Paths to Power: Within, Without
The Paths to Power were introduced with a simple edict: Greatness cannot be taken, only received. Something from without, something external, awakens mortal power, and transforms it into the sublime; there is no exception.
But once awakened, that destiny is an intensely personal journey. Power expressed can be honed, but it is honed in a way suited to its master, not some universal standard of hard work and guts. Battle Fantasia is not a place where training relentlessly, nose to the grindstone, is necessarily the only path to success. This is not shounen; Nanoha Takamachi gets up at five AM every morning to train on a hilltop, and Usagi Tsukino spends every senshi training day sprawled out on a Hikawa Shrine couch bumming Rei's manga. Usagi is not lesser for spending time with her friends; Nanoha is not lesser for spending time on her form. Power comes in many forms, so long as it springs from within.
This may be the most important part to understand about Battle Fantasia’s theme. Power begins from outside, but it is the person imbued who determines its greatness. It can be honed, trained, and harnessed by work and experience, but it is ultimately an expression of one's heart. Nanoha Takamachi, with barely a month's experience and essentially only her determination to drive her, bests the far more experienced and as- or possibly more-determined Fate Testarossa. She doesn't do it by training harder, or by guts, or by some miraculous greater talent. She does it with her compassion. She does it because she wants to be friends.
To put this another way, then: Power, in Battle Fantasia, comes from the heart. Sailor Moon triumphs over every challenge not from determination, not from grit, not from guts or glory. She has those things; but it is because she loves her friends and loves the world that again and again, through death, despair and tragedy, she rises. Utena Tenjou faces a man who left behind everything but hate and bitterness, thousands of years more experienced and driven by the grim resolve of the damned. He has broken her before, when she fought him with half-finished dreams and the lies she had told herself. But when she confronts him with the shining drive of love in her heart, he is soundly defeated. Akko Kagari yearns for spectacular magical power, but the true magic of the world lies in simply having a little bit of courage - the will to dare to dream, the courage to care about yourself and others. It is not her phenomenal magical power, the fruits of agonizing training, that Akko uses to save the world. It is that small light; a little bit of courage, to reach out her hand in friendship to an enemy.
The points of power, the miracle engines, the cosmic machine, artifacts, contracts, and legacies, all of it is but catalysts and confetti to a simple truth:
A loving heart is the greatest power in the universe.
To be a character on Battle Fantasia capable of wonders, that is the gate and the key. That alone is the ultimate law of this reality. The power to love, the power to care, the power of kindness, friendship and wisdom, dwells within everyone, simultaneously strengthened by and strengthening great deeds -- and there is no greater prize for the covetous servitors of Darkness.
In the end, that is our story. That is the Battle Fantasia.
For more information, please see: Paths to Power, Theme
