.
- Bob's friends are what weakens him in a battle against Evulz.
- Bob gets more friends due to his very strength.
- Evulz has many VillainousFriendships he can rely on, allowing him to tap into the Power of Friendship and demolish Bob.
- Friendship-Hating Antagonist
- Subverted: It were to look like that Bob was going to win the battle via the support of his friends, but Evulz counteracts this by blasting Bob with a laser beam...
- Double Subverted:
- ...but Bob was only out for a few minutes. What made him survive the attack is his friends pleading him to get up and finally defeat Emperor Evulz.
- Alternatively, Bob cannot continue the fight after being shot with a laser... So his friends finish it for him, and they take Evulz down hard.
- Parodied:
- Bob and his friends sing an annoying song about how making and having friends is awesome, much to the displeasure of The Cynical loners.
- Bob and his friends sing about friendship which causes Emperor Evulz to have a nervous breakdown while covering his ears.
- Bob and his friends establish a religion called "Friendshipism", which is based around persuading loners to become friends.
- Bob and his friends act like prejudiced, self-righteous jerks who would make others feel bad about being loners.
- Friendship is a literal source of energy. For example, your TV will always work as long as you watch it alongside a friend, even during blackouts.
- Zig Zagged: Bob's friends shift between a Badass Crew and The Load depending on the episode.
- Averted: The reliance of friends is never encouraged to resolve a problem; villains or otherwise.
- Enforced: "Let's teach the viewers that friendship is the key to success."
- Lampshaded: "This was a team effort! I didn't win, we won."
- Invoked:
- Bob and his friends try to win over a loner by saying their friendship speeches.
- Bob tries to persuade a group of disgruntled allies to defeat Emperor Evulz together.
- Exploited: Bob uses his friends' support only for the sake of glorifying himself.
- Defied:
- "Friends? No thanks! I can defeat Emperor Evulz by myself. I don't need the extra help."
- Evulz acknowledges that a team of heroes is a greater threat to his Evil Plan than one hero, so he throws them an Apple of Discord.
- "Sorry, but I'm a loner. I'm not really interested in this whole friendship thing."
- There are villains where the power of friendship backfires on the hero.
- The villains know Bob’s using the power of friendship so they develop technology to counter it.
- Discussed: "If My Calculations Are Correct, this is Bob's 37th spiel about how The Team would prevail by the power of friendship." "You've been keeping count of the number of friendship speeches he has said? You're an absolute giga-chad."
- Conversed: "Great, this is the time where The Hero of this show spews a 'friendship conquers all' speech. Blah, Blah, Blah and what not." "Typical Bob."
- Implied: Bob is frequently compared to a hero in the backstory who went out on a similar adventure and failed to defeat their villain. The backstory adventurer is stated to be a loner.
- Deconstructed:
- It turns out Bob needs his friends to be strong enough to defeat Evulz. Too bad that they're being targeted one by one, and the group is slowly becoming weaker. Furthermore, the Big Bad is strong with the same logic.
- Nepotism and cronyism are known problems in magical kingdoms that run on the power of friendship...
- Bob relying on the power of friendship does him jack when All of the Other Reindeer is in play and everyone arbitrarily hates his guts.
- The Power of Friendship has a strange sense of conscience. Since it doesn’t power up loners, whether they are heroes, villains or the morally neutral. Plus it isn't limited to kind-hearted heroes, it can be accessible to 2 or more villains that are genuinely buddy-buddy with each other. Like Emperor Evulz with his best friend General Drake, plus it can be exploited by the
Lawful Neutral besties, Mayor Jake and General Thomas, the Chaotic Neutral chaps, Anarchist Andrew and Rogue Ryan and the True Neutral bros, Wild Card Willy and Generic Gene. - Because Bob relies so heavily on The Power of Friendship, he often doesn't train too hard when it comes to his own abilities. While the power of friendship is strong, eventually he encounters someone who is just vastly more skilled than he is even with the power of friendship; resulting in him getting his ass completely handed to him.
- The Power Of Friendship has been turned into yet another cliche, and thus more ammunition to be used to bully the characters.
- People who get stronger due to friendship are vulnerable to societal events that cut off interpersonal interactions, like a plague that puts everyone under lockdown. Due to less opportunities to spend time with their friends, these people find themselves weakened and in despair. Meanwhile, those who enjoy solitude are unaffected by the ramifications of said plague.
- The Power of Friendship seems impressive on paper, but in practice, it is really, really hard to pull off. Long-lasting friendships need a commonality to take root, they take time and effort to build, and people ought to truly accept each other as individuals despite their differences for that power to be effective. In situations where people superficially refer to each other as friends, but secretly distrust each other for one reason or the other (which proves to be quite common in the setting), the "combined energy attack" they pull off might as well hit like a wet noodle.
- As potent the Power of Friendship is, it is easy to be rid of it. Evulz sows discord among Bob's group, or otherwise finds a way to successfully convince Bob to leave his friends.
- The belief that friends grant strength (and hence, a lack of friends makes a person inferior) drives people to make more friends to pursue self-betterment, eventually becoming a meme. A closer inspection reveals that not everyone benefits from this ideal. To name a few, Alice is talented but feels inadequate due to a lack of friends. Bob enjoys his alone time but is ridiculed because of it. Charlie becomes so obsessed with making friends that he forces others to become his friends. Ultimately, the idea that friends grant strength causes problems that are not visible at first glance.
- Bob brings his friends to take on Evulz. Evulz calls on his friends to take on Bob. Bob's friends call on their friends, while Evulz's friends call on theirs. With everyone and their friends and friend of their friends getting involved, the small, contained conflict immediately escalates into a clusterfuck of epic proportions that engulfs the entire continent.
- Bob is actually The Sociopath who only forms friendships because of the power he gains from them. The moment better options come along, his "friends" become useless to him and are thrown aside like trash in favour of newer, stronger friends. Eventually, Bob burns enough bridges that his former friends all decide to jump him, and end up successfully beating Bob to death via a Zerg Rush.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob has learned to fight more independently while under his friends' wings; even with them dead or alienated from him, he can fight better and generally operate better than he could before he'd met them. Furthermore, Evulz mistakes his allies and associates for friends, making a poor justification for his actions. His "friends" don't work well and are disgusted by his actions and the effects they have. Whereas, Bob and his friends are True Companions who kindly help each other and even the "friends" of Evulz.
- At least nepotism and cronyism mean that the people around the throne are probably all on the same side.
- Bob learns from the loss and kicks up his own training far more to match his enemy; with the power of friendship proving valuable in overpowering them.
- When the result of having friends is being able to shrug off more damage than a T-800, becoming stronger than Hercules, more ferocious than Wolverine and shooting lasers as powerful as the Death Star at half-power (which is still a hell of a lot of power), then whining about how "my friends are my power" is a stupid cliche is just idiotic.
- Even if the more magical and sentimental implications of this trope have become a cliche, there is still nothing wrong at all with networking, fostering loyalty, pooling resources and knowledge, obtaining differing points of view for discussing a situation, and plain old strength in numbers.
- People who run on the power of friendship gradually adapt and overcome the plague via the internet/social media.
- While friendship can be a source of power, it isn't the only one. Social outcasts and those who prefer solitude can draw power from idealism, knowledge, and other things that matter to them. Alternately, outcasts team up with each other.
- Played For Laughs: Bob and Co. rely on "the power of friendship". What they mean by that is that they will dogpile their enemies to death.
Don't go back to the main page without The Power of Friendship, because friends are awesome!
