39,327
edits
Puberty Superpower: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
prefix>Import Bot (Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.PubertySuperpower 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.PubertySuperpower, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 12:
See also [[Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday]]. Compare [[The Call Put Me On Hold]].
Contrast [[Growing Up Sucks]] where a character possesses a power throughout childhood, but ''loses'' it at puberty instead.
{{examples
== [[Anime]] & [[Manga]] ==
Line 64:
* Similarly, in ''[[The Dark Is Rising]]'', Will gains entrance into the Circle of the Old Ones at eleven, though he is the youngest.
** He's the youngest in the sense of ''the last born''; the Old Ones are immortal but born one by one into the human race, and Will Stanton's coming-of-age at eleven completed the Circle. Meaning the climactic battle took place in his normal lifetime, and then he was left behind in the world as a lone immortal guard while all the others left with King Arthur. While his human friends forgot everything. It is generally agreed that this sucks.
* Yet another notable (and extreme) exception: In [[Robin McKinley]]'s ''Spindle's End'' (an [[Adaptation Expansion|expansion]] of the various "[[Sleeping Beauty]]" stories) magic permeates everything and the Fairies are actually normal people who just happen to have the inborn ability to control it. Some Fairies come into their power fairly early. A few manifest powers very early, a phenomenon known in the novel as "Baby Magic". As cutesy as that sounds, it's actually very dangerous and unpredictable. A baby Fairy may be able to understand [[Animal Talk]]. Or, he may be able to [[Baleful Polymorph|transform the nanny into a terrier]] and pull a [[One
* Averted in Olaf Stapledon's ''Odd John'', where the title character had special abilities from birth. However, those abilities also came with a cost (including much slower childhood development and physical frailties)
* Inverted in ''A Coming of Age'' by [[Timothy Zahn]]: Children do not develop their telekinetic powers at puberty, but at approximately 5 years of age, however they instead [[Growing Up Sucks|lose]] their powers at puberty.
Line 85:
* Notable exception: Characters in ''[[The 4400]]'' were granted superpowers by {{spoiler|people from the future}} at various ages, from childhood to old age. The one in-show exception is Isabelle, who was conceived and implanted into Lily's body during her abduction, and shows extremely powerful abilities as an infant and even some powers while still in the womb. Indeed, the character of Isabelle never really goes through puberty at all, as she is [[Plot Relevant Age Up|aged]] from an infant to adulthood in an instant at the end of the second series.
* Betazoids (a naturally telepathic race) in ''[[Star Trek]]'' gain their mind-reading powers at puberty, except for a few rare exceptions who tend to be mentally unstable from not being able to "tune out" the mental noise around them.
* Averted in ''[[Bewitched (TV)|Bewitched]]'', where the [[Witch Species|witch-children]] are shown using magic even as infants. Of course they're [[Half
** Endora brags that Samantha was able to fly on her own by age five, but then adds that Samantha had been precocious for her age.
* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' claims that half-witches come into their powers on their [[Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday|16th birthday]], before which Sabrina's aunts had engaged in an elaborate [[Masquerade]] to keep the other world a secret from her -- though this does not jive well with the later implications that witches are generally comically bad at dealing with things in the usual mortal way, and that deliberately avoiding magic is unhealthy for a witch. This is also [[Retcon|retconned]] in ''[[Sabrina the Animated Series]]'', where a 13-year-old Sabrina has full knowledge of the other world.
Line 121:
* The alien race Starfire of ''[[Teen Titans (Animation)|Teen Titans]]'' belongs to is born with powers, but undergoes a metamorphosis during the teen years (with puberty metaphor fully in place) that may grant additional abilities.
* Danny in ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' made light that he was gaining "evil puberty" powers once he received the Ghostly Wail. His powers from the beginning onset also reacted to his growing teenage body (example: his nervous emotions towards a girl triggered an unexpected intangibility).
* Parodied [[Refuge in Audacity|to hell in back]] in ''[[Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law]]'', where Peanut gaining superpowers is used [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|as a stand-in for puberty]]. He's embarrassed by [[Raging Stiffie|his solar shield manifesting during a meeting]], is caught [[A Date With Rosie Palms|shooting off his power bands to pictures of supervillains in the bathroom]], and nervously asks [[Super Friends|Black Vulcan]] about [[Their First Time|his first time facing off against a bad guy]].
* {{spoiler|Inverted}} in ''[[Transformers Animated]]''. {{spoiler|Sari realizing her robot heritage and upgrading herself with the Allspark key actually ''causes'' her to go through puberty.}} It's never really explained how this works, nor is the disorienting nature of {{spoiler|going from eight to a teenager in an instance}} addressed in any way.
** Since Sari is a {{spoiler|Cybertronian, it was probably just an upgrade to her body; happens all of the time in [[Transformers]].}}
| |||