Healing Hands

Where does it hurt?


Characters with a Healing Factor have the ability to heal themselves at an incredibly fast rate. Characters with Healing Hands, however, are kind enough to share the wealth.

These are characters who have the ability to heal others. Usually this involves placing their glowing hands on another person's injuries, quickly healing the victim's wounds. In other more fantasy-based stories, a character may specialize in healing magic and be the team's designated healing hands. This is the role often given to the White Magician Girl in RPGs or The Healer in MMORPGs. Their primary purpose is to make sure that their comrades don't get killed on the battlefield. More accurately, they're there to let the fighters nearly get themselves killed, and then patch them up back to fighting strength. (Which is the justification to Shoot the Medic First.)

Due to its support nature, these abilities are often relegated to characters other than The Hero, usually The Medic, but may also be applied to teammates or sidekicks (often The Chick, sometimes The Smart Guy). If the Hero does possess the ability, it will be just one of his many. When they aren't the hero, these characters usually have limited offensive power, and will optionally possess the ability to dole out Standard Status Effects to enemies, or to improve the fighting abilities of their teammates. Part and parcel of this package is the ability to cure poison and other such nastiness.

While some characters may possess healing abilities advanced enough to revive the dead, this trope does not apply to those who solely bring back the dead. That's a different animal entirely. Oddly, healing hands may not be able to remove scars or regrow limbs. Characters who heal by coming in contact or extremely close range with their patient may come from the imagery of real-life medics. Because, you know, its not like medics have healing guns, or something.

It should be noted that when a villain has a healing power, it usually involves sapping life from others to restore their own vitality. Often the reverse is true for a hero, who must pay a price, typically fatigue or life energy, to heal others.

Also, in the wise words of Mr. Welch, the person with Healing Hands should make sure he knows exactly where he lays his hands.

Oftentimes, this power is also coupled with "healing induced bloodstain removal and clothing fix," usually when the wound is caused either by bullet or stabbing weapon - it can usually be seen in the form of the bloodstain going slowly away (as if the soaking process was played backwards) and the clothes consequently appearing undamaged (i.e. without bullet holes etc.).

Not to be confused with the Hong Kong medical drama of the same name. See also Psychic Surgery for a more invasive form of magical healing.

Examples of Healing Hands include:

Anime & Manga

  • Dende, Mr. Popo and Buu from Dragonball Z. In fact, a great number of Nameks besides Dende are also implied to have this, as Dende is part of a class of "healer" Nameks. Piccolo can repair clothing but not heal, while the latter don't repair clothing. Blood usually vanishes, bloodstains have to manually cleaned when other healing methods are used.
  • Asa, Primula, Kareha, and Nerine from SHUFFLE!.
  • Shamal of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha specializes in this, and most mages eventually learn a healing spell or two.
  • All the medical ninja from Naruto:
    • Most notably Tsunade and Sakura. Though, it's more like superpower assisted first-aid and surgery than healing and also that the knowledge of anatomy and chakra control necessary for healing makes them dangerous, to say the least.
    • Said Healing Hands and knowledge of the human anatomy makes Kabuto a particularly dangerous enemy in his battle with Naruto, where he was cutting tendons and fracturing bones with mere touches of the skin.
    • It's recently been shown that Karin can heal anyone that bites her.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Josuke can do this with his Stand power easily due to his power being the ability to restore anything that is broken, but he cannot do it to himself.
    • Giorno CAN heal himself, but has to use something to turn into what he is trying to heal like the bullets you were shot with to fix your organs. (This leads to an... odd moment later on in the story.)
  • Elf dust in Berserk can heal wounds. This is sometimes an unfortunate fact for Puck, the elf that travels with Guts - when he needs healing (and after a typical Apostle fight, he's usually in bad need of it), Guts has no problem with grabbing Puck and shaking him over whatever wounds need to be healed.
  • In Yu Yu Hakusho:
    • Botan, Genkai and Yukina all have healing powers, although the latter is the only one to use it more than once. The actual team medic is Kurama, the plant master.
    • When Sniper tried to off Mitarai and a bookshelf ended up falling on Botan, Genkai healed her. Also implied after the second fight with Goki that Botan had healed Yusuke; later in the same episode/arc she ended up using her powers to prevent Keiko's demonification.
    • Although his healing powers are never shown offscreen (except for one instance where he reattached his severed arm), it is said at the end of the series that Sensui's former henchman Doctor Kamiya opened up his own medical facility, using his powers to heal the sick and injured.
  • In Bleach:
    • The Fourth Court Guard squad are the healers for all Shinigami.
    • Orihime, whose healing abilities are possibly the best seen so far.[1]
    • Rukia knows some minor healing spells, but nowhere at the Orihime level and her powers are more typical of An Ice Person. Ishida once is healed by her, but he points out that it's just a temporary solution since Orihime is incapacitated after a massive Mind Rape.
  • Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn from Sailor Moon has this ability, despite being quite sickly herself. She's not a White Magician Girl.
  • Expanded and explored very thoroughly in the manga Double Arts. All of the Sisters, but in particular Sister Elraine (a nerd without glasses) have an enhanced immunity to a strange and virulent plague called 'Troi.' The Sisters save patient's lives by putting their hands on them and absorbing the toxins from the patient's body, but, despite living, the patient still carries Troi and can never touch an unaffected person, at the risk of spreading the disease. On the other hand, Kiri, the only person so far who is completely immune to Troi, not only can heal minor diseases by touching someone else, but when he touches another person, that person's strength doubles, along with his own. And the more people join in, the strength increases exponentially.
  • Played with in D.Gray-man. While Miranda's Innocence can heal any recently inflicted wound, no matter how severe (the only exception being death and the damage to Lenalee's legs brought on by driving her own Innocence too far,) it's only temporary, and once she deactivates her Innocence, any wounds that were healed (including ones suffered while it's activated) will come back all at once.
  • Xiao Long of Psycho Busters does this with his Qigong. He calls it fixing.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima's White Magic reacts this way, though usually only for basic healing spells. The higher level healing is glowy-er.
  • Toki of Fist of the North Star uses Hokuto Shin Ken to heal others with his hands. Ironically, he's dying of radiation poisoning. (Thus earning him the nickname "Kung Fu Jesus".)
  • This is how healing is depicted in The Slayers. While some of the cast have some level of healing magic, Sylphiel, being a cleric/priestess, is the master of it.
  • Chrono Crusade:
    • Joshua, Rosette's brother, has a glowing version of this. (perfect healing)
    • Azmaria has similar powers, but she sings instead of using glowing hands.
  • Iks's abilities help people heal from wounds quickly (sans glowing hands). From The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye
  • Vanilla from the Galaxy Angel anime does this with the help of a glowing jewel on the back of her hand.
  • Solty in Solty Rei, though it's imperfect. Interesting considering her other main ability is a Power Fist.
  • Yellow from Pokémon Special is gifted by the Viridian Forest with this ability. Pokemon only though.
  • Saori Kido from Saint Seiya, being the incarnation of Athena, the Goddess of Defensive Warfare, is excellent at this.
  • Belnika, a late add on to the team in Rave Master meets the main character via this ability.
  • Sulia Gaudeamus from Fatal Fury The Movie.
  • Yuma of Oriko Magica.
  • The real Yuuri of Kazumi Magica.
  • Yoko of the My-HiME manga version appears to have a healing Element, which works on physical injuries, but not illnesses (like Takumi's) or more permanent damage (Yuuichi's arm injury).
  • Queen Maria Pia Armonia from Victory Gundam has this, among several other Psychic Powers coming from her Newtype nature. Her daughter Shakti Kareen shares this ability.


Comic Books

  • Raven of New Teen Titans heals others by absorbing their pain and some degree of their injury into herself, a grisly take on healing powers.
  • Indigo Tribesmen from Green Lantern can heal.
  • X-Men has some mutants with this power:
    • Elixir
    • Angel is a more grisly variation, who is able to share his Healing Factor by cutting himself and bleeding on others. Earlier there was the Morlock Healer, who actually died by overstressing his power. Angel's power had an interesting limitation: it would only work on people with the same blood type as his (or maybe anyone who could accept his blood type). It was discovered when, after an attack by an anti-mutant fringe group, they had him donating blood through about eight separate tubes to as many badly injured mutants. However, only some of them were healed.
    • Angel's blood even burns mutants descended from ancient beings whose mutations classify them as "demonic," but we try to forget that.
    • In the generally regarded as "out of continuity" origin story Children of the Atom, there is a character called Scab who healed by taking whatever injuries one person had and putting them on himself. He saved Jean Grey's life and promptly died, never to be mentioned again.
    • Also, the alien Zsaji, an empathic healer who ended up dying to save Colossus during the Secret Wars. She herself was not a memorable character, in that the sole purpose for her existence was to break up Colossus and Kitty Pryde.
  • This was the paranormal ability of Anastasia Inyushin of the New Universe title Psi-Force.
  • Stephanie Harrington of DP 7 also had some abilities in this line.
  • Elf Quest healers have the lay-on-hands ability to heal. With amplification, they don't even need to touch their patients, and they can heal multiple patients at once. The power has been expanded to include flesh-shaping (a painful process at times); DNA-altering; pain-inducing; and some other applications. The ability to stimulate nerve endings can also enhance healers' relationships. The Gatherum notes that the attempted move to an Animated Adaptation required the loss of healing powers, since the "lay-on-hands" thing offended the Media Watchdogs.
  • Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix saga includes at least one point at which a phoenix feather heals people; this might not count so much, being an item, but that the people believed it was the power of the nun who was using the feather, and didn't realize it was the feather itself, which they saw as incidental to the healing.
  • Vern of PS238 has this ability, to such a degree that he manages to bring another character back from the dead. This earns him a lecture from a third character who can speak with the dead about how this is unnatural and wrong and he can't ever do it again.
  • Recently Eddie Brock from Spider-Man had his Venom powers pull a Reverse Polarity after he came into contact with another person with Healing Hands. So now he has a white alien symbiote and all the associated powers and the ability to heal people. Not always a good thing considering he can also heal radiation, which gives people like Spider-Man or Radioactive Man their powers.


Film

  • Mr Miyagi of The Karate Kid. Sort of. He knew some pressure points and techniques to suppress pain.
  • ET the Extraterrestrial, whose title character heals Elliott's cut finger with his own glowing fingertip.
  • In Push, they're called Stitchers. Healing is very painful, and it hurts even worse when they use their power in reverse.
  • In the horror film 5ive Girls a character in a reform school reveals that she has this power by easing the pain of a classmate who was recently spanked with a ruler. Fan Service demands that she literally lay on hands to the affected area.


Literature

  • In Middle-Earth:
    • In The Lord of the Rings, the real king has healing powers. This is based on the old European folk belief that kings could indeed heal scrofulosis and other diseases. The same idea is referenced and parodied in various Discworld books. However, in Aragorn's case, he was also a Ranger of the North, who are trained in at least basic medicines.
    • It is outright stated that he uses a technique of herbal healing unknown to Gondorians. And they still go on about his healing abilities, even though he doesn't do anything to hide his methods.
    • Aragorn also descends from Elrond's family, which is of mixed elven-human ancestry with a dash of angelic by way of the Maia Melian. In the Númenoreans, and especially the royal line descended from Elrond's brother Elros, there still is something left of that elven-ness.
  • Aes Sedai in the The Wheel of Time series. The Yellow Ajah specializes in healing techniques. Placing their hands on the other person isn't necessary for Healing. They just learned it that way, and can't do it without the gesture.
  • Thom Creed from the gay teen lit superhero novel Hero.
  • John Coffey in Stephen King's The Green Mile. The manifestation of the ailments he heals are tiny, luminescent bugs which he uses to scramble one bad guard's brain.
  • The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon includes healing powers granted by various gods. Paladins also get healing powers, but it's anything but easy to use them, as Paks herself found out: You mentally dip into an awareness of the body, like a stream, locate the things that are impeding the stream, fix them, and then get forcibly ejected by a body that doesn't want interlopers on its territory.
  • Fairies in the Artemis Fowl series have a variety of healing abilities, ranging from purging the body of radiation and reattaching severed limbs to curing chronic depression. The ability is explicitly stated to "target" areas of the body, and physical injuries have a four-minute time limit, which can be fudged. like Butler in the third book, who was frozen before the time limit ended. This added a sever complication to the healing itself, but he got better.
  • Wild Cards series has several healers:
    • John Fortune had the power to heal others before his wild card was turned again with the Overtrump cure. This proves a mixed blessing as his original ability was slowly killing him.
    • Kim, something of godchild to Archer, could heal others by copying their malady and then synchronously restoring herself and the afflicted to their respective healthy states. This included reversing the Wild Card virus.
    • While not explicitly described, Sleeper Croyd might have possessed healer powers.
    • Wyungare, the Australian shaman Ace, can heal some afflictions with his rituals.
    • The exact amount of the Radical's powers is unknown, as he can do anything any alter ego of Mark Meadows could do, even if Mark was not aware of this alter ego and ability. There might well be a healer in the set.
    • Tom Quincy, nicknamed The Eskimo, can produce and inject any substance on touch. Unfortunately, his chosen interest are psychopharmaka, and his employer a drug trafficking gang.
    • Quasiman, a deuce/ace, can heal others, but as he is not always completely in one mental, temporal and spatial frame, this is erratic at best.
    • The Columbian Ace Coca Mama can administer therapeutic doses of cocaine directly into the bloodstream. Or kill by overdosing victims on the spot.
    • Rev. Leo Barnett is an actual faith healer. In the Wild Card world, this would make him an Ace - too bad that he is anti-joker and not afflicted by the Wild Card.
  • Alexander Pehov's Spark and Wind universe features healer mages. Providing something of a twist, they are very rare. The actual healing works as the trope describes, although advanced healers can pull nigh divine feats of magic.
  • V. Ivashchenko subverts the trope with Valle, called "Black Earl". While a necromancer, Valle can treat diseases and curses beyond the abilities of regular healers, which are quite common in Ivashchenko's works. Valle learned healing in an attempt to turn his own necromancy backasswards, to reduce extreme prejudice he was treated with.
  • Vadim Panov's Secret City novels feature the Order and Monastery of Erli, where modern medical science intertwines with magic. While upholding true neutrality, a short story twists the image: Erli monks perform very dubious to outright illegal and immoral research.
  • Sergej Lukjanenko's Watch tetralogy features healing as a rather common magic. Both watches prefer a half-decent fighter of some kind to another healer, e.g. Tiger Cub.
  • Mercedes Lackey has magical Healers in both her urban fantasies and her Heralds of Valdemar series.
  • In the Apprentice Adept series: Lady Blue is introduced as a healer who would treat anyone who came upon her door, only turning away those beyond her power to help. (Those who's injuries were too old or severe for her own magic to fix)
  • The Star Wars Expanded Universe:
    • Jedi healers use the Force to help others in this regard- healers include Barriss Offee and Cilghal.
    • Cade Skywalker has a special variant on the technique called Force Resuscitation; it is unique in that it can heal normally fatal wounds rather quickly, as well as corruptive plagues and other such maladies. It also works in reverse; that is, kill people beyond repair. However, it has two major drawbacks; one, the user channels this ability through the dark side (Cade's eyes flash from their usual emerald green to a blood-red color whenever he uses it), and two, the recipient must be willing to accept the healing, or else it won't work.
  • The Wizard, from the Seekers of Truth books, can do this. It's one of the things that makes him think he's a bit Blessed with Suck compared to some of the others.
  • Mia Cooper of The Shapeshifter series has this power, it nearly kills her on several occasions because she absorbs people pain. Fortunately she gets better at using it.
  • Roswell High, similar to the Roswell TV show listed above. The aliens have the power to heal.
  • The Dresden Files has a few examples: Queen Mab (yes, that Mab) and the Leanansidhe can heal serious injuries with just a touch, and some human wizards (i.e., Elaine, Injun Joe) can use their magic for healing and medical purposes, albeit on a much smaller scale. This is supposed to be extremely hard to do, however; Harry mentions all the biological processes a healer needs to mind in order to make sure they don't screw it up, and the fact that Lea can heal one of his wounds with a simple kiss is a sign of just how powerful she is.
  • In Jim Butcher's other series, the Codex Alera has Watercrafters. This is their signature ability, though not their only one by any means. They actually have all sorts of combat abilities (when someone has all of the water pulled out of their body, they tend to stop being a threat). They are also empaths by virtue of their Watercraft, so the ones without Metalcraft to ignore the empathic pain from others tend to stick to healing.
  • Each Guardian has a unique Gift that relates to what they were in life. Healing Hands is the Gift of Michael, Dru and Pim, but as they are bound not to interfere in human free will, they can only heal wounds inflicted by or on a supernatural being.
  • In Gail Dayton's One Rose Trilogy, many East naitani have this.
  • In Shadows of the Apt, the Butterfly Apt allows for this.
  • Healer Adepts (and Lord Adepts who have the right set of powers) can heal others and themselves in Jean Lorrah's Savage Empire books.
  • The Grimnoir Chronicles have Healers/Menders who can heal others and/or themselves. Actives can lay on hands and heal specific things, Passives have an area of effect within which people just heal faster.
  • In CS Lewis's Till We Have Faces, the people of Glome come to believe that the beautiful princess Istra can heal their plague. She goes around placing her hands on the entire country, and the plague goes away. It's uncertain whether she actually did have this power, but the people certainly believe she does, and begin worshiping her. The local goddess is not amused.
  • In the Sword of Truth, any wizard can do this. War Wizards can do this on instinct alone. Sorceresses can learn to heal, but never as effectively as wizards.
    • It has a nice integration of the Additive/Subtractive magic system: if someone has internal bleeding in their lungs, you have to remove that blood or they wont be able to breath even if you rebuild their lungs. However, it's very hard to control Subtractive magic, so you have to be sure to not accidentally get rid of their organs. It fits the Crapsack World setting that even trying to heal someone risks horribly mutilating them.


Live Action TV

  • The Whitelighters from Charmed do this.
  • The aliens in Roswell. It was later retconned that only Max could do this.
  • In Heroes:
    • Linderman is an interesting case, seeing as he's a healer and The Big Bad.
    • Hiro's mother is also a healer, except that she has healing lips. She can literally "kiss it and make it better."
    • Similarly, anyone on the show with a healing factor seems to have this ability now as long as they've got a syringe handy, seeing as Claire's blood brought her dad back from the dead.
  • The "Homo Superiors" from The Tomorrow People.
  • Shawn Farrell in The 4400.
  • As of the sixth season of Smallville, Chloe.
  • The X-Files:
    • The show had a couple healers, among them one who took onto himself the ailments he was healing. His was a miserable existence growing more miserable with every healing until finally he brought someone back from the dead, thus taking death onto himself and ending his suffering.
    • Aliens in The X-Files also had this ability, notably Jeremiah Smith and his kin.
  • Stargate SG-1 has several:
    • In "Frozen," the Sufficiently Advanced Alien Ancient woman is able to heal the disease she accidentally infects the team with. Though she can't heal herself of it.
    • In "Lost City," when O'Neill has the Ancient database loaded in his brain, the second time, the knowledge "unspools" far enough that he is able to do this after Bra'tac is stabbed by The Mole.
    • Too many times to count with Goa'uld, Tok'ra, and former hosts of either using the Goa'uld handheld healing device.
    • The Nox—though they brought people back from the dead, so maybe it doesn't really count...
    • The Wraith from Stargate Atlantis could heal and revive people by giving back the life-force they took from someone else. Not that they were in the habit of doing this a lot.
  • An episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series" involved a phony faith healer who found a glove that gave him real healing powers. Given the nature of the antiques on the show, there was a nasty twist. Namely, any disease/condition the healer cured was transferred to him-and he had to pass it on to another victim, who would die of the original ailment multiplied a dozen times over. This leads to a rather nasty Karmic Death on the part of the healer when he tries to heal a bullet wound he receives later in the episode.
  • In Carnivale, this is Ben Hawkins main power, although it always comes with a price.
  • The angels in Supernatural are shown to possess tremendous healing abilities, being able to heal major injuries and raise the dead with little effort. Naturally, this is the first ability Castiel loses after he defects from Heaven.
  • Paul in The Fades has this ability,, and it appears to be a common power of Angelics


Mythology and Religion

  • Older Than Feudalism: The New Testament is full of examples of Jesus and His followers healing people of everything from diseases to blindness to lameness that leaves people unable to walk. Whether you really believe it or just consider it myth, it is a very old trope, and is probably the inspiration for priests and clerics acting as healers in RPGs. Jesus didn't really need to touch to make it happen, as his word was enough. One assumes he only occasionally used his hands to make the point more clear to some people.
    • Apparently there were a surprisingly large number of people walking around in that area, in the 1st century, healing the sick. It's just that all the other miracle healers took the credit for themselves, as in "I did this", whereas the J-dude said that he was merely channeling a higher power.


Tabletop Games

  • In Dungeons & Dragons:
    • "Laying On Hands" is an ability that can be acquired by paladins. In addition, clerics (and, to a lesser degree, druids) are capable wielders of healing of the spellcasting variety. Paladins and Rangers are too, although they're both primarily combat classes that only have magic as supplement. Bards can use the healing spells, too.
    • In the third edition of D&D in particular, good and many neutral clerics have the ability to turn any of their prepared spells into healing energy as needed. This theoretically frees them from having to load up on healing magic to the exclusion of more 'interesting' spells, but doesn't do much to dispel the 'heal-bot' image the class suffers from in some players' minds. Their being bar none the most powerful class as of Third Edition, though, does.
    • All core non "mass" healing spells require touches, meaning a lot of them qualify.
    • In the 3.5 Sourcebook Complete Champion, reserve feats were introduced (which give a caster a power usable as long as he has a spell of a certain type prepared but hasn't cast it yet). One of these is "Touch of Healing".
    • Soto, a strangulation-oriented villain in the Ravenloft setting, was given this power as part of his Ironic Hell. He can't turn it off.
  • The Blessed in Deadlands can perform the miracle "Lay On Hands", which requires touching.
  • Any mage with enough knowledge of Life magic in either Mage: The Awakening or Mage: The Ascension can do this. Shapeshifters in Werewolf: The Apocalypse can learn Gifts for this.
  • Various healing and regeneration spells in GURPS along with the advantage "Healing". Interestingly having actual medical knowledge is useful when using magic to heal a wound.
  • The Heal spell from Shadowrun requires hands to be placed on the affected area.
  • In Warhammer Fantasy Battle the champion of Tzeentch Aekold Helbrass does this uncontrollably, causing anyone close to him to regenerate. This can include the enemy he just stabbed. The ability also causes plants to flourish wherever he walks.
  • Exalted has a number of examples:
    • The Medicine Charms of the Solar Exalted really stand out. They allow a skilled surgeon to cut treatment time radically, instantly purge a person of poisons through proper manipulation of Essence, and regrow severed limbs.
    • While Solar charms are capable of impressive feats, the most impressive effects require an hour of treatment and a day or rest to manifest, specifically averting the instant healing side of this trope, although it still turns months of bed rest into mere hours. Alternatively, there is a martial art that allows one to heal a character instantly by punching him, repeatedly.
  • The "Medicine" skill in the third edition of In Nomine Satanis Magna Veritas behaves like normal medicine/surgery for the first three levels (level 3 heals 3 HP in four hours), then switches to magical healing that works in one minute or even one second.


Toys

  • All Toa of Water in Bionicle are able to heal others (it is unknown if any other types of Toa can), but they have to sacrifice some of their Toa Power(or someone else's) to do so.


Video Games

  • Pick a White Magician Girl, any White Magician Girl. Even if the game uses a standardized magic system, odds are she'll have some kind of special unique healing ability.
  • In the Final Fantasy series, the category of spells that focuses primarily on healing (usually with a side-order of other defensive spells) is known as White Magic. White Mages use it best, though other jobs, or just anyone you arbitrarily assign the ability to, may be capable of using it to a lesser degree depending on the game. Specific characters that have healing abilites are:
  • In the games, some Pokémon learn moves to heal other members on the party, like Heal Bell and Arometherapy, which heal the Standard Status Effects, or Wish, which can heal 50% health of a teammate if it is switched in after use. Others like the Chansey line and Miltank have the moves Softboiled and Milk Drink to heal others outside battle.
    • Gen. V introduced Heal Pulse, a move that can heal any pokemon in battle other than the user. Even your opponent's pokemon.
    • Yellow in the Manga also has the power to heal Pokemon by touching them. The difference is that she is a Trainer. She's not the only one with that power...
  • Micaiah from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (from the above picture) has the aptly-named "Healing Hand" (or Sacrifice in the English adaptation). More of a sacrifice than anything, as she uses her life force to heal others. Notable because she is the lead (well, sort of).
    • It also sucks horribly, its only real use is for EXP grinding (by using it on someone and having Laura heal Michiah) and healing status effect (something it does without HP loss), it becomes even more useless once she can promote and use real staffs, you know, ones that don't leave the already frail liability (who gives a game over if she dies) injured.
    • It still retains situational uses for its ability to remove status effects without taking up inventory space and being unaffected by silence.
  • In Kanon, it's revealed that Mai can heal others with her tears. Unfortunately, when news of her powers spread, the people around her condemned her as a freak.
  • In EarthBound:
    • Ness is a rare Hero example, although it is just one of many.
    • Poo gets all the same healing capacities as Ness (except Lifeup Omega) and learns Healing Omega, which Ness never learns. By the end of the game, you'll probably be using him mostly for healing powers.
    • Every mother protagonist winds up getting the best healing skills. In fact, the protagonist of the first game never learns PSI that deals damage.
  • Breath of Fire III's Ryu is another example of a hero holding the game's best healing spells. However, most will end up never using them, since his magic power is better off being saved for his dragon transformations. Most will rely on Momo to heal instead, or just stick with items.
  • Tales (series):
    • Raine from Tales of Symphonia is the team's healer, along with providing stat boosts and offense with the "Photon" and "Ray " spells. Kratos, Zelos, and Regal all also have secondary healing abilities.
    • Mint, from Tales of Phantasia. She never gets past that stage, although she does eventually get Resurrection and a couple debuffs, which are useless.
    • Farah from Tales of Eternia, despite being a fist fighter, is given limited healing abilities. In the animated side story, they're depicted as Healing Hands. Whoever holds Undine in the game also has practically all the healing magic in the party.
    • Hisui from Tales of Hearts routinely uses his healing arte to patch people up out of battle, and is the game's primary healer within it. His sister Kohak eventually gains the most potent heal spells in the games, but long after Hisui's, and she never gains a good resurrection spell.
    • Estelle from Tales of Vesperia is the first healer in the party. Her array of healing artes is far greater than that of either Karol or Raven. Her artes are also much more powerful. The storyline actually focuses quite heavily on Estelle's healing powers.
    • Cheria from Tales of Graces earns her Healing Hands through a plot event and proceeds to found a group focused on healing those injured around the world.
  • In Golden Sun:
    • Mia has several offensive abilities but is primarily a healer.
    • The variable class system of Golden Sun means anyone can become the healer, but the secondary healing element is the earth element (which is the one that has the Revive psyenergy), which is the element of the main hero in both games.
    • Despite the class system where anyone can have healing abilities, the story treats Mia and Piers as the healers of the group due to their natural affinity with the Mercury (water) element.
    • Although Jenna naturally gets a fire element healing spell that heals the whole party, so she can easily play the roll of healer in the game while remaining in her natural element.
  • Polka from Eternal Sonata
  • Chidori from Persona 3 has life-giving abilities that even function on herself. She uses them to save Junpei after he is shot to death by Takaya -- at the cost of her own life.
  • Hogs of War medics have this as one of their methods of healing, recovering 20 health and not ending their turn. In multiplayer mode, the medics get infinite Healing Hands, leading to something of a Game Breaker: on their turn, given enough time, they can go around healing their entire team back up to full health. They can then finish off by, say, tranquilising an opposition pig, forcing them to miss their turn when it comes round. Shoot the Medic First, indeed...
  • In World of Warcraft:
    • Paladins have Lay on Hands as a healing ability. On a long cooldown, they can heal a target for an amount equal to the Paladin's maximum health, and, at higher levels, restore some of their Mana. However, it is suspected that either literal laying on of hands is not required... or Paladins somehow have 40-yard-long arms. One of those.
    • Prior to patch 3.0.2, Lay on Hands drained all of a Paladins mana, making it a Useless Useful Spell. Paladins have several other healing spells as well, making many wonder if anyone ever use Lay on Hands at all.
    • Even when Lay On Hands drained all of a Paladin's mana, it was still useful, because it could be cast when the paladin had run out of mana by casting other healing spells. (That, plus the fact that it healed a freakin' ginormous number of hit points.)
    • A later patch did away with the "entire-mana-drain" part of the spell and instead made it usable only every 20 minutes. It still retains its entire health restoration aspect, so now it's more of an OH SH** type of spell for emergencies only.
  • Baldur's Gate:
    • Baldur's Gate II: Throne Of Bhaal introduced an item for paladins that could give extra healing to their lay on hands ability. It could then be upgraded to give them full-on resurrection once per day.
    • The first game also gave even nonmagical Good-aligned PC's some minor healing spells as freebies as they unlocked more of their Bhaalspawn potential. The sequel took them away again after Jon Irenicus stole the PC's soul, but they were obsolete by that point anyhow.
  • In Trauma Center, healing hands is a mysterious power possessed by people blessed by Asclepius, which manifests as various methods of performing surgery extremely well. For Derek or Markus, the healing hands jack up his concentration, allowing him to move incredibly quickly and precisely (represented in-game as time slowing down). Nozomi's version causes the patient's vitals to improve every time she does something right, and Valerie's freezes the patient's vitals in place regardless of any injuries that happen.
  • Suikoden II has the protagonist using the Bright Shield rune. Out of four possible powers, the first heals the party, the second does moderate damage to enemies, the third heals the party more with the chance of giving Fury status (which doubles attack damage), and the fourth uses 2000 HP to heal the party, with any leftover HP being used to harm the enemy. It will get to the point that your protagonist is your primary healer, especially when he has to be in the party 99.9% of the time.
  • Dungeon Siege has a Nature Magic spell called healing hands.
  • Riley from Dubloon, aside from lightning spells, has a repertoire of healing and alcohol restoring spells.
  • This is used as a gameplay mechanic in Ghostbusters: The Video Game , and it gives ALL of the characters this quality by virtue of a "Positron Restore System" embedded in the suit and gloves.


Web Comics

  • Tristram of Earthsong can do this. And, given that his power is to treat Life Energy as a Liquid Asset, he can reverse it into Harming Hands too.
  • In an example similar to Tristram from Earthsong, Warrick from Namesake can also heal others. He is reffered to as a "mender", someone who can repair things and people easily.
  • Dimension of Lame Gwynn from Sluggy Freelance.
  • In Emergency Exit:
  • In Harkovast, the priestesses of Hevalla use magical healing water to return Sir Muir to the fight (and just in time, as a bad guy breaks through the door a few moments later!)
  • Subverted in The Longest Sojourn where the Havenhealers' healing crystals don't just heal the patient but also saps lifeforce from the same patient to do the healing. And leaves a whole range of nasty side effects. Oh and it can kill the patient if they were too weak to begin with.
  • PS238 has Vern, one of the meta-prodigies in the Rainmaker Program. He is the only healer seen on-screen so far, and after pulling Guardian Angel's soul back into her body is referred to as Messias-level healer.
  • As Goblins is set within D&D rules, most of the above for clerics, druids and paladins applies here.
  • Charby the Vampirate features:
    • Mye, a zombie witch. While she is proficient in making potions, she can also literally kiss things better, much to the chagrin of her boyfriend and brother - other characters abuse Mye's helper's syndrome shamelessly.
    • Kavonn, the Hat Mage. Kavonn wields a massive ankh-topped staff and can cast highly varied spells, including healing ones. Lesser artifacts from the Hat can also grant healing magic.
    • Zerlocke, a low-rank elite. As elites are nigh immortal and invulnerable with a whole set of other abilities, general magic is frowned upon. Zerlocke was one of the few to bother and possibly knows healing spells.
  • Underling coils, actually
  • Memoria He heals up the children.
    • Matty gets these toward the end of the next chapter.
  • Tamuran the knife cut heals up again as soon as the blood is taken.
  • Lorelei in The Fourth has saved her friends a number of times with these.
  • This is a standard magic type in Dominic Deegan. Gregory, in particular, starts out seemingly powerless but soon escalates his super-healing to ridiculous levels until it gets permanently removed. He can near-instantly heal himself and anyone nearby, but this isn't as great as it sounds, as he often ends up healing his enemies by mistake. One of the orcs also has this power, but healing people injures him.
  • White Mage in Eight Bit Theater. Red Mage, too, though he rarely uses it because his teammates are all some combination of indestructible and insufferable, and he's too much of a nutcase to consider healing himself.
  • As in Goblins above, Order of the Stick uses the D&D version. Durkon is the main recurring culprit.


Web Original

  • In The Gamers Alliance, Unithien and Nesa use their white magic to heal others.
  • Shandala, heroine of Broken Saints, demonstrates this on more than one occasion, first healing her brother Tui, then Oran.
  • In the Whateley Universe, several characters have healing powers:
    • Nikky "Fey" Reilly can cure serious wounds with magic.
    • Chou "Bladedancer" Lee can use Taoist "chi" healing techniques through "laying on of hands".
    • Every time Kerry Ellison heals someone, she takes on their illness or injury. And all the illnesses and injuries she's ever healed before. At least the older healings manifest themselves to a lesser and lesser degree over time, but it's still pretty grisly when she heals a cancer victim, after healing a blind person and a person with crippling arthritis and... Even worse, near the end of her intro novel, she's being held captive and forced to do this. And she's only 14.
  • Lifeline and Panacea from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe are both superheroes who (among other powers) are capable of healing with a touch. Amnesty, the Anthropomorphic Personification of Mercy, can not only heal with a touch, she can raise the dead completely. Mercy, another Anthropomorphic Personification (this time of the popular view of angels), can also heal with a touch and raise the dead, though she is very reluctant to do the latter. Empath heals by taking on injuries and illnesses into her own body. Dream Sword heals through manipulation of the chakras. Saba Devatao can heal injured people, but only by transferring the injury to a healthy person.
  • In Trinton Chronicles only one person, Coatl, actually has this power and seeing as how its a super rare ability in this world, she keeps it well hidden from everyone she doesn't trust.
  • Joan Banks's story series Absolute Power stars a man who, having wasted the first two of Three Wishes from a genie, chose this for his third wish. As it turns out, this means that he can "heal" anything if he can think of it as a disease. This is exactly as powerful as it sounds.
  • Discussed in a Cracked.com article: 7 Video Game Healing Methods Least Likely to Actually Work
  • In In Serein, spontaneously discovering she can do this to a wounded traveller in need is one of Isca's first acts of magic and an important ability throughout the whole series. She later teaches it to other people and learns that her way of doing it is a big improvement on the Serein's magic, because that was abstract and un-intuitive and took decades to learn while her method could be picked up by others in mere days.


Western Animation

  • Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender as a specialty of the Waterbenders. In contrast with the "Wound-B-Gone" effect this ability usually has, people tend to recover from major injuries gradually over several healing sessions.
  • Serena from Dino Riders has this ability, which she uses both on her teammates and on the dinosaurs she befriends.
  • Raven in the Teen Titans animated series has this ability, but is rarely seen using it. Most notably, she heals Beast Boy's broken leg in "Final Exam".
  • Bloom from Winx Club gains this power in season 2.
  • She-Ra: Princess of Power gains this ability, much to the surprise of He-Man who only got super strength.

The Nostalgia Chick: "Oh Christ, now she heals the sick. Movie, would you please end before she walks on water?"

  • In Tangled, Rapunzel has a variation on this. She has healing hair. If someone is injured, she can wrap the wounded part of the body in her hair, sing a magic song, and all better. This works on shallow cuts, deep stabbings, and has the nifty side-effect of removing the effects of age.
  • In Rollbots, this is the power of Penny, Koto, and presumably the rest of the Kuzuri.
  • Princess Kida heals Milo Thatch's wounds with her hands in Atlantis the Lost Empire after the latter is badly injured.
  1. ↑ Her ability is phenomenal rejection, so she simply rejects anything that's happened. That's why she has a shielding and attacking ability too: she can reject incoming attacks and reject the bonds that hold enemies together (an attack from Tsubaki is a one-way ticket to bisection... well, when it works, that is). Because of that power, she could potentially be the strongest character in the series, but she's more of an Actual Pacifist than an Action Girl.
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