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Children Are Special
- 107 statements
- 19 feature instances
- 32 referencing feature instances
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| Children Are Special | comment |
Often in fiction, the "special nature" of children will be utilised to explain why only they are capable of certain things. Only children can see fairies, demons, angels or the monster under the bed. Only children are capable of accessing the dream world. Only children are capable of certain talents or abilities. Only children are immune to the killer virus that's rampaging across the planet, etc. (Except for the Littlest Cancer Patient, of course.) This is often a companion to Growing Up Sucks. Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_content_3'); })Children Are Special, no doubt due to their innocence and naïveté, their purity of heart, or something along those lines. Also, life tends to get really depressing when they're not around anymore. This is a trope which has been utilised all over the place for centuries. It possibly has its origins in old folklore and legends. Occasionally, children's specialty is what leads to them being exploited in the first place. A Super Trope to Children Are Innocent, Only Fatal to Adults, Invisible to Adults. In some cases, it can overlap with Glamour Failure. Contrast Enfante Terrible. |
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| Children Are Special / int_28508de | type |
Children Are Special | |
| Children Are Special / int_28508de | comment |
In Winx Club during season 2, only children can see the Pixies on Earth due to magic being mostly absent from the planet. | |
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| Children Are Special / int_2cd28570 | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_2cd28570 | comment |
Serial Experiments Lain has a bizarre subversion of this, with a scientist harnessing the ESP of thousands upon thousands of children in an attempt to digitise reality. The children didn't get the better part of that deal. | |
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| Children Are Special / int_3013975e | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_3013975e | comment |
In Monsters and Other Childish Things only children have monsters... with the exception of an incredibly creepy old man who didn't grow up. It's implied this is because monsters, being immortal, don't really change, and tend to be more childish than the kid in the first place, so the kid outgrows them. | |
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| Monsters and Other Childish Things (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
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| Children Are Special / int_3bf5c9f7 | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_3bf5c9f7 | comment |
In The Polar Express, only children (and only children who Believe, mind you) can hear Santa's bells. When they stop believing or turn into an "adult," they stop hearing the bells, except for those few lucky enough to actually see the North Pole. The protagonist still hears the bells when he's an adult because he actually has the experience to remember while other children just have the memory of the belief. More likely it's an exception to the rule, while still suiting this trope. | |
| Children Are Special / int_3bf5c9f7 | featureApplicability |
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| The Polar Express | hasFeature |
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| Children Are Special / int_40852654 | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_40852654 | comment |
Near the end of Medaka Box, most of the "Abnormals" have lost their special powers. Zenkichi thinks they were a sort of adolescent magic that vanished when they grew up. | |
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| Children Are Special / int_49ff762 | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_49ff762 | comment |
Horiffically subverted in Torchwood: Children of Earth. The alien invasion has come to collect ten percent of earth's children because prepubescent children create a chemical that their entire species is addicted to. They're basically getting high on the kids. | |
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| Children Are Special / int_52378df | type |
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Transformers: Cybertron: When the parents offered to accompany their children into space to do battle with the Deceptions, it was explained that only the open minds and hearts of children could really comprehend what was going on out there, and that however much the parents wanted to believe in their own ability to understand the situation, only the children really could. | |
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| Transformers | hasFeature |
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| Children Are Special / int_6c22603e | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_6c22603e | comment |
In Spare Keys for Strange Doors, one reason dismissed for ability to deal with the unicorn. | |
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| Spare Keys for Strange Doors (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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| Children Are Special / int_6c519c14 | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_6c519c14 | comment |
A somewhat twisted version in the Knight and Rogue Series. In general humans are the only species without magic, only having weak abilities like vague senses, but there are some children who can use magic. Children only, becuase only simple children can use magic, and between their powers and their mentail impairments and whatever other health problems come with they never last to adulthood. | |
| Children Are Special / int_6c519c14 | featureApplicability |
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| Children Are Special / int_6ce0d19c | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_6ce0d19c | comment |
Quantum Leap: Children, animals, and the mentally handicapped are the only ones who can see Al. Explained as Alpha brain waves or something which alters as one grows up, unless one is an animal or mentally handicapped. | |
| Children Are Special / int_6ce0d19c | featureApplicability |
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| Children Are Special / int_7d122312 | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_7d122312 | comment |
On The Flintstones, Fred and Barney are usually the only ones who can see the Great Gazoo, but Pebbles and Bam-Bam can see him, because they believe in him. | |
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| The Flintstones | hasFeature |
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| Children Are Special / int_a8729c90 | type |
Children Are Special | |
| Children Are Special / int_a8729c90 | comment |
In The Fairly OddParents!, children are the only humans who get fairy godparents. | |
| Children Are Special / int_a8729c90 | featureApplicability |
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| Children Are Special / int_af6a4464 | type |
Children Are Special | |
| Children Are Special / int_af6a4464 | comment |
The Secret World plays this darkly in Issue 7: "A Dream to Kill". It's revealed that the Orochi Group scientist Doctor Schreber is a firm believer in this trope...hence the reason why his test subjects are almost exclusively children. Reasoning that children are more adaptable than adults—even citing an incident when his four-year-old granddaughter taught him how to to use a new function on his smartphone—he goes so far as to test the effects of demonic possession, mutant spores, ghosts, lycanthropy, and even the Filth on them. And terrifyingly enough, this approach garners results: it turns out that the only reason why werewolves transform into their traditional form is because, as adults, they're under the subconscious influence of millennia worth of folklore and genetic memory. The children that Schreber infected with lycanthropy weren't old enough to be influenced, so their transformations are much more varied—hence the boss battle with the child-creature earlier in the issue. He notes to experiment with vamprism next. | |
| Children Are Special / int_af6a4464 | featureApplicability |
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| The Secret World (Video Game) | hasFeature |
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| Children Are Special / int_afc86b0a | type |
Children Are Special | |
| Children Are Special / int_afc86b0a | comment |
Ender's Game is probably somewhat of a subversion. If a child's trained from a young age in Battle School, then they can become as good a commander as an adult, and can learn how to understand the Buggers— but someone who really understood the buggers couldn't slaughter them, and so the commander needed to be tricked into thinking that the battles against the buggers were a simulation, not real combat with real casualties. Children were selected because they'd be naive enough not to suspect the battles were real. Which means that yes, children have the trait needed, but it's not necessarily a positive one. | |
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| Children Are Special / int_bb34759e | type |
Children Are Special | |
| Children Are Special / int_bb34759e | comment |
In Don't Look Under the Bed, only small children can see Larry (an imaginary friend) and understand the "temtrafuge" technology that rapidly ages boogeymen, thus making them harmless. | |
| Children Are Special / int_bb34759e | featureApplicability |
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| Children Are Special / int_dbb68ab6 | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_dbb68ab6 | comment |
The Chronicles of Narnia: Susan becomes too "sophisticated" and "grown-up" for such childish things as Narnia. Peter, who is older, doesn't lose his "childish" belief. Because of that, Susan never returns to Narnia, even in the end; Peter does, even though he's an adult. | |
| Children Are Special / int_dbb68ab6 | featureApplicability |
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| The Chronicles of Narnia | hasFeature |
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| Children Are Special / int_e199d649 | type |
Children Are Special | |
| Children Are Special / int_e199d649 | comment |
Inheritance Cycle contains a brief mention that Elven children are incredibly powerful and their ability to wield magic slowly wanes as they grow into adulthood, finally settling down into a more normal (for Elves) level of power. | |
| Children Are Special / int_e199d649 | featureApplicability |
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| Inheritance Cycle | hasFeature |
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| Children Are Special / int_e247f391 | type |
Children Are Special | |
| Children Are Special / int_e247f391 | comment |
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: Only children can see the Minish, and even then, that's not much use as they're incredibly tiny. | |
| Children Are Special / int_e247f391 | featureApplicability |
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| Children Are Special / int_f00d733b | type |
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| Children Are Special / int_f00d733b | comment |
The New World of Darkness sourcebook Innocents uses this trope quite a bit. | |
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