Final Fantasy XIV Hot Takes

[Absimiliard]

The power of friendship is an incredibly stupid trope, and it needs to die.

[RyuDragnier]

The power of friendship is an incredibly stupid trope, and it needs to die.

It's a major trope due to actual real life things. You're a general, and your army is about to be routed...but then those allies you made the kingdom over have marched to aid you, and you win the day. The Power of Friendship has conquered. Basically any moment an ally comes to save you can be considered The Power of Friendship, since they came to help BECAUSE you're allies.

[BRVV]

It's a major trope due to actual real life things

Please don't take drugs. You can't be serious

[RyuDragnier]

Please don't take drugs. You can't be serious

Read the Trope Page for it, especially the Real Life examples.

[Dikatis]

Please don't take drugs. You can't be serious

People banding together and overcoming trials and tribulations through sheer force of will land their faith in their cause and each other has been a thing throughout history and fiction. Even grittier works like Fate/Zero immortalize the power of friendship with stuff like Ionoi Hetaroi, where Alexander the Great recreates the field of his greatest victories so he and his army can lay waste their foes with their superior numbers. And it's explicitly stated that this superpower is possible due to their bonds of friendship and dreams of conquest surpassing space and time. It's it cliche? Sure. Is it effective? If it weren't it wouldn't continue to be used to this day. You're just being cynical.

Hot take: The entire argument about Endwalker has gotten boring. Both sides ever more rapidly jumping to personal insults just makes it even duller.

This video is the forums literally every single day.

[BRVV]

Oh you two talk about the general group effect... yeah i was more talking about that anime take on it. You know how FFXIV, P5 and the like put it. Where you gain a strange superpower upon realizing you are friends suddenly in front of the final boss. That thing.

Edit: that makes it Narm for me in those cases.

[Absimiliard]

Read the Trope Page for it, especially the Real Life examples.

It doesn't give you superpowers or let you come back from mortal wounds in real life, though. Doesn't give you plot armor, either.

What I speak of is the most common variant of the trope in modern media, wherein the hero either finds new strength, gets a second wind, or just flat out comes back from the brink of death as a direct result of being encouraged by their friends -- or, as is often the case, because said friends are relying on them. It's become even more pervasive than the previously far more commonly used "heroic will" trope that often accomplishes the same thing.

You know, Fairy Tail-like business. Protagonist gets demolished by the enemy of the arc only to turn right around and turn everything within a five mile radius into a smoldering inferno because their friend got hurt, for example.

[Dikatis]

Oh you two talk about the general group effect... yeah i was more talking about that anime take on it. You know how FFXIV, P5 and the like put it. Where you gain a strange superpower upon realizing you are friends suddenly in front of the final boss. That thing.

Eh? Haven't you ever worked on a group project where you're running right up against the deadline but somehow manage to work together and get it in on time despite having every expectation that you'll fail?

As a trope, the power of friendship itself is not bad. Personally, one of my favorite new manga is about a Power Rangers-expy who gets sent to a fantasy world with powers that literally run on the Power of Friendship, to the point that he runs out of juice when the people he's fighting with are too busy arguing to work together. Is silly and stupid and the series acknowledges the seemingly illogical nature of it, but it works because the author writes it with gusto and aplomb instead of embarrassment.

Are there times where it's used poorly? Sure. But I can't really fault the trope itself versus writers just using it poorly.

Honestly the Ultima Thule bit is hardly the worst use of it and I was honestly pretty hyped by the end of the Endsinger fight. WoL derives joy and a reason for living from the people, places, and things they've grown to love and cherish. That is an answer to Meteion's question. Not the only answer, but an answer. It also gives WoL the willpower to live on when Zenos gives up the ghost from having a life devoid of any kind of personal connection to make it worth living.

[TheMightyMollusk]

It doesn't give you superpowers or let you come back from mortal wounds in real life, though. Doesn't give you plot armor, either.

In real life I can't throw fireballs or summon primals, either.

[Absimiliard]

In real life I can't throw fireballs or summon primals, either.

The poster I replied to specifically cited real world examples. Hence why it was mentioned. You could clearly see this in the post already.

In any case, my point is this: it's overdone. The power of friendship is in all manner of anime, it has found its way into western media with increasing frequency, and it's all over many video games too. There are other tropes out there they could be putting to use.