It seems like this trope is being applied a little too broadly. Take Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. Yes, all three elements are there, but they're no more important than the other seven elements you get. Similarly, Kirby can get all three powers, but given how many different powers he can get, that doesn't seem noteworthy (although the note that these three elements are the only ones that can change the environment might be).
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Star allies introduced and ability combination system, where some abilities can be imbued with the elements of other abilities. The four elements that an abilities can have are fire, ice, water, and lightning. Squeak squad also did something similar earlier, where is the sword can have a fire, lightning, or ice attribute.
The most useless power up
“ The closest Native American analogue to the western elemental system was this, with Fire, Lightning, and Ice attributed to the South, West, and North respectively, and having numeral mythical entities associated with all three. Depending on who you ask, Air was also part of the system, as East, but it was both very irrelevant and sometimes even replaced with nothingness.”
Can I get a source on this?
[One can justify their unlikely pairing by imagining a common origin in basic particle physics — supposedly, fire (or heat) comes from speeding up atoms, ice (or cold) comes from slowing down atoms, and lightning comes from rubbing atoms together (or pulling them apart to reveal matter with a net charge). Sort of. Or by considering their elemental natures: Fire is life, Cold is death, and Lightning is the motion from one state to another.]
I don't suppose any physicists could expand on this in more detail?
Has anyone ever done a Fire, Ice, Lightning trio using a different color scheme; like, ice being pink, fire being yellow or gold, and lightning being blue. Wonder if that would count as a subversion.
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It's not a subversion as this trope has nothing to do with color-coding.
Edited by Kindle4Light
I think there should be something in there about how this trope relates to the Freudian Trio.
Heat, cold, shock. It sounds more like the unlikely pairing comes from a Rock–Paper–Scissors version of the most deadly "elements".
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Do we need a separate sections for aversions?
, started by TonyMuhplaah on Feb 8th 2011 at 12:58:51 AM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman