The Power Of Friendship / Western Animation

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• In an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Gumball bursts out of a cement prison after seeing the possible outcome of his friendship if he weren't to get to someone's house in time whilst saying the trope name in the process.
• Amphibia:
  • Anne learns this over the course of the series, thanks to her sunny disposition which allows her to make friends rather quickly.
  • This is literally how Anne's "blue powers" are supposed to activate, because she represents the gem of Heart on the Calamity Box. As shown in episodes such as "The New Normal" and "Anne-sterminator", Anne seeing the Plantars and her parents (and by extension, everyone around them) in a totally dangerous situation where the results would sometimes be near-fatal, this causes her to power up and protect them.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • It's the only thing that can cool down Aang's Unstoppable Rage. Azula's Villainous Breakdown is largely due to her inability to inspire loyalty through trust and friendship instead of fear. It was also implied that friendship can withstand generations — as in, they last lifetimes through reincarnation.
  • Avatar Roku tried to use the Power of Friendship to restrain Fire Lord Sozin, and it worked initially. When Roku tried to stop a volcano from destroying his village, Sozin helped him, and this was after Roku put the veto on Sozin's expansion plans. Then Roku fell into a vulnerable position and Sozin left him for dead. When he was older, he immensely regretted it.
  • Zuko becoming friends with the rest of Team Avatar is a lot of what causes his Heel–Face Turn. His mother even tells him once they find her in the comics that he’s lucky to have such a good group of friends.
• The whole point of Barbie & The Diamond Castle.
• The Boondocks makes a Spoof Aesop out of this, with Flonominal and Thugnificent stating that the only reason to ever have friends is so that you never have to deal with your own problems like a man, instead relying on other people to take care of your problems for you.
• Cave Kids has this trope as the central aesop of every episode.
• The Care Bears do this a lot, often by using the Care-Bear Stare, or actually telling people about true friendship.
• Cubix: Robots for Everyone runs on this. If Connor refuses to give up on him, then he's coming back, even if everyone else in the show agrees he shouldn't be able to. This is how Connor fixes him in the first episode, before the two of them have even technically 'met'.
• Disney seems to like this trope a lot:
  • The theme of friendship and teamwork as key to the heroes' success underlies many of the plots in Kim Possible. In fact, in the first movie "A Sitch in Time", Shego mentions not understanding this phenomenon between Kim and Ron, but acknowledges it, and specifically made efforts to separate the two of them in order to counter it.
  • Recess often plays this trope straight as the main cast works together to resolve whatever problem they face. Then there's this weird episode.
  • When playing kickball against a team of weirdly similar kids from a neighboring school, T.J. tells his friends they can beat their doppelgangers because they have the Power of Friendship... and the camera cuts to his counterpart telling her team the same thing. Both groups are friends internally, but competing against each other.
• This is a recurring theme with Lena's character arc in DuckTales (2017).
  • In the episode "Jaw$!", Webby claims that "friendship is the greatest magic of all", and wants to use her friendship with Lena to stop a rampaging magical gold shark. It works when Lena finishes the spell.
  • In the later episode "Friendship Hates Magic!", Lena and Violet do something similar to save Webby from shadow realm monsters. Immediately afterwards, the three joining hands inadvertently taps into Webby's friendship bracelet and brings Lena back to the physical world.
  • "A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!" has all the kids form a Chain of People to keep Lena from getting pulled through a mirror by Magica, with the shot drawing attention to the friendship bracelets Lena had given all of them earlier in the night (save for Webby, whose bracelet was introduced in "Jaw$!").
  • In "The Phantom and The Sorceress!", it's revealed that Lena's personal magic is literally fueled by her feelings of friendship towards Webby, explaining why it turns a soft blue during those moments as opposed to the purple magic when she uses Magica's amulet.
• Dora the Explorer: Heavily put to use in the climax of "Dora's Big Birthday Adventure". After the Wishing Wizzle's wishing crystal is destroyed by La Bruja, it seems all hope at getting Dora home is lost until the Wishing Wizzle reveals there may be another way; if she thinks of all the friends she's helped, as well as all the friends who helped her in reply, it could send her home. She concentrates her wish to go home, causing all her friends to wish Dora home, and with that, the crystal reactivates and her wish comes true.
• The second season of Ewoks has this as its basic premise — the four main characters are the best friends.
• Mandell was a little more subtle about it with the Galaxy Rangers, but their "pool the badges" tactic is built on this. It also featured prominently in "Mindnet", where the other three go out of their way to clear Shane's name, and Shane overtly chooses his friends over his Supertrooper "family". It also was played wonderfully in "Psychocrypt" when Doc, Niko, and Shane decide to help Zach.
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, this is lampshaded in the Show Within a Show Dinobonoids where one character boldly exclaims how useful their friendship was to destroying their enemies.
• The titular character's catchphrase in Julius Jr. is "The best inventions are the ones that help your friends". That must say lots about the show.
• In Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters, Ray sets himself apart from most other Duel Masters by going out of his way to treat the monsters he summons as his friends as opposed to living weapons. This ends up having a rare practical application in the Season 2 finale when he turns the tide against the Choten by summoning another five creatures to aid him. When the Choten points out that that many creatures can't be controlled all at once, Ray responds, "I don't need to control them. They are my friends".
• My Little Pony 'n Friends features this in the episode "The Magic Coins". Niblick, creator of the coins, refuses to help Megan and company undo the damage the ponies' poorly though-out wishes on the coins have caused unless they bring him a treasure of greater or equal value than the coins. After three failed attempts, Megan finally gets the idea to use the last of the coins to wish for a friend for Niblick, which even the crotchety troll comes to agree is a better treasure than anything he could think up.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
  • Specifically, the titular and literal "Magic of Friendship", backed by the Elements of Harmony, can fire a rainbow-coloured nigh-omnipotent Wave-Motion Gun that can either punch out Lovecraftian Chaos Gods or reform villains into forces of good. Then again, what else could you possibly expect from something with a title like that?
  • "A Canterlot Wedding" has the Changeling Army, creatures that feed on love, who aren't defeated by the Power of Friendship. Instead, they suffer a nasty backstab from their evening meal (and friendship's close cousin).
  • "Keep Calm and Flutter On" is one of the most noteworthy examples in the show, by having Fluttershy reform Discord simply by trying to be the first friend he ever had. When Discord tries taking advantage of this in a gambit to keep her from using her Element of Harmony against him so he can run rampant, she agrees to it — she'll just stop being his friend if he continues to misbehave. Discord, it turns out, would rather have fun together with someone than no one at all.
  • "Twlight's Kingdom" invokes this trope literally. The two-parter has Big Bad Tirek absorb all of the magic powers of the ponies in Equestria — including the four near-immortal alicorn goddesses as well as the previously mentioned God of Chaos. He can only be defeated with Pure Friendship from the Tree of Harmony... aka the main characters undergoing Super Saiyan-esque transformations and hitting him with a six-part Wave-Motion Gun that covers the entire continent.
  • "The Cutie Remark" firmly establishes that the Projectile Spells all come down to the bonds forged by ponies extending their hooves in friendship. Shattered relationships make the whole power weaker and the best way to make it stronger is to not only reforge those bonds, but to also make new ones along the way. Thus, friendship really is magic in this world.
  • "School Raze" is essentially what happens when someone only reads the "can fire a rainbow-coloured nigh-omnipotent Wave-Motion Gun that punches-out Lovecraftian Chaos Gods" part of the above description and forgets the actual friendship part. Twilight explains how she missed the point:
    Twilight: But I still don't understand why?
    Cozy Glow: Why? Because friendship is power! You might be the Princess of Friendship, but as Headmare of this school, I can collect even more friends than you!
    Twilight: You're the one who doesn't get it, Cozy. Friendship is powerful, but power isn't why you make friends.
  • Grogar (aka Discord in disguise) tries to evoke a Villainous Friendship variant of this after explaining to Lord Tirek, Cozy Glow, Queen Chrysalis, and King Sombra that the reason they've all been repeatedly defeated by Twilight Sparkle and her friends is because the ponies work together, and that if they pool their resources they'll have no trouble overpowering the ponies. Cozy Glow is thoroughly enthused about the idea, while the rest are more skeptical... until King Sombra tries to go it alone and gets Killed Off for Real by the Power of Friendship alone... which scares Tirek and Chrysalis into falling in line as well.
    Cozy Glow: Now I'll say something nice about centaurs. Tirek, you say something nice about changelings. And Chrysalis, you say something nice about ponies!
    Queen Chrysalis: Never!
  • Throughout the series, the Mane 6 each learn how the more figurative "magic of friendship" effects their everyday life, then use their talents to teach all ponies, and later all creatures, the concept. In the penultimate episode, this culminates in everyone in Equestria joining them to take down Cozy, Tirek and Chrysalis, ending with the Pillars, the Mane Six, and the Student Six channeling the Power of Friendship into Twilight to send a massive Wave-Motion Gun to the villains' faces.
• The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: In "The Great Honey Pot Robbery", Pooh sharing his honey with Wooster and asking to be his friend causes the monster to undergo a Heel–Face Turn and befriend him.
• The major theme in Once Upon a Forest.
• The Owl House:
  • Friendship is apparently an actual branch of magical study, as Principal Bump revealed in the "Welcome to Hexside" short. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints the class had to be axed from Hexside's curriculum.
  • Magic does, however, seem to be more powerful when performed alongside friends and loved ones; Luz' friends could animate the entire house during their moonlit conjuring, whereas Amity's "friends" couldn't even animate a doll despite having almost twice as many people to power the spell. In the episode "Enchanting Grom Fright", Amity is able to conjure a much larger abomination than she was previously able to, and Luz' spell glyph is far more potent when they dance.
• Zig-Zagging Trope in The Penguins of Madagascar when Private builds a robot suit to hug a deadly poisonous frog who has taken over the zoo with threats.
  "I'd be a grumpy gus too if no-one ever hugged me."
  "Hey, you know what? I never have been hugged. Maybe this is what I needed. Or maybe I'm just a jerk who enjoys bullying other animals."
  "Oh. Well, in that case I can just squeeze you until you pop like a grape."
  "No, no, hugging's good! ... Actually I'm liking the hug."
• Phineas and Ferb: In the climax of "This is Your Backstory", Doofenshmirtz has been turned into a monster by his Backstory-inator and is within seconds of crushing Perry and ridding the world of his nemesis for good. Suddenly, Perry takes out his wallet and shows pictures of the good times he and Doof had together, proving that even though they are nemeses, they still have their moments of friendship; this causes Doof to think of good backstories which reverses the Backstory-inator's effects and returns him to his normal self.
• Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders is built on this trope. The Riders and their jewels are even bound in a ceremony called the Circle of Friendship.
• Ready Jet Go!:
  • The series demonstrates time and time again that friends are one's greatest strength. In "Sounds Abound", Sean tries to conduct his sound experiment alone, but learns that teamwork is vital to science research. In addition, part of the reason why the Propulsions stay on Earth is that Jet has a strong friendship with Sean, Sydney, and Mindy. They work hard to keep Jet's alien identity a secret because they don't want to lose him. Mitchell wants to have friends, but has No Social Skills and keeps rejecting those around him. The only times Mitchell is successful with his detective work was when the others helped him, like in "Detective Mindy".
  • In "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace", friendship was the answer to Jet's question all along. Mitchell wants to belong to Jet's circle of friends, but doesn't know how to do it. When Sean gets stage fright, Mitchell proves that he cares for the others by swooping in and performing the song that Sean was supposed to sing, having memorized the whole thing. Mitchell is invited into the group and gets to bond with the others in real time. At the end of the episode, Jet gets a very positive feeling about being surrounded by his allies, and realizes that friendship and love was the Spirit of Christmas all along.
• Rocket Power: Part of Reggie Rocket's pep talk in the later part of "Race Across New Zealand": "We're not just another team out here. We're friends. And that's what makes us better".
• The Grand Finale to Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated has the gang apply this in order to defeat the Eldritch Abomination that's served as the true Big Bad the whole time.
• Invoked and lampshaded in one episode of The Smoggies; when Polluto's beloved pet bird Ralph accidentally falls into the tar-bubble blowing machinery and is trapped inside one of the bubbles, Polluto goes charging off to try and save him. In doing so, he smashes through the gunwale of the ship, hits the ocean, and starts swimming at a very impressive speed toward Coral Island — which prompts a flabbergasted Captain Clarence to point out that Polluto actually doesn't know how to swim.
• Definitely a theme of Sofia the First, in which the title characters ability to make friends and see the good in everybody is revolutionizing things in the castle that she moved to after she became royalty.
• Deconstructed in SpongeBob SquarePants, where the titular character tried to invoke this to force Mr. Krabs and Plankton to work together in The Other Patty. In fact, this plan was to support his own "goofball scheme" as Mr. Krabs in fact. So in the end, they try to give Spongbob a piece of their mind while he flees from them.
• Strawberry Shortcake is big on this and large portions of the 2003 series in particular operate on it. The ultimate expression of it is the songs "Back Together" (from "A Horse of a Different Color") and "The Gift of Friendship" (from "A Berry Merry Christmas").
• A central theme in Super Noobs focuses specifically on friendship. The six main characters constantly have to learn to work together and have to go through tons of hurdles that test their friendship to the extreme in order to beat the virus and fond its creators.
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • In the fourth season, Raven, after becoming her father's portal to Earth and being transformed into a powerless, younger version of herself, is able to regain all of her powers by drawing on the Power of Friendship and cause a complete Snap Back of the global destruction Trigon caused.
  • With the Robin/Slade dynamic, Robin's friendship with the rest of the team, by Robin's own words, serves the same purpose that Batman's code against killing does: it's the brake preventing him from crossing the line and becoming what he fights. Robin even explicitly states that this thing is what separates him from Slade, despite the fact that both are zealous and determined.
  • Usually the aesop of Teen Titans involves this trope.
• Parodied in Teen Titans Go!. Rose Wilson is too cool for the Titans to take in a fight, defeating them in their first confrontation with sarcastic insults. Ashamed by how uncool they are, the Titans go to Cool School to become cooler for their rematch... only for Rose to still overpower them with her coolness. What ultimately defeats Rose? The Titans start telling their teammates how they feel about each other. The sickening display of sincere, unironic emotions proves too much for Rose, and she's taken back to jail.
• In Trollz, the Magic of the Five runs off of this. If the girls used spells by themselves, or if one of them were missing, they usually weren't able to defeat Simon.
• The key theme of Wander over Yonder, embodied in the relationship between Wander and Sylvia and in Wander's attempts to reform the villainous Lord Hater by befriending him. Friendship with Wander has resulted in many a Heel–Face Turn, except Lord Dominator.
• Wonder Pets!: What's gonna work? TEAMWORK!!

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