"And Saint Attila raised the Hand Grenade up on high, saying: O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade, that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy."
Simply put, this is when the Power of Good, which is supposedly devoted to light, love, peace, forgiveness, health, and happiness, is instead used to crush, maim, desiccate, disembowel, and destroy.
This can easily come into play when Good Is Not Nice, or when one is nice but Good Is Not Soft.
Can often be directly in a cycle of Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors, but can just as often be separate, used as a direct counter to dark magic. Weapons that are Made of Good (including Silver) are also this. Expect any Church Militant to have tons and tons of such items.
In general, Good Hurts Evil, and "Light" or "Holy" magic tends to work most effectively on demons, undead, and other Always Chaotic Evil creatures. In RPGs, these tend to include most of the main enemies at the end of the game. In some games Holy is sometimes treated as the Infinity +1 Element, or a way to induce Villainous BSoD.
Game designers may counterbalance this by giving the Light spells to the White Magician Girl or The Medic, since they'll usually be occupied with healing duty and won't be able to go nova on the enemy as often as the black magic wielder.
A Sub-Trope of Elemental Powers and White Magic, a Super-Trope to Revive Kills Zombie and Turn Undead, and a Sister Trope to Light 'em Up (and can overlap when Light Is Good), Bolt of Divine Retribution (for when God cuts out the middleman), Holy Is Not Safe (where holiness is inherently dangerous even when not weaponized), and Prayer of Malice (when someone asks God to do the smiting Himself). It is often associated with White Is Pure.
Compare Artifact of Hope, Heart Beat-Down (using love like this), Fire, Ice, Lightning, Depleted Phlebotinum Shells, Weakened by the Light.
Contrast Care-Bear Stare, Hellfire, Unholy Nuke, Protective Charm, Cross-Melting Aura.
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Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Played with in Slayers: Divine Magic draws its power from the gods of the Slayers universe (as opposed to Demonic Magic and lesser Black Magic, which is powered by demons), but it was lost a thousand years ago and the few characters who use it (dragons and their associates, like Lina's sister, etc.) are generally not inclined to. Sample spells? Chaotic Disintegrate and Flame Breath. The lesser form, White Magic, is supposed to be entirely made of healing, protection or at least exorcism spells, and dismissed outright as a possible weapon by more sane mages like Lina and Zelgadis, but cranky Martial Pacifist characters still manage to use it against Always Chaotic Evil foes (Good Hurts Evil) in what Zelgadis called "oxymoronic attacks":
- Most of the weapons used by the Magdalene Order of Exorcists in Chrono Crusade are some form of Holy Hand grenades. There's holy ammunition in the form of Sacreds (regular bullets with holy oil inside to act as a small explosive) and the more powerful Gospels (bullets made with alchemical silver, inscribed with holy runes, and packed with holy oil), a sword in which the handle is a cross and the blade is made out of some sort of holy energy, etc.
- Star Blazers (Space Battleship Yamato)? Trelaina: "Zordar... You have misused your power. I am here to return you to the cosmos." Ka-BOOOOM!!!
- In A Certain Magical Index, all of God's Right Seat possess a power of some sort which relates to this trope:
- Vento of the Front has "God's Divine Punishment", which causes everyone who feels hostility towards her to suffocate.
- Terra of the Left's "Execution of the Light", drawn from Jesus' execution on the cross, alters the hierarchy of objects around him and alters their vulnerability.
- Acqua of the Back has "Divine Mother's Mercy". It erases the Original Sin and allows him to remove all his biological limiters, use magic (specifically water magic on a mass scale), and No-Sell practically any attack thrown at him.
- Topping all of the above, Fiamma of the Right possesses "The Holy Right". It's a "You Win" button.
- It's eventually revealed that Touma's Imagine Breaker is of divine origin and sealing something ludicrously powerful inside Touma.
- In D.Gray-Man, Exorcists fight using weapons made of a substance called Innocence, which is said to be 'God's crystal'.
- Smile PreCure! has the team's leader, Cure Happy. She wields the power of holy light and can unleash destruction levels akin to what's seen on Dragon Ball Z.
- Dragon Ball Z had the Spirit Bomb, a Combined Energy Attack fueled by Life Energy and Clap Your Hands If You Believe, that could be used by Only the Pure of Heart and was taught to Goku by the god King Kai. However, as a result it's Zig-Zagged by Pure Is Not Good; Perfect Cell claims to be able to use it through Genetic Memory (although he'd have no use for it since it only harms malicious people and could potentially harm him in the process), and the Non-Malicious Monster Kid Buu is briefly able to resist it before it incinerates him.
- While not specifically holy in nature, in GaoGaiGar Mamoru's purification abilities are mostly used to turn Zonder cores back into the humans they were made from, as well as counter the mechanization process in general. In FINAL, however, Mamoru shows that they are potent enough to utterly vaporize his target if he dials the power up high enough. Earlier in the series, Replica Mamoru also demonstrated considerable destructive power with his own abilities, though his powers stem from a different source and may not count.
- In Fairy Tail, we have one of the Three Great Fairy Magics, Fairy Law, a blast of pure light that annihilates those who are considered "foes" by the casters' heart. Fairy Tail Zero reveals that the original version, "Law", ran on Blue-and-Orange Morality and led to Mavis being cursed with Complete Immortality as a result. As a workaround, Fairy Law was designed to be Cast from Lifespan.
- Sting's White Dragon Slayer Magic uses the holy element, rather than light as many who've witnessed it would assume.
- In Final Fantasy: Lost Stranger, the ultimate offensive White Magic, Holy, makes an appearance as the secret prized magic of Count Borghen's family. It uses holy light to inflict massive damage across a wide area. Cindy uses it in an attempt to wipe out that heroes at the Mysidia Royal Cathedral. They're only saved by Palom and Porum's quick thinking to shield themselves with rapid-fire Quaga spells.
- The Thaumaturges in Radiant are special members of the Inquisition that are capable of using a power called Miracle that doesn't contain Fantasia, it is activated after reciting a phrase and manifests as a circle of light with horizontal and vertical lines around the Inquisitor's body or weapons, with each Thaumaturge having their own unique power.
- In Saint Beast, Judas wields a very destructive force of light.
- In Tales of Wedding Rings, the Ring of Light lets Satou imbue his weapons with a purifying light that is deadly to the demonic monsters of the Abyss.
- In That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, this is the purpose of Holy Magic, which doesn't rely on magicules or a contract with spirits but rather absolute faith in a higher being (not necessarily a god as even the god "Luminous" worshipped by the Church is in fact the True Demon Lord Ruminas Valentine and several of Rimuru's followers are able to use it channeling their faith in him), which means it can actually ignore most Anti-Magic effects. The two highest-tier Holy magic spells are Disintegration, which uses a massive blast of holy light that can destroy a mountain, and Melt Slash, which focuses the destructive light of Disintegration into a sword. Also, both of these are intense enough to destroy a target down to the molecular level and kill the soul.
Card Games
- Magic: The Gathering:
- A signature of white mana. The creators went full blown Old Testament when it comes to white direct damage and mass removal. To note some specific examples:
- Fire and Brimstone
deals equal damage to both players.
- Armageddon destroys all lands.
- Wrath of God destroys all creatures.
- Several white "spot removal" spells also qualify, such as Devouring Light (which exiles a target creature) and Smite (which destroys an attacking creature when it is blocked). The card art really drives the connection home.
- Fire and Brimstone
- The culmination of Urza's efforts to defeat Yawgmoth was the Legacy: a collection of artifacts and people that formed a construct of thought given purpose, fate constructed through artifice. When the time came to unleash the Legacy against Yawgmoth, who had manifested himself in Dominaria as a cloud of death, it emitted a wave of light that dissipated the cloud, killing Yawgmoth for good.
- A signature of white mana. The creators went full blown Old Testament when it comes to white direct damage and mass removal. To note some specific examples:
Comic Books
- Given all of what Green Lantern's power ring can do against villainy, there's a reason why the Green Lantern Corps' Badass Creed has the phrase, "Let those who worship Evil's might/Beware my power/Green Lantern's light!"
- The Mighty Thor was once hit by his own Hammer. It had no effect, because the Hammer can only be used for good.
- This has been quietly ignored in recent years and as it happens, Thor can be hit with his own hammer, and very effectively too. However, getting it off him is no easy task, nor is lifting it, which (usually) requires one to be worthy.note
- In Hellboy: The Crooked Man, an elderly preacher takes a demonic lucky charm and proceeds to (in his own words) "squeeze the Holy Spirit into it". He then uses the charm to draw a cross onto a shovel, which he gives to Hellboy to bash a demon over the head with.
- Played with in Justice League Elite. Manitou Raven's magic axe is incapable of piercing the skin of an innocent. It can, however, pierce Green Arrow's skin, because he's sleeping with Manitou's wife. Manitou uses this to save Green Arrow's life when he nearly falls to his death, by embedding the hatchet in his chest and using it to pull him up. After Manitou's death, Dawn gives the axe to the devout Muslim Al-Sheikh.
- Wonder Woman: Being an object of divine origin, Diana's Lasso of Truth has displayed abilities such as undoing mind control or possession, destroying Black Lanterns and killing Decay, a creature formed from the malevolent matter of Medusa's heart.
Fan Works
- In the Pony POV Series, it turns out the Fires of Friendship were a tiny faction of Fauna Luster's true power called down by the Power of Friendship. The Elements channel the same power, and their original form the Rainbow Of Light, was a divine gift to Equus from the gods. Ironically, the Rainbow of Darkness/Elements of Chaos are also this trope, as rather than being the opposite in good and evil, it's simply from the Draconequi half of the Pantheon.
- Sword and Claw has Adam's Evil Obliterating Incantation, which can paralyze most monsters and (according to him) completely destroy undead or demonic monsters, while leaving humans unharmed. However, using it risks harming his ally Lilith since she's also a monster.
- The titular All Guardsmen Party, when faced with a Chaos-created shield that does not yield to lasfire or conventional explosives, decide to use faith. Specifically, they jury-rig a large bomb using all the plastic explosive they could scrounge up and a couple of less-than-legally appropriated barrels of fuel. They then have a priest bless the bomb and load it with every holy icon, relic and symbol they could find. The items' owners were usually happy to give them up when finding out they would be used to turn heretics into chunky salsa.
- In the HoloFunk side story The Dragon's Pizzeria, it's revealed that Daddy Dearest possesses holy hand grenades specifically to kill demons. Well... less kill and more enforce a Cessation of Existence upon any demon struck by its light. Good for Daddy Dearest himself, since he's actually a Fallen Angel in this continuity... not so good for Aloe's adoptive father Mamoru, who got between her and the blast to protect her.
- In Stormwolf Adventures, this is how Finn finally beats his very tough foe Astaroth. He was given only one for when he would truly need it, and when he did use it, the near-unbeatable Archdemon he faced had his face blown off.
Films — Live-Action
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the Trope Namer. The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is the weapon used against the Killer Rabbit. Although it functioned just like a regular grenade, it was treated like a holy relic, and even had a section in "The Book of Armaments". Considering it was a grenade in the Middle Ages and the only thing that killed the most likely demonic killer rabbit, it still earned its name.
- In Dogma the true villain Azrael is defeated when he's hit by a golf club that Cardinal Glick blessed for a better game.
- Carl's concentrated sunlight grenade from Van Helsing; powerful enough to wipe out an entire mansion full of vampires when detonated.
- Several examples in Constantine (2005), including the Holy Shotgun, the Holy Brass Knuckles, and yes, a literal Holy Hand Grenade.
- In Stardust when Yvaine embraces Tristan and shines blindingly to defeat Lamia.
- Hellboy (2004): Hellboy's gun fires all sorts of religious Depleted Phlebotinum Shells, including shells filled with Holy Water, White Oak shavings and garlic, while the gun itself is made of metal from church bells, crucifixes, and pieces of the True Cross.
- TRON's Deadly Disc became one of these after some upgrades from Alan. Seeing as Users are considered the equivalent of Gods to the Programs inhabiting cyberspace...
- In The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gandalf's and Galadriel's powers are accompanied by blinding flashes of light, as well as some form of energy that can hold enemies at bay or fling them away. Perhaps tellingly, Saruman's powers, though very strong, manifest far less light.
- In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy shows the two government guys a picture of the Ark being used to crush Israel's enemies in battle. Later in the movie, the Germans and Belloq get a taste of it.
Major Eaton: Good God!
Brody: Yes, that's just what the Hebrews thought.
Colonel Musgrove: [pointing to a beam of light] Uh, now what's that supposed to be coming out of there?
Indiana: Lightning. Fire. Power of God or something.
Major Eaton: I'm beginning to understand Hitler's interest in this.
Brody: Oh, yes. The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions. An army which carries the Ark before it... is invincible. - In Ready Player One (2018) the Trope Namer itself makes an appearance early on, and is used to great effect in the climactic battle. It's never actually stated whether it deals holy-element damage, but given the context of the OASIS, it'd be surprising if it didn't.
- In Six Gun Savior, no normal bullet can stop Zathera's zombies. The ammunition needs to be blessed by a priest or an Indian medicine man. Lane has all of his ammo blessed by a medicine man he is friends with.
Literature
- In The Dresden Files:
- The primary violent methods for heavenly powers to interact with the mortal world has been through three Swords that are supernaturally good at cutting up things because each one is endowed with a single nail that pierced Jesus to the Cross. Note that Fidelaccius, the Sword of Faith, is able to slice through a Red Court Lord of the Outer Night with a single blow. Amoracchius, the Sword of Love, cut through the arm of the Red King and shielded the wielder's child from harm. Even when not held by a person, the Swords can bless or at least inhibit a Fallen Angel from aiding his host while Harry is strangling the man. The Sword leaves it a level playing field of mortal vs. mortal. Simply put, the Swords are hardcore holy weapons. The RPG makes it clear: by paying a fate point the Swords can satisfy any "catch" that an enemy's toughness or recovery powers have. Note also that the Power in each of these Swords lies not in the physical vessel, but in the ideal aligned with the blade. So even if the vessel of the Power is broken, the Sword is not beyond repair. The Swords can even take forms which aren't typical for a sword. This allowed for Waldo Butters to reconstitute the broken Fidelaccius not as a katana but as a blade of angelic light and choral hum. This made it essentially a lightsaber.
- The other is Soulfire, the Fires of Creation wielded by Him and His angels acts as a form of magic booster that was first seen used by a wizard to burn part of his soul in exchange for dramatically improving the power and complexity of his spells. While less violent than, say, giant bursts of hellish flame, very much not White Magician Girl material. It is so potent to the corrupt, that when a typically quick healing Denarian, human playing host to a Fallen Angel, was injured by Soulfire he remained crippled several hours later. Soulfire can also be infused into mundane things, like bullets, to add to the power of the shot against immortal monsters.
- Sunlight in a handkerchief is a potent, if limited battery, weapon against the Red Court. The catch is that you have to be genuinely happy to make it, and happiness is very much a limiting reagent for Harry.
- Faith is a vaguely defined power that seems to be able to repel some forms of evil creatures and Fae.
- One Knight of the Cross named Michael, wielder of Amoracchius wore a cloak with crosses embroidered onto it. A Red Court vampire touched it and was set on fire.
- While Harry lacks true faith in the Almighty or the symbols of Him, he does believe deeply in magic and the encircled-pentagram is the symbol of his faith in what magic represents to him. Touching his silver pentagram is just as bad and he can make the light shine from it painful for evil forces.
- More humorously, water balloons filled with holy water are also an effective weapon against vampires.
- Another character uses a similar tactic of making paintball gun ammo out of holy water. It will burn Black Court vampires while leaving any mortal thrall unharmed.
- While the exact limits and powers of the other articles of Christ's Crucifixion, the Plaque bearing his name, the Crown of Thorns, the true Shroud of Turin, the Spear that pierced Jesus, and the Holy Grail are presently undefined, when Harry discovers them he explicitly calls them weapons. They are so powerful, they have been guarded by Hades for a long time until people smart enough to bypass his gates make it inside.
- There is a ritual among the Dine, a tribe of Native Americans in the Southwest USA, that is able to banish a Naagloshii, a fallen semi-divine being that feeds on fear of itself to grow stronger. Short of that, it takes Soulfire-infused magical attacks to fight the beast or a nuclear explosion to send it packing.
- Faith, Hope, and Love are the greatest virtues of God, and so several of the examples from The Power of Love page will qualify by association. Other Virtues are similarly the bane of some evils. The White Court of Vampires are raised to be fearful of these as their psychic-feeding habits can be blocked by these virtues, and even potentially kill the vampire if the vampire feeds on a person who reflects the virtue opposing the vampire's tastes.
- True romantic love or symbols of that between two people will burn the lust-feeding vampires.
- Courageous people or their symbols are the bane of the fear-feeding vampires.
- People who are hopeful, or symbols of hope are the bane of despair-feeding vampires.
- Shadows of the Apt: In Salute the Dark, while all past indications have been that Butterfly-kinden are utterly harmless and completely abhorrent of violence, when Salma is killed, Prized of Dragons feels hatred for the first time in her life and uses her Art to incinerate the Wasp-kinden responsible in a blinding flash of light.
- In Under the Dome, Chef Bushey has an AK-47 with the words "God's Warrior" painted on the side. He believes that protecting his meth lab is the will of God, and he is willing to go to any extreme to do it.
- And, of course, there is the one in Discworld. A preacher who walks across Uberwald with Forgiveness in his hands. Forgiveness is a battle axe.
- In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "The Phoenix on the Sword", the mark of the phoenix is put on Conan's sword by Epimetrius, which lets Conan slay the demon that Thoth-Amon summoned as revenge against Ascalante, even after the sword is broken during the battle with Ascalante and his assassins. The phoenix mark is identified by the high priest of Mitra.
- In Special Circumstances, A warrior's "aspect" basically serves this trope's purpose. Most supernatural beasties can only be killed when a warrior calls on their beliefs while in combat with them.
- The Young Wizards series has the four great treasures of Ireland, where each treasure is an object which houses a powerful holy spiritual entity which have various Elemental Powers. In particular, the Spear of Light acts as the "body" for the Virtue of Fire, which as the embodiment of purification is particularly harmful to evil.
- In Heralds of Valdemar, there's Final Strike in which the user pulls all the life-energy in the area through his own body, resulting in a massive explosion. The magic user doesn't have to be very powerful to do this, although the more powerful she or he is, the bigger the explosion; the person does not survive the experience, of course.
- Forest Kingdom: Book 4 (Beyond the Blue Moon) features the use of Fiat lux, a powerful holy spell that generates light and counters evil darkness, even the bell of the Inverted Cathedral.
- Fengshen Yanyi, the two buddhist patriarchs Zhunti Daoren and Jieyin Daoren often employ magical relics of their fate (such as a branch of the Wonderful Seven-Treasures Tree or a rod from the Six-Rooted Purifying Bamboo) to fight, being able to wound and submit their enemies with ease, usually forcing monsters to take their true feral forms. A common weapon in the novel are the "Demon-Vanquishing/Banishing/Crushing Pestles", described as massive deadly clubs whose name is associated with buddhist prayer tools.
- Earth's Scariest Monsters!: In "Divine Conflict," Melody uses her divine/holy/sacred light powers to defeat Malphas.
Gamebooks
- Fighting Fantasy:
- Sword of the Samurai: The powerful katana known as the "Singing Death", if your Honor stat is high enough, will turn into an exploding projectile that kills Lord Ikiru in one fell swoop in the finale.
- Beneath Nightmare Castle: One of the two methods to defeat the Big Bad, Xakhaz: if you can't get your hands on the Trident of Skarlos for the final battle, or simply choose not to fight Xakhaz one-on-one, you can instead combine the Talisman of Loth with a Sacred Green Orb, and then hurl it at Xakhaz. Best case scenario, the resulting explosion performs a One-Hit Kill on Xakhaz allowing you to win instantly. Otherwise, the exploding orb reduce Xakhaz's stats to SKILL 9, a reasonably low stat for a final battle that players who made it that far into the game shouldn't have any problem fighting.
Live-Action TV
- In Power Rangers in Space, the Red Ranger is forced to resort to killing Zordon. Doing so unleashes a wave of goodness across the universe - all currently attacking evil monsters are turned to dust, all currently attacking humanoid villains are turned good. That makes Zordon a holy universal nuke.
- On Shadowhunters, the Mortal Sword becomes this when activated by someone with pure angelic blood, unleashing divine light that will kill demon-blooded beings, including Downworlders (faeries, vampires, werewolves, warlocks, etc.).
- Supernatural:
- There is a rather literal example of this trope where Castiel uses a molotov cocktail full of holy oil to take out Michael, if only for a few minutes.
- Angels in general can generate blinding holy light capable of decimating a target. Lilith, who is a demon, also has this ability because she was personally taught by Lucifer. However, hers seems to be weaker because it doesn't affect Sam (then again, he is The Chosen One).
- In Season 11, the Host of Heaven cast a combined form of their holy light against Amara. This results in the surrounding environment exhibiting the effects of a nuclear fallout, though it isn't enough to kill her.
Myths & Religion
- A plague here, a pillar of fire there, giant floods, and add a dash of killing every first-born not in a marked house, and you've got Old Testament Holy and a whole lotta spare water.
- Atypical in that half of those listed served to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the Egyptian gods (each of the Ten Plagues directly attacked domains central to the various deities of Egyptian polytheism), and that the most commonly referenced pillar of fire was never used offensively.
- Sodom and Gomorrah on the other hand, got a first hand taste of Heavenly Fire. Do not displease Old Testament God.
- While there certainly are Holy Hand Grenade moments in the Old Testament, they're actually not that common, especially not after the Exodus. Those who think the Old Testament is all floods and plagues clearly haven't read it.
- Elijah probably could have pulled off the title of Holy Hand Grenadier. He seemingly introduced Flame Strike as a combat spell, having called down columns of fire on two different groups of 50 soldiers each. He pulled the same stunt earlier on a sacrifice to Show up the Priests of Baal after mocking their ineffectual attempts to do the same.
- When Elisha was mocked by a group of youth, he cursed them in the name of the Lord, resulting in 42 of them being mauled by bears.
- Also, the walls of Jericho were taken down by seven days of trumpeting and God's very own intervention.
- Not that it was ever used offensively, but The Ark of the Covenant had wooden handles because anyone that touched it directly was killed as though struck by lightning. This combines with the design of the Ark to make some think it was an electrical generator or something, possibly with sparks arcing between the two angel statues when in use.
- The Ark was once captured by Israel's enemies, who later brought it back because it was causing ... well, we're not sure exactly what the word used meant. Could be "tumors", could be "hemorrhoids". They even threw in some golden tumor/hemorrhoids as a bribe to convince the Israelites to take it off their hands.
- In the New Testament, two of Jesus' disciples, not having got their heads round the whole "love your enemies" part of his teaching yet, offered to call down a flame strike on a village which had rejected him. Jesus rebuked them for suggesting it, and just went on to another village.
- Atypical in that half of those listed served to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the Egyptian gods (each of the Ten Plagues directly attacked domains central to the various deities of Egyptian polytheism), and that the most commonly referenced pillar of fire was never used offensively.
- There are various instances in which goodness represented by an object repels evil in folklore. Vampires, for example, are supposed to be weak to holy water, communion bread, crucifixes, etc. Unicorns were often said to be vicious, behaviorally monstrous beasts capable of being tamed only by the touch of a pure-hearted maiden. And so on.
- The Catholic icon of The Sacred Heart of Christ depicts a white-robed Jesus, holding the front of his robes open to reveal a stylised heart, radiating light, and surmounted by a cross. His Mother Mary is also given a similar heart, pierced by seven swords (representing her sorrows.)
Tabletop Games
- Cleric spells can be harmful to evil and undead creatures in Dungeons & Dragons, including Holy Water, Turn Undead and Revive Kills Zombie.
- "Smite Evil" is the signature ability of The Paladin class (who also get Detect Evil).
- One of the more noteworthy spells in a 3.5 edition supplement was the Bolt of Glory which fits this trope to a tee. A clerical attack spell with the Good subtype that deals heavy damage to evil outsiders and undead, and could still pack a whallop to anyone but holy outsiders.
- Inverted in that many of these spells have evil equivalents that harm good creatures. As well as chaotic equivalents that harm lawful creatures, and vice versa.
- In Fourth Edition, clerics have even more spells that can do damage to just about any kind of creature. Clerics who specialize in these are nicknamed "Laser Clerics." Also in Fourth Edition, there is the Avenger class, which is a class pretty much devoted to this trope. Slightly subverted in that unlike other divine classes, Avengers are always allowed to be unaligned, regardless of the affiliation of the god they serve. Paladins also have very strong ties to this trope.
- Book Of Exalted Deeds is a supplement for 3rd Ed. that is just full of this trope. It starts from the basic premise that people need to play better characters, in the moral sense, and does a fine job for a while — and then you get to the Ravages and Afflictions. See, if Poison Is Evil, then Good Guys can't use it. However, Ravages and Afflictions are poisons that only hurt Evil characters, so they're okay! Some of the stuff in there is awesome — just not the Holy Hand Grenade part.
- Most good stuff was converted from earlier books of Planescape. Warriors of Heaven — note that its author participated in BoED too — already had magic mostly restricted to Celestials and whoever they deem really worthy, including attacks. Parts designated "only good guys" weirdly (like telepathic eavesdropping) or reminding of "12 yr old gamer girl" template from Portable Hole are new additions.
- Holy Word (Divine Word in some editions) is a high-level spell that has various damaging effects on non-Good creatures nearby. Unfortunately, going by standard D&D demographics, speaking a Holy Word on a busy street would probably strike three quarters of the crowd dead on the spot. Its variants are "Blasphemy" (affects non-Evil targets), "Dictum" (affects non-Lawful targets) and "Word of Chaos" (affects non-Chaotic targets).
- 5th edition plays around with this by having "holy" apply to any divine being, even if that being is evil. Case in point, the evil dragon goddess Tiamat can cast Divine Word several times a day, since she is divine.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- The Sisters of Battle, whose entire arsenal has been blessed by the clergy. This includes the requisite Holy Hand Grenades (mostly of the Willy Pete variety), but also Holy Flamethrowers & Holy Napalm Bombs.
- And the Psyk-Out grenade, one using the waste from the Golden Throne.note
- And this wargear option for Black Templar characters from the same setting, Holy Orbs of Antioch. They are lethal weapons against the impure and wicked filled in equal measure with high explosives and sacred unguents. It's from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, click here to see it in action
- Also, the Ecclesiarch (high priest/Pope type) has a rosarius that projects a force-field. Not a weapon as such, but not what you would expect a priest to be carrying. Of course, in 40k, practically everything in the Imperium is holy, and practically everything could be and is used as a weapon. Imperial Priests also often carry a two-handed chainsword known as an Eviscerator.
- The Dreadnoughts are a fine example of this. A tomb-cum-shrine, with legs, a massive machine gun and a missile launcher.
- A number of the Space Marines might consider all their weaponry of this nature, though it probably isn't by the nature of the setting. Depending on how zealous they are, certain Imperial Guard regiments might have the same attitude toward their equipment.
- This will definitely be the view of the masses towards Space Marine equipment, as they're commonly indoctrinated to believe that the Astartes are literally the angels of the Emperor responsible for bringing death to the Imperium's enemies.
- Celestial Exalted get a lot of Charms with effects like this. (Terrestrials also have one or two, but they're much less potent, and are relatively recent creations, developed to compensate for the fact that they usurped, exterminated, and then demonized the remnants of the Exalted with real holy power.) There's also the Solar Circle Sorcery spell Light of Solar Cleansing, which nukes any "Creatures of Darkness" in the area, leaving everything else untouched.
- Which is not to be confused with Cleansing Solar Flames, another Solar level spell that destroys shadowlands.
- Wonders of the Lost Age (the Magitek sourcebook) introduces the Sun's Fist Chakram, a literal Holy Hand Grenade.
- Warhammer Fantasy battle and roleplay has the gods of the empire to mainly help their followers.....until they decide to unleash destructive powers rivaling those of mighty sorcerers. Brettonia avoids this by having their goddess only protect the knights from harm and give them powers when they become epitomes of good, the destructive power of their "damsels" (mystical priestesses) are given by training from elves.
- Deadlands and its CCG counterpart, Doomtown, have the Holy Wheel Gun, a revolver with "The Right Hand of God" engraved on the barrel. It does terrible things to monsters, especially the more profane, like the walking dead, werewolves, and vampires.
- Stats for the Holy Hand Grenade itself are given in GURPS Camelot.
- Ironclaw the Church of s'Allumer has a few offensive holy spells, such as Fulguration, which is too dangerous to be readied bare-handed and must be cast with a rod, wand, or calendar sword. And then there's the Lutarist faith's Blessed magic, which is not supposed to be used to attack and punishes the user if they do so.
- Around half the "direct harm" powers in In Nomine are this; the other half are Unholy Hand Grenade.
- Princess: The Hopeful: The White Magic of the titular Princesses includes a wide variety of spells to inflict harm or summon weapons.
Toys
- The Light Element in BIONICLE. Examples include Takanuva and Av-Matoran.
Video Games
- The Apple of Eden in Assassin's Creed is a Holy Hand Grenade. The main difference is that it is actually a long lost piece of technological equipment created by an older, much more advanced civilization on Earth, who used the Apples of Eden to enslave humanity.
- Joshua's attacks in The World Ends with You, several of which involve casting beams of holy light surrounded by cherub angels.
- Rondo of Swords: While most Light spells are for healing or otherwise support, the spell Oratoriorae stands out for being the only offensive one, indiscriminately damaging lines of both allied and enemy units in front of the caster.
- Elden Ring has Holy as one of its damage types, which is mainly associated with Marika's Golden Order Fundamentalists, and the worship of the Erdtree. The damage is particularly strong against the undead, and you can even craft literal holy bombs to have them on hand. As it turns out, the source of holy power is a god-entity even above Marika called the Greater Will, who seeded the Lands Between with the Erdtree long ago and used Marika and her lineage to spread its influence on the world in a struggle against other Outer Gods.
- Final Fantasy:
- In most of the games, and a few other Square Enix series, "Holy" is often equal to "Flare" in terms of effect and damage. In the days Nintendo had censorship policies, Holy was given different names, like "Fade" in Final Fantasy, "Pearl" in Final Fantasy VI and "White" in Final Fantasy IV and a handful of others.
- In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, spells and items that would harm the undead were considered Holy by the in game laws.
- In addition to Holy, Final Fantasy also included the Dia series of spells, initially translated as "Harm". Dia's power only affects undead creatures, but it causes heavy damage to them. Later games did away with Dia and instead implemented the rule that Revive Kills Zombie.
- Final Fantasy XI brings the Dia series of spells back, though the first Dia is the lowest level white magic available. Instead of straight-up Holy damage, it does light elemental damage over time and lowers the target's defense. Still extra harmful to undead, but it damages everything else just fine. In fact, there's a whole school of Divine Magic that includes Dia, but also direct-damage light elemental spells like the Banish line.
- Final Fantasy XII: Holy is the only offensive White Magick spell and obtained very late in the game. Alongside Flare, Ardor, and Scathe, it takes up the heaviest animation sequence, so nobody can circumvent it once it's cast. Other than that, Ultima, being a Holy-elemental Esper, has the attack Redemption, which blasts her enemies with pure light from the ground, while her Limit Break is Eschaton, where she becomes a Kill Sat who shoots a destructive laser from space.
- In Final Fantasy XIV White Mage and Red Mage respectively have Holy and Verholy in their offensive toolkit. Paladin gets the unique attack spells Holy Spirit and Holy Circle, which have a finisher in the form of Confiteor that summons a holy sword of light from the ground.
- Alexander is the summon that represents holy even when the spell itself isn't available.
- Kingdom Hearts has plenty of light-powered characters with weapons capable of doing incredible and terrible things, so it does this a lot:
- The Keyblade is a Cool Sword of incredible power. Only the Chosen May Wield them (though the criteria tends to differ on what that means) and they can be used as edged-weapons, blunt-weapons, a Magic Staff, a shield, a purifying tool and a universal skeleton-key depending on how they are used. They are the ideal weapons when face with creatures of darkness, including the Heartlessnote , Nobodies and the Unversed. While keyblade wielders are generally aligned with the light, there are plenty of keyblade wielders who unambiguously side with the darkness, as is the case with Master Xehanort and his various incarnations, though he himself was originally a good guy that turned to the dark side later in life.
- Holy has been a recurring spell since Chain of Memories, although it's generally translated as Faith.
- Minnie Mouse of all people in Kingdom Hearts II, actually has two variants: one a ball of light she projects at enemies that approach her, the other a combo attack with Sora which creates an explosion of light that fairly heavily damages enemies.
- In Birth by Sleep, Ven has two such attacks: Faith and Salvation, both of which not only hurt enemies but heal him.
- Shin Megami Tensei:
- In most games except Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army (which lacks a light element altogether), "Hama" (light) has the exact same effect as "Mudo" (dark) - insta-kill (in some, it just halves the target's HP).
- In the later games, there's also the aptly named Megido, which deals Almighty damage. No enemy resists Almighty, except a handful that resist everything.
- The Persona sub-series also occasionally has the spell "Kouha" (Literally "Light Wave") and its stronger variants, which are the same element as Hama but deal damage instead of instantly killing.
- Light elemental weapons in some of the Castlevania games:
- The holy water and the Item Crash Hydro Storm, or Divine Storm.
- The Claimh Solais in the Sorrow games.
- The Holy Sword in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It is quite effective for that part of the game.
- The cross, which acts like a boomerang, and its Item Crash, Grand Cross, which is represented as a gigantic beam of light surrounded by twirling crosses.
- The Bible itself.
- In Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin there's Holy Lightning.
- The Vampire Killer itself is a holy whip, and if you face a Belmont in combat, they are always resistant to holy damage.
- Proving that Light Is Not (Necessarily) Good, one of the Animated Armors you fight in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is a Light Elemental. Other enemies in the series are Light-aligned as well.
- The early games had a cross necklace as an item. When picked up, it creates a bright flash of light that kills everything on-screen.
- Castlevania: Lords of Shadow gives you a Light medallion which allows you to heal with each landed attack, as well as some other light/holy abilities.
- In The Crystal of Kings, casting Holy Attacking Spells are the standard attacks of players who chose Justicia, the elven priestess. Many of them even comes with crucifix motifs, and the strongest manifests as angelic beings made of light raining havoc on the forces of evil.
- In Dante's Inferno, the titular hero's trusty crucifix acts as this, where it can be used to either fire out anti-air flashes of energy, or (more dramatically), it can be used as a finisher where Dante smashes it into demonic foes' faces to burn the life out of them.
- Ragnarok Online has the Holy element which is extremely resistant to Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Poison, and Ghost attacks, but was both weak when attacked by and strong in attacking Shadow and Undead.
- Master of Magic has Life magic, their offensive spells only work on creatures of Chaos, Death or summoned creatures though. Their BENEFICIAL spells makes it probably the most powerful magic in the game.
- Word. Life-backed armies get buffs out the wazoo. Beware of even the humblest spearman unit buffed with Heroism, Invulnerability, Righteousness, Holy Armour, Holy Weapon, Lionheart, Crusade, Charm of Life and a stacked Prayer/High Prayer - not to mention getting Healed even if you do manage to damage them. Heroes, meanwhile, not only get all these benefits but can be Resurrected as well!
- World of Warcraft:
- The game has the Holy school of magic, performed exclusively by priests and paladins. While most Holy spells are for healing or buffing, there are a few damage spells and a Holy DPS priest makes a viable—if challenging and unorthodox—character option. What's nice about holy damage is that there's no resistance or immunity to it, at the cost of dealing slightly less damage than the other schools. This is even more true since "Mists Of Pandaria" gave Paladins an overhaul. Many Paladin abilities now either generate Holy Power or are fueled by it. All Paladins use holy power, and Retribution Paladins specifically use it as a weapon.
- In Legion at least several Artifact Weapons the Adventurers could wield were in some way considered Holy Hand Grenades. Paladins could wield Oathseeker and Truthguardnote , The Silver Hand note , and The Ashbringer note
- Crono in Chrono Trigger uses "Heavens" element magic. This is why he learns Life, and makes two pairs of opposing elements (Fire and Water, Holy and Shadow), but the English version names it Lightning (since some of his attacks and multitechs cause lightning to strike from the heavens) instead. Luminaire is the best example of this trope. The DS version renames his brand of magic "Light" magic, bringing it closer to the original Japanese naming.
- Grandia II plays this straight with Elena's ultimate move, White Apocalypse.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- In both The Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past, the sacred Silver Arrows are the only weapon that can penetrate the defense of the otherwise invincible Ganon.
- Light Arrows from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time onward. They're capable of dispelling evil barriers, hurting the otherwise invincible Ganondorf and Malladus (in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks), stunning large enemies like Stalfos and, in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, they not only kill enemies in fewer hits (sometimes only one), but also make them leave large sums of money as a result; they also have the power of activating the gravity flip at the entrance of the Stone Tower Temple, as well as in a couple rooms within. The arrows are further buffed in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, where any minor enemy hit anywhere with a light arrow dramatically explodes in a brilliant flash of light.
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has the Skyward Strike, a Sword Beam repeatedly stated to be made of divine power, which is charged up by pointing the sword upwards.
- Age of Wonders:
- A few units in the game can deal Holy damage, which is a useful damage type in that it has a chance to cripple enemies with the Vertigo debuff. Most spells that deal Holy damage are from the Life sphere of magic, and the incorruptible, quasi-angelic High Men race has several units that deal holy damage in melee or from afar, the earliest example being the Saint unit, which can fling Holy Bolts as an effective ranged attack.
- In sequels Archons (High Men stand-in) do it again, as well as Good priests and summoned units like Angel.
- Age of Wonders 3 brings us the Theocrat leader class which specializes in dealing holy damage. The combat spell "Smite" deals a large amount of holy damage, while their ultimate unit, the "Shrine of Smiting", does large amounts of holy and fire damage. Even better, the Shrine of Smiting does more damage the more Devout units you have on the field.
- Trials of Mana has light magic as one of its 8 elements, with spells like Saint Beam and Silver Dart. It is unique among the 8 elements in that it utilizes your Spirit stat, instead of Intelligence.
- Nexus War is all over this trope. Evil may have the dirty tricks, but Good has all the big guns. Embracing the holy love and peace of Paradise lets characters turn into firestorms, throw cars and trees, replace limbs with weapons and summon holy war machines. Let's not even get started on all the smiting. When Heaven goes to war, it goes to war.
- Fallout:
- One of the random encounters in Fallout 2 is with a bunch of knights in power armor looking for the Holy Hand Grenade. Another random encounter features actual grenade itself, but it is regrettably unreachable due to script error.
- In Fallout: New Vegas, if you have the Wild Wasteland trait you can actually find the Holy Hand Grenade within Camp Searchlight. Use them sparingly, as there's only three, and carefully, as they light off like mini-nukes.
- In Fate/stay night, Kirei Kotomine is often derided as a "fake priest" by Rin Tohsaka, and primarily trades on being a Chessmaster and a Manipulative Bastard. But come the Heaven's Feel route, his true badassery and holy power is revealed when he exorcises Zouken Matou to death with the Baptismal Rite.
- Fire Emblem:
- Most games in the series have Light as a category of attack magic, and it tends to conjure gigantic beams and explosive spheres of light. In the games that have Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors, Light beats Dark, but loses to elemental magicnote .
- Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War features the Book of Naga, wieldable only by those who carry Major blood of its namesake Divine Dragon and is instrumental in defeating Loptous.
- In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, the light using Bishop class has a special skill that deals bonus damage to monsters.
- In fact, even the Archanea duology, which don't have the above mentioned Elemental Rock Paper Scissors, have the Aura and Starlight tomes. Its distant sequel Fire Emblem: Awakening, meanwhile, has the Book of Naga, carried over from Genealogy of the Holy War.
- Guild Wars has smiting prayers in general, and Ray of Judgment in particular, which is arguably the most powerful spell against a stationary target.
- The mikos of Touhou Project do this quite a bit. In fact, even the goddesses they worship themselves aren't averse to rolling up their sleeves and getting into brawls using their "miracle" power to level massive destruction at whatever random Gensokyo resident they feel like fighting with at the time. Inaba of the Moon & Inaba of the Earth gives the Shout Outs to Monty Python and Wizardry by mentioning the HHG of Aunty Ock. Another specific example are the Celestials, whose very body is anathematic to the Youkai. Too bad the only playable Celestial is a colossal Jerkass.
- Champions Online offers the Celestial powerset with the Blood Moon content, focusing primarily on abilities that can both damage enemies and heal allies. There are a few individual abilities in other powersets as well, particularly Condemn in the Supernatural set which hits the enemy with a column of light from the sky and can stun enemies near the point of impact.
- This is the shtick of three of the four Priest subclasses, especially the Crusader, in Dungeon Fighter Online.
- The HHG shows up in Hands of Necromancy as one of the many power-up items, and looks exactly like the one in Monty Python (round, golden bauble with a cross). It functions the same way as well, useful for blowing up large numbers of zombies and demons, but it's called Unholy Hand Grenade.
- Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent has Sazantos, a Paladin under the Order of the Sacred Flame who utilizes the Sacred Flame alongside his sword to burn and cut down evildoers. As a playable unit, his "Sacred Blaze" moves are Sword attacks that also deal Fire and Light damage.
- Tales Series:
- The games has had Light-element attacks, like Photon, Holy Lance, and Judgment, since the very beginning. And despite it being a lightning-based spell, the Indignation spell fits under this trope; the incantation describes the caster as commanding heavenly powers to send down "Divine Lightning"; when the spell is cast, the skies part and lightning falls from the heavens. In some games it is a proper light elemental spell. An exception is Tales of the Abyss, where Judgment counts as a Fire-element spell.
- The Tales of Legendia spell God Press (incorrectly localized as Judgement) hits enemies with an actual holy hand.
- Tsukihime:
- Church Militant Ciel wields the Seventh Holy Scripture, a unicorn horn fused with the soul of a sacrificed girl. Clearly, however, this wasn't good enough for her, so she modified it into a pilebunker. It's so powerful that it can stop the reincarnation of a Dead Apostle, INCLUDING Roa. Or, rather, it's specifically designed to stop the reincarnation of one such as Roa, and happens to stop reincarnation by any lesser being. It's filled with the power of all church verses, theories, sermons, etc, that deny reincarnation, imparting that belief upon the one hit.
- All of the Church Executors (among which Ciel is a member of the elite Burial Agency) in the Nasuverse are capable of using weapons powered by faith, the most widespread of which are the Keys of Providence, who have the ability to impose natural laws on their targets (for a vampire this means their body is forcibly brought back to human. Dead human, with the additional effect of falling to dust if the vampire is old enough) and, in case of the blade-like Black Keys (the most seen type of Key of Providence), stopping them cold if they hit their shadows. Prime example: While Kotomine Kirei usually seems to be an admittedly-inept mage who succeeds through his Badass Normal fighting skills and strength, the moment he is put against Matou Zouken (an incredibly corrupted lich-like ex-human made of demonic worms possessing bodies) he is able to use the full extent of his holy magic through a "baptismal rite". There’s nothing left.
- Worms:
- The first game has a literal Holy Hand Grenade◊ just like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Complete with a fixed three-second fuse rather than the 1-5 second adjustable fuses of other grenades (However, the grenade will not explode until it stays perfectly still. Later games remove the fuse, and the grenade will explode as soon as it stays still), because "three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three."note A "HAAAALELUJAH!" choir sounds in the air, and immediately after that, sweet mass destruction is the outcome.
- Worms 4 Mayhem and Worms Ultimate Mayhem: The explosion has a halo.
- As a Shout-Out in Team Fortress 2, those who bought Worms Reloaded before its release get a promotional helmet for the Soldier. Holy Hand Grenades included. Taunting with the Equalizer will result in an "HAAAALELUJAH!" choir playing in the air, and foes too close will be reduced to tiny bits... in addition to yourself.
- Terraria has this very grenade in its mobile/3DS versions, 100% inspired on its Worms origins, from its appearance, to the "Hallelujah!" choir, and down to its insanely destructive power and blast radius, which makes it the most powerful single-damaging item of all versions of this game.
- The first game has a literal Holy Hand Grenade
- Sacred Seraphims' powers are based on this. They even have Holy Hand BFG!
- This is an actual usable item (with the appropriate and predictable results) in the third installment of The Bard's Tale series.
- The holy water, white mage and paladin's attacks in Battle for Wesnoth, there was even a “holy” damage type in earlier versions.
- The game Duke Nukem: Time To Kill features a literal "Holy Hand Grenade" as a weapon similar to the one in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, found when Duke travels back in time to the middle ages.
- In Doom II RPG there's the Holy Water Pistol which makes most demons empty their bowels with fear (not literally), and to all Lost Soul variants, it does critical damage.
- In Dragon Quest IX, the final ability of the Paladin, Solar Flair, is a light type ability that does respectable damage. Even better, the spell doesn't work off of Magical Might (the offensive spell stat), but Magical Mending (the healing spell stat). Since the ability can be given to any class, to any member once unlocked, it is the perfect move to give to the Priest, who has the highest Mending, yet not an offensive ability to speak of, so it's right at home with them.
- In Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, John Marston is given vials of holy water by the Mother Superior of a nunnery in Mexico. They function like Molotov Cocktails that only affect the undead, causing them to be burned by blue flames.
- The Plasma Grenades in Halo, which the Covenant refer to as "holy flare", "prophet's flare", or "cleansing flame" (Or "Demon flare", when thrown by an enemy). They're actually more akin to Sticky Bomb than this trope, though, but they're holy as far as the Covenant are concerned. Given that the Covenant reverse-engineers Forerunner tech for all of their gear, and worship the Forerunners as gods, it might still be literal truth to them.
- Fate Cards in Septerra Core - magic cards attributed to one of four main gods of Septtera mythology — Marduk, Gemma, Dogo and Kyra and combining specific cards can dwell more into this territory:
- Combining specific cards with summoning card allows you to summon Marduk, Gemma and lesser mythological or legendary figures to attack your enemy or Kyra to heal the target and damage the undead enemies. Dogo's primary card — Joker — gives you random summon.
- Combining two primal cards of Marduk and Gemma — Law (removes all negative effects from the target) and Chaos (target turns berserk and may attack it's allies) unleashes destructive power upon your enemy. Combining them with Mirror will create black hole.
- The offensive Miracles in Dark Souls "Wrath of the Gods" and "Emit Force" basically channel your Faith into big explosions. Divine weapons are also the only things that can put down true Undead like skeletons permanently without killing the necromancer animating them first.
- The Usage of Mantra in weapons in Asura's Wrath is this, as its based upon the emotions drawn from Human prayer and their souls. Chakravartin, the embodiment of this power, is Holy in origin, but his personality, on the other hand, is not good at all.
- Anyone playing a Guardian in Guild Wars 2 will end up relying heavily on skills of this type. While there is no "holy" type damage in the game, a lot of their skills heal allies while simultaneously damaging enemies, and sometimes even setting them on fire. A Guardian's user interface will even periodically burn with blue flames to indicate that their passive buff skills are in effect. Interestingly, even nearby allies will have THEIR skill bar ignited with blue flames when they receive a buff from the Guardian.
- Shows up in the Epic Battle Fantasy series as the Holy element. The page image is the cutscene from Natalie's Genesis Limit Break in Epic Battle Fantasy 4, which blasts enemies for a lot of Holy damage, heals the party, and revives any dead members. Natalie also gets the Judgement spell, which is Holy-elemental and has the greatest damage output of any single-target spell.
- Board Game Online has a literal Holy Hand Grenade, attainable by combining Holy Water with a mundane grenade. They are noticeably more potent than their mundane cousins, with higher knockback and a bigger kill radius.
- In the Shadow Hearts series Light is commonly associated with holy imagery, although it's not always wielded by good people.
- Alice is an exorcist, has affinity with Light, and uses two Light-elemental combat spells - Blessed Light and Advent.
- Yuri's Light-based fusions in both games are based on angels, and allow him to use Light magic.
- Nicolai in Covenant is a priest from Vatican, who comes equipped with Light magic, and can use a special "Divine Light" move if his Sanity Meter drops below zero. Then he turns out to be a villain and a heretic, making it an Invoked Trope in his disguise.
- Diablo II's Paladin class has a few abilities like this, most notably Holy Bolt and Fist of the Heavens. The Crusader class in Diablo III also has Fist of the Heavens—but, counter to the trope, that is now primarily a Lightning ability. The Crusader does have several other Holy abilities to make up for it, though, some of which are based off the Paladin abilities in World of Warcraft.
- In Darkest Dungeon, the Crusader and Vestal make some use of this, with the Vestal's Hand of Light, Illumination, Dazzling Light and Judgment, and the Crusader's Zealous Accusation.
- Master of the Monster Lair: The Holy Light spell. It's extremely effective against undead like ghosts and skeletons, and usually One Hit Kills them.
- Fable: The powerful "Divine Fury" spell hits an area of effect with a Heavenly Blue Beam Spam from the sky and gets cheaper to cast as the Hero raises his Karma Meter. Its evil counterpart, "Infernal Wrath", is only cosmetically different.
- Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous: While Divine Spellcasters in general have some spells and abilities that deal holy damage, it's the Angel Mythic Path that really goes all in on the holy smiting:
- First it grants Bolt of Justice, a spell that sends down light from heaven to blast an enemy not unlike a divine Kill Sat. The spell deals holy damage, which pretty much nothing in the game resists. Even better, it actually deals more damage depending on how evil its target is. It deals the most damage against the strongest evil beings such as demon lords, evil dragons, and lords of the undead. And if that wasn't enough, it also has a chance of knocking its targets down to the ground prone, leaving them unable to act for a round and making it easier for attackers to finish them off.
- Then it grants Storm of Justice, which is Bolt of Justice except it hits every enemy in a thirty foot radius.
- Finally it grants Wrath of the Righteous, which is actually a bit less powerful than Storm of Justice and only affects demons (fortunately this is one of the most common enemy types in the game) but hits a wider area.
Web Animation
- Dreamscape: Keedran, in her true form, can send out an Energy Ball that creates an explosive pillar of light.
Webcomics
- In 8-Bit Theater this is apparently what was used to kill Chaos.
- Black Mage's Hadouken spell is powered by love. As in, literally consumes it like a fuel.
- In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, when the Catholic Church hires the McNinja family to kill an evil ghost wizard, they loan them sacred weapons: a bo staff made from the wood of the true cross, sais created from the iron of St Peter's sword, nunchucks made from Mother Theresa's bones, and bullets gargled by the Pope. Eventually, Doc uses the most potent holy weapon of all: he chucks Pope Francis himself at a vampirized King Radical.
- In Nodwick, PCs won't content to merely splash uglies with holy water, thus... Holy Hand Grenade Launcher + Kill It with Water = "H2oly Sacred Soaker"
- The Order of the Stick, being based on D&D, uses a lot of this.
- Clerics have "Turn Undead"
- Paladins use "Smite Evil"
- In strip #859, Durkon uses "Holy Word" (described above under Tabletop Games) against the Linear Guild. Most of their members are deafened, while the succubus Sabine is outright banished to her home plane for 24 hours. Only "Thog", namely Tarquin in disguise, manages to resist the spell. Amusingly, Belkar is also deafened by the Holy Word, as his alignment does not include "Good".
- Nith, a battlemage from What's Shakin' uses holy magic with his sword skills. Another character, Ell, can also launch heavy holy attacks when in need.
- Ingress Adventuring Company: Aidan conjures holy water with his cleric abilities to dispatch the large attacking spirit in Chapter 3.
- Girl Genius, among the wild variety of Mad Scientist-provided goodness of Mechanicsburg has mechanical "Bloodstone Paladins" in the cathedral built by Good Heterodyne (and "dey schtarted all dot krezy sekrifice schtuff"). That's when you notice a Heterodyne trilobite sigil on their Abbess's cross... and remember that the founder of House Heterodyne was considered a consort of the local battle goddess.
Web Original
- A power of Light in Phaeton, but it is in no way the strongest light power.
- In Prolecto, HRE ammunition is used to instant-kill demons that are otherwise Immune to Bullets. Unfortunately, the protagonists ARE those demons.
- In the MS Paint Adventures fan adventure Tales Of Visseria: The White Depths, a cleric blesses a ballista by writing runes on it (his own blood...) A sufficiently advanced machine later upgrades it into a railgun, without disrupting the runes, which means the railgun is still blessed and able to badly hurt the big bad.
- Dice Funk: Anne channels holy light through her teddy bear to incinerate an undead monster.
- Critical Role: Being a War Domain cleric, Pike is the personification of this trope, wielding such destructive and combat-oriented abilities as "War God's Blessing" and "Divine Strike". Her "Destroy Undead" ability is described as an explosive shock wave that turns a large number of attacking undead into ash.
- Innocence in Who Says is described as "cosmic uranium", used as a power source for Heaven and Hell's infrastructure and the source of Mana for some magical disciplines.
Western Animation
- My Little Pony:
- The Rainbow of Light from the original cartoon. Megan uses it to obliterate Tirac in the pilot episode.
- Much the same applies to its direct descendant, the Elements of Harmony in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Although its first use is to dispel dark magic rather than inflict serious harm, its second shot petrifies a being of pure chaos energy. Bastard had it coming, too. Though he did eventually come back...
- Then, It's third use was to destroy an infestation of monstrous weeds. After that, They were used in an attempt to banish the pony of shadows. They banished the shadow, but not the pony. They then destroyed evil doppelgangers who attempted to use them in another episode, before getting destroyed in the season 9 opener after they failed to banish King Sombra. It's worth noting that the Mane six used the sam power to vaporize King Sombra for good and Strip Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow of powers in the finale."
- The Crystal Heart, empowered by the joy of the revitalized Crystal Ponies, sends out a burst of light that shatters the Evil Overlord unicorn whose soul had long since collapsed into darkness.
- The Matrix of Leadership in the various Transformers continuities, especially the first television series is considered to be holy and potent indeed.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Energybending is not only the original and thus purest form of bending, but also implied to be divine in origin, what with having origins in the spiritual world and being used solely by the Avatar. In the Sequel Series, The Legend of Korra, Amon claims to have acquired what appears to be the exact same thing from the spirits. It turns out to be a combination of bloodbending and chi blocking. And it still isn't as powerful as energybending, as Korra is able to reverse the effect with it.
- In the Book 2 finale, the waterbending technique that Unalaq taught Korra, involving infusing water with light in order to pacify spirits, backfired spectacularly on him, the "cleansing" resulting in his death because he was fused with Vaatu, the spirit of darkness.
- In Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron, Professor Bruttenholm flings holy water at the vampire Erszebet Ondrushku, which burns her and drives her away. Later, when she takes a Blood Bath, Bruttenholm spikes it with more holy water, and this kills her.
- In The Transformers: The Movie, the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, when opened, releases energy that destroys the evil monster planet-transformer Unicron, leaving only his head floating around Cybertron like a moon.
- Angel Wars: Several energy weapons are said in the supplementary materials to fire divine energy.