A Power Source that is connected to negative emotions. There is a spectrum of negative emotions, such as fear, lust, and hatred. Using such a source can give power but be corruptive at a cost. Such energy may give great power seemingly more than others. Emotion Eaters can feast on negative emotions as a Power Source if they don't favor positive emotions or can't stomach positive emotions. Some cases of The Berserker are driven by negative emotions. Anger is obviously a candidate, but fear can also play a role, or self-loathing. If people utilize it, they may succumb to negative emotions, lose their rationality, become literal monsters, or become evil. There are times when this negative energy can be a force of good, where something can be negative doesn't mean it is evil.
Super-Trope to The Power of Hate.
Subtrope of Metaphysical Fuel.
Related to As Long as There Is Evil.
See also Black Magic, The Dark Side, Emotional Powers, Made of Evil, Powered by a Forsaken Child, and The Power of Lust.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: In Chapter 60, while competing in a baseball challenge, Iku gets trash-talked by her opponent’s boyfriend. Owing to Iku’s masochism, his words end up having the opposite effect on Iku.
- Occurred twice in the Brave Series:
- In The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird, Draias and his minions are fuelled by "Minus Energy," so many of their plots involve making people suffer or attacking things that make people feel good (e.g. attacking a flower show).
- Similarly, the Zonders in GaoGaiGar were fuelled by stress, so they would find hosts for Zonder Metal who had been through stressful times (like a trucker experiencing road rage or a stuck-up school principal dealing with students).
- In Dragon Ball GT, the Shadow Dragons are seven creatures born from the Dragon Balls themselves. The Dragon Balls were meant to only be used sparingly as the Dragon Balls would absorb positive and negative energies and release the negative energies over time. However, the creation of the Dragon Radar and the ever-increasing plethora of villains meant that the Dragon Balls were being used more and more and the negative energy was building up. Each of the seven Shadow Dragons is created from seven wishes: Hazenote from resurrecting Bora, Ragenote from resurrecting Goku to fight Vegeta and Nappa, Oceanusnote from Oolong's wish for a pair of panties, Naturonnote from Bulma and Yamcha wishing back those killed by Majin Vegeta, Nuovanote from King Piccolo's restored youth, Eisnote from either Bulma resurrecting King Piccolo's victims or Goku erasing the memories of Majin Buu's rampage from the minds of everyone except for the heroes and their allies (depending on the source), and Synnote from Mr. Popo's resurrection of most of the Namekian people. Ironically, besides Oceanus and Nuova, all of the other Shadow Dragons were created from selfless wishes.
- Digimon has several examples of this:
- Dark Digivolution is a common example of this throughout the series, usually resulting in the hero's partner Digimon attaining a powerful yet uncontrollable Superpowered Evil Side. The most prominent examples being Tai's Skullgreymon, his Machinedramon in the 2020 reboot, Takato's Megidramon, Marcus' Shinegreymon: Ruin Mode, and Hiro's Gulusgammamon.
- Digimon Adventure 02: In the final battle, Malomyotismon attempts to turn the tide against the Digidestined by feeding off the depression and self-doubt of various Dark Spore-infected children to strengthen himself.
- Digimon Tamers: While in the digital world, the D-Reaper simply disintegrates everything it comes into contact with. In order to make the jump to the real world, however, it needs to possess a human body, not just as a means of getting but to use its mind to make sense of this new reality. In its own words, it chose Jeri for this purpose - a girl in a severe state of depression after the death of her Digimin partner Leomon - as her "data" was "so similar to the D-reaper, her thoughts focused on destruction and what you humans call sadness and despair." Even after it moves enough of its mass to the real world to no longer need her for this purpose, it still keeps her prisoner in its "brain" to continue feeding off of her negative emotions as it seeks to destroy all sapient life.
- Digimon Data Squad: For the first half of the series, various Digimon that found their way to the real world were usually strengthened by the negative emotions of humans, with Thomas even name-dropping the seven deadly sins as examples at a later point.
- Fairy Tail: Cursed Energy is accumulated from negative human emotions and the power source for Curses used by Demons. Similar to Ethernano, it is limited by the user's body and can lead them to be weakened when they exhaust their supply. It does have a weakness in Devil Slayer Magic, which can exorcise evil and negativity.
- One Piece: Played for Laughs during the Thriller Bark Saga. Perona's Hollow-Hollow Fruit powers, which allow her to summon ghosts that drain people by inducing an intense depression in those they touch, have no effect on Usopp, due to, as Usopp puts it, his "naturally negative nature". What ensues is a Curb-Stomp Battle, as Usopp appears to be fleeing from Perona the whole time, but is actually trying to riddle out the location of her real body, subduing her by making her faint from a combination of being covered in cockroaches and the fear that she's going to be crushed by a ten-ton hammer (actually an inflatable mallet).
- Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Energy is made from humans' negative emotions. Cursed Spirits or Curses are made of this energy and act upon a negative emotion based on it. Jujutsu Sorcerers use this energy to exorcise Curses using their Jujutsu.
- Near the end of My Girlfriend Without Wasabi, it's revealed that Rino has demonic powers that are fueled by her negativity. Unfortunately, this means that her happiness with her and Nozomu's relationship robs her of her magic, which results in the three masks that she gave life to serve as her family lose all their power and fade away.
- Ranma ½: Ryouga learns the more Shishi Hodoukan, which becomes more powerful the more negative he's feeling (for example, he has a crush on Akane, and so when he notices she and Ranma are getting on particularly well is hit with a big bout of depression and anger). While Ranma is able to learn the technique, his naturally confident and overall positive demeanor means that he can't actually utilise it. He manages to overcome this problem by developing a new technique called the Mouko Takabisha, which is fueled by his confidence instead.
- Soul Eater: Madness Wavelength is a powerful form of Soul Wavelength that, as its name implies, can cause people to go mad or even spread to others if they are drawn to it. If a user possesses a high level of Madness Wavelength, they can affect the state of other people's souls.
Asian Animation
- Cubix: Robots for Everyone: In the episode "The Chipinator," Chip is tricked into piloting a robot called Negator that feeds on the pilot's negative emotions. Negator's weakness is naturally the pilot's positive emotions, which it tries to prevent Chip from feeling by using its ability to create hallucinations designed to induce negative emotions.
Comic Books
- DC Comics:
- Doom Patrol: In Unstoppable Doom Patrol, Degenerate gets stronger and more durable in proportion to the strength of his negative emotions.
- Green Lantern: The DC Universe has the concept of the "Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum". Colors closer to the Infrared side of the spectrum are powered by negative emotions — the Red Lantern Corps is fueled by Anger, the Orange by Avaraice, the Yellow Lanterns by Fear — but everything after Green is generally a positive emotion. Green Lanterns draw energy from willpower, Blue Lanterns from Hope, Indigo Lanterns from Compassion, Violet Lanterns from Love.
- The Ultraviolet Lantern Corp has Power Rings powered by Ultraviolet Emotional Energy fueled by negative emotions. The Power Rings can induce negative emotions in their users to strengthen the rings' powers.
- New Gods: Obtaining and using Anti-Life Equation is the ultimate goal of Darkseid in almost all of his incarnations. The Equation amounts to a mathematical proof that hope, freedom, and life are all pointless endeavors, and as such, those who hear the equation spoken aloud submit to his will. The full text of the equation, in some versions, is:
loneliness + alienation + fear + despair + self-worth ÷ mockery ÷ condemnation ÷ misunderstanding ⋅ guilt ⋅ shame ⋅ failure ⋅ judgment n=y where y=hope and n=folly, love=lies, life=death, self=dark side
- Shadowpact: The future superhero Miss Poltergeist has telekinetic powers, at the cost of being in a perpetually bad mood.
- Marvel Comics:
- Civil War: In the aftermath of the Civil War, Robbie Baldwin, AKA Speedball, was the sole survivor of the Inciting Incident in Stamford, Connecticut, due to his Energy Absorption powers allowing him to survive the blast caused by Nitro. Speedball's powers evolved in such a way that they could only be activated when he felt physical pain, causing him to create a suit fitted with over 600 spikes — symbolic of the death toll in Stamford — and take on the name "Penance". A later storyline revealed that Robbie's old, Lighter and Softer powerset still exists, but now is only capable of manifesting when he's feeling positive emotions.
- The Darkforce is negative energy from the Darkforce Dimension that can usually be used for magic, but other means, like technology, can tap into it. When a person channels such a force, they can become corrupted and, thanks to overexposure, go insane.
Fan Works
- Alicorn: The Nightmare is an Ancient Evil that is drawn to anger, resentment, and jealousy, likened to the Windigos only more bloodthirsty. In ancient days it was like a storm, ripping apart the landscape and leaving nothing in its wake. In modern times, it acts more like The Corruption, feeding on a host and empowering itself by driving them to act on angry impulses against their better judgement. Its latest host was Luna, drawn to her anger and resentment of her sister, but now it has set its sights on Twilight Sparkle, feeding on her growing jealousy and resentment towards Rainbow Dash.
- Amazing Fantasy: One of Izuku's powers, "Venom Strike", requires him to dredge up all of his worst feelings, particularly his buried desire to lash out at those who mistreated him for many years since the day he was diagnosed as Quirkless, to get it to work.
- Dueling Keyboards: "One Day in the Crystal Library": Sombra wants to make a protective artifact powered by negativity, just in case the current positivity that powers the current protections ever fades:
Sombra: But wouldn't it be a good idea to have something else protecting us? Something we can use when we're sad?
- In Which the Fox Flees: Lila gets akumatized into Volpina again when she thinks Marinette only befriended her out of pity. When she captures Marinette, she binds her with "very solid and very real bands of orange rope".
Marinette: I thought you could only create illusions?!
Volpina: The greater your rage, the greater the power you harbor. - Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger: Deconstructed with Jaune Arc in a Bad Powers, Good People way. Through Nihilus' subtle encouragement and influence, Jaune uses negative emotions like anger and hate to fuel his newfound Force powers and draw strength from them. However, like in Star Wars, anyone who tries to exercise restraint while wielding the Dark Side weakens themselves since the power is fueled by negative emotions like anger and hate, and it's designed for a Force user to act without restraint and embrace their worst impulses to use it to its full potential as a requirement. As it turns out becoming dependent on constantly feeling negative emotions really messes with Jaune's mental and emotional stability, allowing Nihilus to perform a Demonic Possession near the end.
Films — Animation
- Monsters, Inc.: The monster world is powered by energy collected from the screams of deliberately frightened children in the human world. In the ending, the monsters discover that laughter is an even more powerful source of energy, and switch to that instead.
Films — Live-Action
- Ghostbusters II: The Mood Slime, charged with negative emotions of New York City, was used by Vigo to manifest a physical form while summoning his army of violent spirits.
- Star Wars: Use of the dark side of the Force runs entirely on negative emotions such as rage and hatred.
Literature
- Chrysalis (RinoZ): The asura bear is a type of berserker that is fueled by negative emotions; Sarah especially is full of fear. It's something of a vicious circle because the things she can do in her berserk state make her Afraid of Their Own Strength. By the time the golgari found her, she had almost entirely lost her mind to rage and terror.
- Diana Tregarde: In Children of the Night, psychic vampires can feed off positive emotions when first turned, but once they feed off negative emotions, they not only become more powerful but also become locked into that mode of feeding, requiring them to drive victims into states of terror and despair before they can feed.
- The Dresden Files: Two of the three major families in the White Court of Vampires— Malvora and Skavis— feed on fear and despair from their victims respectively. The Malvora are implied to have the same level of control over the horror film industry that the lust-eating Raith family does over pornography.
- Harry Potter: The Cruciatus Curse needs the intent to use its effect, the prolonged causing of pain, in order to unlock its full power, but righteous anger can work less effectively.
- I'm the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire!: The Guide is an Emotion Eater who feeds off the hatred and despair of mortals, which he fosters largely by ruining people's lives. However, gratitude is toxic to him, which proves his undoing when the Liam Sera Banfield comes to consider him a Guardian Angel, Entertainingly Wrongly crediting him with his good fortune in his new life (it's actually the spirit of his childhood dog twisting the Guide's attempts to destroy Liam to his favor).
- The Rising of the Shield Hero: When their Legendary Hero has strong negative emotions, this unlocks their Curse Series related to said emotions, such as greed, gluttony, pride, lust, envy, sloth, and wrath. They grant an incredible amount of power but have a penalty in the form of Curse.
- Rod Allbright Alien Adventures: It's mentioned that negative emotions create "negatrons", a force that subtly wears away at everything exposed to them. The Card-Carrying Villain once tried to weaponize them but failed, so they mostly just serve as a cautionary story to warn the protagonist against negative thinking.
- Witch King: Expositor magic is powered by pain, domination, and death. Most practitioners quickly become amoral sociopaths if they weren't to start, but the protagonist Kai avoids being corrupted by using his own pain — his Healing Factor trivializes physical injuries, if not the emotional toll of decades as a Broken Hero.
Live-Action TV
- Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger: The Hashirien use a Monster of the Week to terrorize people and gather their fearful screams, which are then converted into "Gyahsoline" to fuel their cars.
- In Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, as well as its Western counterpart/adaptation Power Rangers Samurai, the Big Bad (Dōkoku/Xandred) plots to take over the human world using the Sanzu River, which is fueled by the tears of humanity. By sending out monsters to attack everyone, the goal is to create enough tears of despair that the river will overflow and eventually flood all of Earth.
- Star Trek: The Original Series: In the 3rd season episode "Day of the Dove" an entity that feeds on hostility invades the Enterprise and sets a group of Klingons and the Enterprise crew at each other's throats. Eventually the two sides realize they are being played and cease their battles, causing the entity to flee the ship, its energy almost completely drained.
- The Umbrella Academy: Viktor's sound-based powers are most active when he's under emotional turmoil, which causes him to have more advanced abilities that are enough to destroy the world. In season 2, he can gain control over his powers and mental stability.
- Wondershowzen: In the episode "Science", Sthugar's entry for their science fair is a propeller beanie that's powered by sadness. She puts it on and is quickly made airborne.
Radio
- In Deadly Echo where some children have special powers, Kelly's telekinesis is most effective when she is angry or upset. Martin deliberately winds her up, at a time when they really need her telekinesis to work.
Tabletop Games
- In Exalted, the optional Umbral Exalted all have their dark side take on a life of its own as their Shadow. When the Umbral suffers a major setback, trauma, or loss, those they care strongly about are harmed or reject them, or they're prevented from standing up for what they believe in, the Shadow becomes stronger, able to exert greater influence over the Umbral's mind until it manages a Split-Personality Takeover. However, several Umbral powers become more potent as the Shadow grows stronger. (They were, unsurprisingly, heavily inspired by the Shadow of Wraith, though the Umbral Shadow doesn't seek their destruction, as they do in Wraith.)
- Wraith: The Oblivion: Every wraith has an Enemy Within, their Shadow, which gains strength by, among other things, the wraith indulging in the emotions that drive the Shadow, the Shadow egging others on to indulge in the emotions that drive it, or the wraith using certain powers with negative emotional effects. With the strength the Shadow gains, it can fuel its own powers or stage a temporary Split-Personality Takeover.
Toys
- Transformers: Some Decepticons are described as being "fueled" by negative emotions, making them into The Determinator. Ruckus, for example, is a ferociously loyal Decepticon warrior at least partially because of his sense of spite towards the Autobots, while Skyquake is described as similarly filled with hatred towards his enemies, disgust towards traitors and cowards, and loathing for anyone who doesn't share his mindset.
Video Games
- Asura's Wrath: Mantra is a cosmic energy produced by emotions and prayers from humans and falls into 8 pure forms of Wrath, Pride, Greed, Lust, Vanity, Violence, Melancholy, and Sloth. Mantra is used by the Demigods to gain more power to fight the Gohma.
- Balan Wonderworld: The Negati are powered by negative thoughts and emotions.
- Final Fantasy XIV: In Endwalker, we have Blasphemies, creatures who are transformed from normal people of any race through a combination of Metetion's song and heavy negative emotions.
- Kingdom Hearts: Darkness is created and feeds on emotions like anger, greed, fear, etc. It can give them powers related to Darkness, but overuse is dangerous. If the feelings get stronger, a person can be consumed by the Darkness and transform into a Heartless and sometimes a Nobody.
- Mega Man ZX: It's revealed over the course of the first game's story that Biometal Model W feeds on negative emotions such as fear and anger, allowing the Biometal to awaken and become more powerful in the process. Both Serpent and later Albert exploit this trope on Vent/Aile and Prometheus and Pandora late in the original game's and Advent's storylines, allowing the final phase of their respective evil plans, each involving the use of Model W at full potential, to commence.
- Persona:
- Persona 2: Eternal Punishment: the New World Order collects Kegare throughout the story, a corruptive and even toxic substance made from humans' negative emotions. Nyalathotep uses it by pumping it into fissures, which causes an imbalance between Ideal Energy. This forces the sleeping dragon to awaken and destroy the Earth, bringing about an apocalypse that will destroy all human life.
- Persona 5: From a cultural perspective, the powers of the Phantom Thieves are this. Personas in this installment are seen as the manifestation of their user's rebellious spirit, and in Japan, conformity, politeness, obeying and revering people such as teachers, craftsmen, CEOs and politicians, and overall not rocking the boat are seen as virtues, and none of the Thieves are willing to put up with the corrupt systems that oppress them any longer, making them all Anti-Heroes at best in the eyes of Japanese culture. While some of the public admire the Phantom Thieves, even after the Okumura incident, the police open an investigation because of the societal upheaval they're causing, even if they do mostly go after criminals.
- Downplayed in Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic Adventure establishes that the Chaos Emeralds contain both positive and negative energy, and which one you draw upon depends on your emotions. Specifically, in the final story, Chaos draws upon the Emeralds' negative energy to become Perfect Chaos, but Sonic is able to draw upon their positive energy to become Super Sonic and defeat it. It's implied that the positive energy is the more powerful of the two.
- Shadow Hearts series: Malice is an energy from human negativity that can create monsters, corrupt people, and drive them mad. It can also cast magic or channel it to power a weapon.
- In Sonic and the Secret Rings, the Arbian Nights counterparts to the Chaos Emeralds, the World Rings, each contain a different emotion. Three of them, specifically, encompass negative emotions: the Red Ring of Rage, the Green Ring of Hatred, and the Purple Ring of Sadness. In the game's climax, Erazor Djinn kills Shahra, making his ritual to absorb the rings' power incomplete. The action both saddens and infuriates Sonic so much, the three negative world rings leave Erazor for Sonic, turning him into Darkspine Sonic. Compared to Super Sonic, he is not invincible, but can still fly and has pyrokinetic abilities and through the battle seems much angrier than the other boss battles.
- Stella Glow: The Mother Qualia is an advanced system powered by humanity's collective negative emotions in the form of the True Final Boss Cartesia. She seeks to destroy humanity until Alto purifies her in the true ending. Mother Qualia's human avatar, Eve, knew only the suicidal thoughts of humanity until she is purified and undergoes a Heel–Face Turn.
- Twisted Wonderland: Rollo Flamme's unique magic Dark Fire, which turns him Wreathed in Flames, draws fuel from opponents' negative emotions such as fear and impatience.
- Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening: One of the elements that psychic damage can be expressed with is Sorrow.
- World of Warcraft: The Mists of Pandaria expansion features the Sha, manifestations of negative emotions that gain power when people feel them too strongly.
Web Animation
- In RWBY, the Creatures of Grimm are attracted to negative emotions and will attack anyone who encounters them. The Fall of Beacon was caused by Cinder invoking this by using Emerald’s illusion Semblance to cause Yang and Pyrrha to invoke horror towards the audience.
Webcomics
- Endtown: The Dittos feed on negative emotions to power their shapeshifting abilities. While they're generally friendly, when they get hungry they become abusive and monstrous, spamming their hosts' Trauma Button by shapeshifting fears and monsters from their pasts to get them to suffer and produce Ditto Food. This gets many people killed.
Web Original
- In the Channel Awesome-verse there are Grey Lanterns whose power source is apathy. This power source is so apathetic that Grey Lanterns don't even get power rings. (Seen in the Linkara/Spoony episode Warrior #4)
- My Systems Were Nemesis Of All Ghosts: John can use his Demon System to absorb negative emotions for rewards that help him in the Thriller World and the real world when fighting Ghosts.
- SCP Foundation: SCP-8814
is a Downplayed example. It's a magic hammer created by a Nazi who gives people superpowers, as long as the person wielding it doesn't express viewpoints that imply any level of equality among humans. It can be wielded by anyone regardless of race or ethnicity, as long as the phrase "white power" is said to activate it, but expressing any level of belief in equality— ranging from saying "I voted for Obama" to "That's fucking disgusting. Who made this crap? I don't want anything to do with it, I don't care if it lets me fly."— dispels the effect.
- The Shortest Story: "Vampath" is about a person who gets turned into a vampath (apparently a portmanteau of vampire empath). Fortunately they retain their personality and morality, and so while they feed on people's emotions, they only take away the negative ones like anger, resentment, etc. This makes them lazy and sluggish, and one day the vampath wakes up surrounded by their victims, here to beg the vampath to stop, as they can see the effect it's having on him/her, and offer up their positive emotions to help him/her heal.
Web Video
- Multiverse Tales: The demons of Dimension D-667 are creatures empowered by feeding on negative human emotions such as anger, hatred, or bitterness, but the most nutritious of these to them is fear, which is why so many of them specialise in hunting humans with very specific phobias and fears. If a human conquers their fears, the demons can't affect them as well as they used to, and they can be fought and killed: conversely, there are rare examples of demons who, through exposure to positive emotions, have changed their entire nature and no longer need to eat fearful humans to stay alive, like the reformed Spinosaur demon Spinsawklion.
- Scootertrix the Abridged reimagines cockatrices as monsters who feed on fear and gain their powers from it. Normally they have little trouble getting fear to feed on since most ponies are rightfully afraid of the cockatrice's petrifying gaze, but they're also particularly vulnerable to the rare ponies who aren't afraid of them.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: It's revealed late into Season 3 that Firebending, after the Air Nomad Genocide 100 years previously, has taken on a form where negative emotions such as anger or self-loathing make it more powerful, and after Zuko defects from the Fire Nation to become Aang's Firebending instructor, he finds he can barely produce sparks because he's let go of so much anger.
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021): The Power of Havoc is the Evil Counterpart to the Power of Grayskull. Havoc is power unrestricted and mutates its users into their worst possible selves. The more you embrace your selfish desires, the stronger Havoc will make you. Inversely, if you reject Havoc, it will eat you from the inside out.
- In Miraculous Ladybug, Akumas are drawn to and feed on negative emotions. When sufficiently fed, they can transform their hosts into supervillains.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks: The Dazzlings are a trio of sirens whose magic is empowered by absorbing the negative emotions of those caught in their Hate Plague-inducing Mind-Control Music.
- In X-Men '97, Storm is harassed by the Adversary, a bestial owl-like creature who feeds on negative emotions, in this case Storm's feelings of helplessness and self-loathing following her De-power.
- W.I.T.C.H. (2004): The Knights of Destruction feed on their adversaries' negative emotions, with each member growing stronger when they are exposed to a specific vice. Shagon deliberately taunts his enemies to bask in their hatred; Khor is drawn by others' anger; Tridart grows larger by absorbing feelings of fear and despair; and Ember thrives on her opponents' pain and regret.
