Could we perhaps have a calm and rational discussion about mind control as a trope?
I feel it is currently very underutilized and is mostly just used to make characters evil
Could we perhaps have a calm and rational discussion about mind control as a trope?
I’m serious. No fetish shit.
If you wanna mention it then please tie it to something worthwhile to add to the discussion. I’ve been thinking about this trope a lot and I want to hear other people’s thoughts on it.
I find it both terrifying and endlessly fascinating. It’s one of those rare powers with endless capabilities for good and for evil but it only seems to be used for evil these days. I’m curious as to how we have strayed from the era when it was a weapon of the Shadow into the current era of characters like Purple Man
Starts the thread with a fetish bait image
Could we perhaps have a calm and rational discussion about mind control as a trope?
No. No we can't. Because it absolutely exists only for fetish retards like you.
The power to make others do whatever you want. I wonder why that would be primarily written as a villain's power.
I mean, if there were a hero with this power, they really wouldn't have a rogue's gallery, would they? They'd just command them not to be evil.
well OP, since this thread isn't going the way you intended, why don't you tell us when and where things went wrong for you wexactly?
Honestly I’m not really sure anything went wrong so much as it simply devolved due to poor writers. Mind control became a tool to be used for creating situations where people could fight each other and a lot of creativity was lost. I think the silver age was probably the beginning of the end. When a lot of heroes lost access to the ability
Personally for me my thoughts on this trope started when I watched Ninjago as a kid. I realized that the serpentine were more victims of circumstance than actual villains, and Skales became my second favorite character due to his redemption. After that I started thinking analytically about the concept in general and started wondering why it was so despised. Fundamentally I am aware of the horror aspects of it, and I’m still terrified of memory loss, but I still couldn’t shake the idea that it was underutilized. I think I like the way the Doctor uses it sometimes. We often forget he has the power, but he feels very responsible with it
I kind of picked the image without thinking too hard on the implications. I just wanted to show a villain in action. My bad guys
Actually before we let that thought sit fully I’d like to briefly mention the Ringmistress.
The Ringmistress is a very interesting character fundamentally because her insecurities hold her back. She’s driven by a desire to prove her worth by one upping her father but fundamentally this just leads her to follow in his footsteps performing hollow imitations of his crimes
If she wanted to she could do incredible things but she can’t, because her father’s joke status broke her mentally and now she feels that she needs to prove herself.
On a related note, I find it interesting how Poison Ivy sometimes starts out with brainwashed minions and then over time some of them actually sympathize with her cause and join her.
I kind of picked the image without thinking too hard
And this is why you can't have genuine conversations about anything.
Mad Hatter should be a bigger batman villain
The picture was less important than the discussion itself.
Anyhow I suppose it doesn’t matter. Either the discussion will happen in good faith or it won’t. Regardless my feelings about the matter remain currently unchanged. To be honest I mostly started this thread to hear other people’s perspectives on the issue
I want to see that women from the Gotham show return
I've heard someone describe it like this, we never really properly linger over the trauma for a mind controlled character.
Like, if it were real it would theoretically be the single most dehumanizing thing a person could go through. Imagine being under someone else's control and made to carry out their atrocities for them like a shallow puppet. You live with blood on your hands having become little more than a tool, or god forbid, entertainment for the person who mind controlled you.
Does Jessica Jones ever dwell on the trauma? I feel like she eventually got over it
Yeah but it was extremely focused on the rape and not the mind-control itself
Interesting how it was handled then. Do you think it would be cool to see a story where someone traumatized by being controlled has to work with an innocent controller? Just a thought running around my head
i always wished we saw more of Jericho in TT, he was a spooky little dude with a fun power set- he could take over someone's body and speak through them, but was mute usually. i think that's a reasonably limited mind control power set that means you actually get to participate in fight scenes.
mento in the same series used his powers to make himself and his team inperceptible as well.
Jericho is fascinating because his comic status means that Slade probably intentionally gave him the powers to make him a weapon. Shame we never got a confrontation between the two
someone pointed it out and i thought was interesting- the technology Slade used to puppet Terra around unwillingly might have something to do with Jericho.
i do wish the fandom wasn't dead (except for raven tits.)
I wish we'd get more Jericho in the main comic universe. All the New Teen Titans nostalgia books use Wally when he was the worst part of the classic team. Joey, on the other hand, was amazing.
Given his eyes change color I actually wouldn’t be surprised if Slade filled him up with cybernetics.
Also makes me wonder if the phantom Slade was really just a hallucination or if it was Slade communicating with Robin via an interface
same face artists are the worst.
I was just about to make this thread. Not as a fetish thing I'm serious
In my mind, mind control works when it is properly integrated with character dynamics. For instance in homestuck, Vriska's mind control works because she's bad at manipulating people otherwise, it fits her strong character motivations of relevance and shows what she is willing to do for her motivation to people she has a close motivation to. Or in situations where she shouldn't be meddling.
Meanwhile the condensce mind controlling jade is weak. Since it doesn't show a strong character dynamic between jade and the condensce. It's just an excuse to have jade and her powers in an antagonist role.
The videogame deltarune also has a whole smackton of mind control. At least 4 instances off the top of my head. However this works since it shows character dynamics (queen controlling berdly is a good metaphor and fits into her world domination thing, us+kris controlling noelle is an interesting creepypasta thing and totally not a fetish, the player controlling kris is a central plotpoint and creates interesting ambiguities in kris' motivations)
Another good example of mind control (sort of) is The Thing on the Doorstep where the mind control of Ed Sherby is an integral part of the horror.
So my philosophy is, mind control works when it is involved as more than just an excuse to have a character do something for another. When it has story depth.
What are you talking?
Emma Frost still use ir on her own students in Gail Simone comic.
Drawing is hard, and making unique faces for all those women while keeping a consistent art style even more so given the requirements and deadline.
The same artist could probably give each of them a lot more personality with time
Deltarune is a good example because it’s shown that Queen actually thinks that her controlling other people is a good thing. She even threatens to do it to Noelle saying that she’s planning to convert Noelle into a cyborg with a robotic face.
In that way Deltarune uses mind control well because the shared control of Noelle is a method by which Toby Fox equates us to Queen and then gives us the choice of whether we are better than her or worse
well in one piece, Kurozumi Tama (a child) takes the bad guys' free will away and uses them for good
This actually got me wondering do you think mind controllers have a hypnosis fetish. I can’t imagine they do since their powers are literally a part of their day to day lives. I wonder if controller villains get creeped out by people who are into it like how Rorschach reacted with disgust to that masochist villain Captain Carnage
ya
Hypnosis has always been a trope I've hated. Fetish aside my big gripe is that it's much too powerful an ability which makes it usually predictable to write around. It's either undone by beating up the mind controller or by hugging the hypnotized person and saying "you gotta fight it" a bunch of times until they break out. It's also frustrating because it essentially removes characters from the story since often times hypnotized characters simply act like an extension of the will of the person that hypnotized them. There are a few stories where the characters still retain some semblance of their usual character and simply have their morals and allegiences altered which imo is the best way to write it. Still, I tend to treat hypnosis stories as an "oh boy here we go" unless it proves it won't take the easy way out.
Interesting. What’s your opinion on stories like Code Geass where the power results in an effect similar to sleeper agents. I’ve actually been trying to find something in Anon Babble that gives off a similar unknown compulsion set up
Was there a difference in the show
It can work but again it depends on how much agency it still allows the controlled characters. My big gripe being mind control often removes "characters" from the story in luei of just strong puppets to fight for the villain. (Admittedly I haven't seen code geass)
I will say that recently I just watched Season 3 of Railgun and there's a character in that named Shokouhou with powerful mind manipulation and I kinda enjoy the way they use it with her. Insomuch that she's not evil but she's also kind of a brat so she more or less constantly abuses her power out of convenience. Moreso like she's constantly Jedi mindtricking everyone constantly and covering her tracks to the point where people don't realize they were acting out of character. I definitely think having a good/morally neutral character like Emma frost can have some more interesting uses of mind control and hypnotic abilities than just "I have to break their mind control with the power of friendship!"
It's a fetish. It wasn't always originally, just a convenient plot device, but it's like feet at this point. If you're seeing it it's for fetish reasons. In short, sickos ruined it like they ruin everything.
that pic reminds me that beast boy kept being hypnotised
when irl i'm pretty sure the smarter you are the more susceptable you are to being hypnotised. at least i read that in a magazine or book or something once.
Like cliffhanging and severe weather
It's a fetish. It wasn't always originally
You can say the same about inflation, feet, farts, and crossdressing, these are all just fetishes now.
Is, is there a severe weather fetish
Interesting. Yeah having a good character is definitely a lot cooler from a writing standpoint. Especially if it introduces a moral dilemma where a change made is an improvement
Less mind control than outright possession. Of course you could argue that possession itself is merely a form of mind control.
Possession is more body control but sometimes the mind of the possessed body is suppressed