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Playing With Fire / Literature

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Examples of Playing with Fire in literature.


  • Implied and discussed the second chapter of Abominable, when we're introduced to Finn, who Stephanie tells us is a phoenix.
    "How, exactly," I said, very slowly, "is it practical to try intimidating a phoenix at a gas station?"
  • Air Awakens: Firebearers of the West have control over fire and cannot feel heat or get burnt.
  • In Among the Beasts and Briars all members of the Aloriya royal family can create and control flames.
  • The Anna & Elsa book A Warm Welcome is about a queen whose uncontrollable heat powers causes her kingdom to be stuck in an eternal summer, in a parallel to Elsa having done the inverse.
  • In Artemis Fowl, all goblins can generate fireballs at will. While their skin and internal surfaces open to the air (such as the inside of the nose and moth) are entirely fireproof, they can still be damaged when the fireballs detonate (as demonstrated in the first book when a goblin sucks a fireball up his nose in order to blow it right back out but is thwarted when his nostrils are blocked and the fireball explodes inside his oral-nasal cavity).
  • Carrie had various powers, including psychokinesis and pyrokinesis.
  • The Chronicles of Dorsa: Tasia reveals that she's learned magic by conjuring up a small fire over her palm for light in book three, which unnerves her lover Joslyn.
  • "Clockpunk and the Vitalizer" has Dr. Awesome, though we don't get to see him in action.
  • In Codex Alera, firecrafters could generate enormous bursts of flame and heat or otherwise control fires. They also have the ability to evoke powerful emotions in others, such as anger or terror; the best orators in Alera are firecrafters for this exact reason.
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses: Lucien, as well as the rest of his family such as his father, Beron, have the power of controlling and creating fire.
  • Cursed World: Main protagonist Rei Scios discovers early on that she is a Pyromancer, someone with an inherent, emotion-based supernatural ability to create and control flame. Flame's hot enough to instantly burn a living human to ash. Rei's mother is also a pyromancer, whose powers are more nuanced and include healing minor cuts and bruises and, in a moment of Power Incontinance, flash boiling water.
  • The Sharra Matrix in the Darkover series. A powerful psychic amplifier designed to invoke the Form of Fire, which at least one character claims is a sentient other-dimensional entity, either a Physical God or Eldritch Abomination depending on how you look at it. In any case, using the matrix makes the users Ax-Crazy. In The Heritage of Hastur some rogue psychics use it to destroy a spaceport.
  • In Destined to Lead all feas can technically unlock this power and use it, but Kajiya seems particularly found of it as a self-defense technique. Well, when battling spiedes at least.
  • Hector Hell in Devil's Cape is this, having been the fire-eater before his carnival troupe developed their powers.
  • The first screamer we see in the web-novel Domina has this power. She doesn't use it much, though — probably because she's a near-mindless zombie.
  • Dora Wilk Series has magical furies and infernal pyres, both of which can control fire, although it takes time to learn how to do this without burning everything and everybody in sight at the slightest strong emotion, leading to both furies and pyres being outcasts in their respective societies. Out of characters in story, Laoise and Katarzyna are half-furies, while Miron becomes a pyr due to freak magic accident.
  • Dragonvarld: The false monks set everyone who was with the traveling circus on fire using the flames of their torches, which shoot out forming into balls that quickly burn them into ashes.
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Harry Dresden prefers fire evocations, with a minor in wind and force, except for a period where, after being horribly burned with a flamethrower, he actually became pyrophobic. There was also the time period where he had a fallen angel living in his head that granted him access to Hellfire. The Hellfire has since been replaced with Soulfire, which is sort of Hellfire's opposite number. Instead of being like a really bad bank loan, with immediate payoffs but nasty costs later, it's more like an investment; the costs are immediate (using it dips into his actual specific soul, draining life force which may or may not grow back), but the gains are much greater and more constructive than the brute force of Hellfire.
    • Sidhe of the Summer Court also tend to use fire-based magic, though theirs is usually described as more gentle than destructive, in opposition to the cold-based magic of the Winter Court.
    • It should noted that for human base magic, Harry uses "Fuego" as his magic word to summon fire because of the mental connection he makes between it and the power. If he used English words, such as "fire" every time he thought or said "fire" cue summon. So one time when Harry was truly and righteously pissed at his enemy, he cried out "Fuego. Pyrofuego! *Burn!*" Sometimes, though, he needs only a small flame. For lighting candles, it's "Flickum Bicus."
  • Fire Masters/Mages in the Elemental Masters series by Mercedes Lackey. Most of them end up married to Air Masters, as those two elements are strong allies and very compatible, since Air feeds Fire.
  • The Empirium Trilogy: Firebrands are people who can manipulate fire.
  • Fancy Apartments has Tisa the jinn and her elemental control of fire. Tisa also, when in jinn form, has flaming eyes and hair.
  • Charlie McGee from the Stephen King novel Firestarter is a pyrokinetic. She can set anything on fire, even fireproof materials, and doesn't appear to have limits; her problem is stopping. According to The Other Wiki, this is the book that coined the term 'pyrokinesis'.
  • Forest Kingdom: Multiple sorcerers have been seen using this, including Prince Viktor in Book 2 (Blood and Honor).
    • In the Hawk & Fisher spinoff series' book 1, it's shown that succubi are capable of generating and controlling fire.
    • In the Hawk & Fisher spinoff series' book 6 (The Bones of Haven), the Special Wizards And Tactics squad have use of magical incendiary grenades, which are actually frozen moments in time from an exploding volcano.
  • Grimoire's Soul: The Firemite is a species of termite native to Kesterline's tropical rainforest that can breathe fire.
  • In The Guardians (Meljean Brook), Each Guardian has a unique Gift related to their life. Alejandro's Gift is creating, manipulating, and shielding from fire, which works well in tandem with his ex-lover's Gift of metal.
  • In the Harry Potter series, it's strongly suggested that Albus Dumbledore's weapon of choice is fire. Amongst other things, he uses fire to intimidate the young Tom Riddle and to fight off the Inferi guarding the fake locket in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
  • Heralds of Valdemar:
    • Lavan Firestorm from Brightly Burning. He even has to get mad before his powers will manifest at first; fiery temper, indeed...
    • Elsewhere in the Valdamar stories, it's mentioned that self-taught magic users typically figure out how to call fire as their first spell. An evil wizard uses this tendency to set a trap at one point...
  • Her Crown of Fire: Rose is an incredibly talented fire mage, able to master fire magic like breathing. Most of her effectiveness at controlling fire is instinctual, as she hides her talent from most of her teachers and receives little to no instruction in elemental magic.
  • Leo from The Heroes of Olympus is one of the few sons of Hephaestus to have the ability to create and control fire.
  • In Sarah Kuhn's Heroine Complex; the demon hunting defender of San Francisco Aveda Jupiter is a parlor trick level telekinetic who relies mainly on martial arts and showmanship. It is her childhood friend turned Beleaguered Assistant Evie Tanaka who has been repressing her pyrokenisis and much of her emotions since she burned down the university library three years before the start of the story.
  • In The Hour of the Dragon, Zeiata uses fire to show Conan the Barbarian what happened in his realm in his absence.
  • InCryptid: Antimony Price, being a sorcerer,note  naturally has the ability to create fire and heat. This turns out to be a problem when she has to keep it a secret from her family and the Covenant, while still figuring out by trial and error how to control it. She later trades it away to the Crossroads in exchange for preventing her and her boyfriend from drowning. Unfortunately, this means that the Crossroads can now use her own fire powers against her if she doesn't do what they want.
  • Inkmistress: Ina fuses with a dragon, which allows her to conjure fire afterward in human form too.
  • In the first The Kingdom Keepers book, tossing fireballs is Maleficent's preferred method of attack. It's especially strange since she's described as freezing the ground where she walks.
  • Kingdom on Fire: Henrietta has the ability to create and control fire, which especially activates when she's under duress. She feels she has to keep it secret, or else she'll be executed as a witch. When Lord Agrippa sees it, however, he tells her she's a sorcerer and takes her under his wing.
  • The most destructive of the mage castes in Kroniki Drugiego Kręgu is Sparks, with a flame as their sigil. Płomień, the Spark who features most prominently in the series, once made several glass figurines without any sort of tools — a feat noted by the narration to be several levels of difficulty above the casual flinging of fireballs, as it needs very tight control.
  • In The Legends of Ethshar, Thrindle's Combustion is a spell which ignites anything that could theoretically catch on fire no matter how wet it is or what weather conditions are like, and makes a fiery explosion when cast upon an presently existing fire.
  • Lord of the Rings:
    • Gandalf, servant of the Secret Fire and wielder of the Flame of Anor (which may or may not have to do with bearing Narya, the Elven Ring "red as fire"). However, he needs wood to sustain a fire, as he cannot burn snow.
    • In the battle that cost him the Ring, Sauron's body was described as blackened from the immense heat he gave off and even set people who got too close to him on fire.
  • A Mage's Power: The first spell Eric learns is Fire Ball. It's supposed to be a simple one for beginning mages. During the Rescue Arc, he upgrades to the more impressive ""Flame Wave".
  • The Mermaid Chronicles: After Cordelia is almost killed in Quest for Atlantis, Gal uses the Power of the Sea, a blue orb with great powers, to revive her. Everyone who is healed with the Power of the Sea gains a magic power of some kind. Cordelia's is the ability to create fire, even underwater, and withstand burns.
  • Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: Emma Bloom — it's her peculiarity. By personality she's a little fiery, but not to the extreme.
  • Of Fire and Stars: Dennaleia has been able to manipulate fire since she was small, which her mother ascribed to a gift from the fire god. She must keep it secret however in Mynaria, where people mostly believe Magic Is Evil, with it being banned there.
  • The One Who Started Fires, has the title character, a young girl, who can make and control fire. She is not immune to it.
  • In The Quest of the Unaligned, aeshes (fire-aligned mages) are an example of this trope. As an example, Laeshana, one of the book's main characters, has a fiery personality that accompanies her literal fire powers that results in her arguing with powerful governmental figures and "flaming" herself unconscious.
  • Braze from Rainbow Dash and the Daring Do Double Dare, has pyromantic abilities, and is able to create ropes made of fire. He can also apparently control how hot they are, since he can tie up ponies with said ropes without burning them to death.
  • Release That Witch: Anna's magic ability is control over fire. Her body is completely unharmed by any type of high temperature, and she can create and eventually control the exact temperature and shape of her flames as her abilities evolve.
  • In Renegades, pyromancy is described as both one of the more common and one of the most coveted prodigious abilities. In story, only Sentinel has it, although his control over it is... tenuous at best.
  • The Reunion With Twelve Fascinating Goddesses: This is the signature power of warriors of Ifnatus, such as Gilfrain. They can produce heat so intense that it melts weapons used against them, and when used to attack, it can melt through enemy shields.
  • Rumor's Block: Burnout is a fire manipulating super hero. The power is apparently common enough that it took him a long time to find a name that wasn't taken.
  • RWBY: After the Fall: A hot-tempered individual, the temperature always rises when Bertilak's around, both literally and figuratively. His Semblance allows him to alter the temperature around him. While he can lower the temperature with it, he tends to favour increasing the heat to make the environment uncomfortable for his opponents, including using it for torture.
  • Many Adepts in the Savage Empire book have pyrokinetic talents.
  • Second Apocalypse: In contrast to gnostic magic, which is based on pure logic and uses abstractions of "glittering geometries" in its war cants, anagogic magic relies on analogies, mimicking real-world concepts to wreak destruction. This usually translates to fire. The most powerful anagogic war cant is the Dragonhead, which creates the spectral head of a dragon that breathes fire on the target.
  • Fire is the second Elemental Magic that each of the twins learns in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. Sophie learns it in the second book from the Comte St Germain and Josh learns it in the fourth book from Prometheus (yes that one). It's also revealed that Prometheus's fiery Aura brought the very first humans to life.
  • Pyromancy is one of the "legal" magical schools in Shadow Ops. It is also one of the most powerful and destructive schools, though it lacks any of the other elemental schools' versatility. All a pyromancer can do is create flame in various amounts and generate mindless fire elementals, though their ability to do so makes them one of the more valued schools if only through sheer, literal firepower.
  • The Silerian Trilogy: The Guardians' ability is controlling fire, along with Calling the dead.
  • Spellster: Spellsters can easily generate fire, though the larger ones take more energy. It's one of the first spells which they learn usually. This can be used as a weapon, but also for ordinary things such as lighting camp fires.
  • Hellion and her daughter Ifrit from Super Minion. Hellion has pyrokinetic powers, while Ifrit has mutations that make her fire-resistant and glands in her hands which produce flammable liquid.
  • Among the most commonly used spells in the Sword of Truth series is Wizard's Fire, which acts a lot like napalm. Used to greatest effect in the sixth book, where Zedd and another wizard decide to show an enemy army "an old fashioned fire fight"; They hurl fireballs the size of houses at the enemy army, killing thousands in moments.
  • DeMarians in Tales of the Branion Realm. They are literal fiery redheads, and are worshiped as avatars of a god of Flame.
  • Trapped on Draconica: Daniar can breathe fire because she's a dragokin, i.e. a human blessed with dragon powers.
  • In Twelve Houses, Senneth has enormous power to light and put out fire and is constantly warm. She loses her power in the fourth book but regains enough of it to light a small flame or, by the fifth book, put out all the lights in a room.
  • Vampire Academy:
    • Christian Ozera's main power. He is a fire user. His first impressive feat is setting the clothes of Ralf Sarcozy on fire, scaring but not hurting him. He later uses his fire powers to kill Strigoi.
    • Tasha Ozera's brand of magic. She uses her fire powers in an offensive way, and teaches Christian to do the same.
  • Some of the more powerful vampires in The Vampire Chronicles have the Fire Gift, which basically amounts to pyrokinesis. In Queen of the Damned, Akasha uses this to eliminate most of the world's other vampires and also pass the Fire Gift on to Lestat by allowing him to drink her blood.
  • Despite the characters all being dragons in Wings of Fire, only four out of seven types of dragons can breathe fire: Mudwings, Sandwings, Skywings, and Nightwings.
  • The Witch of Knightcharm: Imogene, who leads Emily's original squad, fights evil witches by summoning fireballs to attack them with.
  • The Witchlands has Firewitches, who are Exactly What It Says on the Tin. In contrast to other form of witchery, where a witch can only control small section of its element (for example, Water is divided into Tides, Poison, Ice and so on), Firewitches seem to all have the same powerset including the ability to craft magic lights and heatstones.

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