Brainwashed



""My sole purpose in life is to bring pleasure to my companions!""

- Derek Flint, Our Man Flint

One, some or all of the main characters have been Brainwashed into happily slaving away for someone else and have to get their memories back to escape, usually assisted by someone who remembers who they were (The Power of Love often playing a part).

The most fun, delayed variety of brainwashing is the innocuous Manchurian Agent. If they are attacking people, it's a case of Brainwashed and Crazy. And look out for that one character in a million who's Not Brainwashed. Or in truly horrific settings, keep an eye on the ones Conditioned to Accept Horror. Compare with "Body Snatching". Occasionally done via television. May require deprograming to cure (see also Meat Puppet).

General consensus among heroes in fiction is that someone cannot be held responsible - legally or otherwise - for evil acts committed while brainwashed (the reasoning being that if someone is truly under a malevolent being's control, he isn't in control of his own actions), although the aftermath can be rather angsty at times, depending on how important it was to the overall plot. (Indeed, if things like magical and psychic mind control were real, this would likely be subject to quite a lot of ethical and psychological debates, but fortunately, it is not real.)

Naturally, there is Power Perversion Potential to be found (NSFW!) in this. See also Kiss Me, I'm Virtual. Often done to the Weak-Willed. If the heroes do it, it's likely Brainwashing for the Greater Good. Watch out for Intrinsic Vows.

Often the brainwashing victim will come to his/her senses and resist, necessitating the villain pour on the mind control mojo. Sometimes they will perform the hated task, but weep openly as they do so. This is not far off, as hypnosis cannot force someone to do something they instrinsically believe wrong. Occasionally even when the character does overcome it they don't clean off all symptoms, and all isn't instantly right with the world because of it. Can be the cause of a Face Monster Turn.

Anime and Manga

 * Mamoru/Tuxedo Kamen of Sailor Moon is brainwashed into becoming an agent of the Dark Kingdom in the first season. Then he's brainwashed again in the second arc of the manga by the Black Moon. He's brainwashed again in the fourth season by Nehellenia's mirror shard. Finally, his corpse is brainwashed once last time by Galaxia in the manga.
 * The other senshi are also reanimated as evil pawns in the last arcs of the manga, and several characters have episode or chapter incidences of minor brainwashing.
 * Ryuutauros from Kamen Rider Den-O has the ability to brainwash entire crowds at the click of his host's fingers and influence them to dance with him (whether or not they can hear the music is never touched on).
 * The titular cybernetics-enhanced characters of Gunslinger Girl get brainwashed to make them function as cold-blooded assassins. Since they are still basically young girls though, this leads to all kinds of problems, especially since the brainwashing focuses their feelings on their guardians.
 * Code Geass, also known as Mind Control: The Animated Series.
 * Of course it is. It's the main character's power and (kinda) the premise of the whole show.
 * In Wolf's Rain
 * In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS,
 * In Yu-Gi-Oh, the Millennium Rod grants its user the ability to brainwash people. Marik is the owner of the Rod and uses it to brainwash Joey and Téa into turning against Yugi.
 * In the Virtual World Arc, Noah brainwashes Mokuba into believing that Noah is his only brother and that he hates Seto.
 * In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, not only does brainwashing happen with the members of the Society of Light, but it is mentioned that this is one of the abilities that Juudai has once his Darkness powers activate and that he had done this/planned to do this to those duelists that he didn't kill for Super Fusion.
 * Rika in Air Gear was "reborn" as Genesis' Thorn Queen after being connected to a machine with this purpose.
 * In Pokémon 3, Ash's mother is brainwashed by Entei into believing that she is the mother of Molly.
 * One episode had Team Rocket's more competent rivals, Butch and Cassidy, use a Drowzee hooked up to a machine to brainwash all the Pokémon on Mandarin Island into disobeying their masters and obeying only them, with some examples being Ash's Pikachu and Misty's Togepi. Only Officer Jenny's Gastly, whose nature as a ghost-type negates the power of any psychic-type Pokémon, is immune. Ash later managed to trick Pikachu into destroying the machine.
 * And again in "Control Freak", when Jesse gains control of an ancient golden helmet and staff used by the previous owner to control all Pokémon, with the exception of Brock's Golbat, who was able to resist it. Luckily the control only spanned the area where the artifacts were buried, which meant that for Jesse to control her pokémon, she would have to stay on that spot forever.
 * And of course, there's Mewtwo's brainwashing of the kidnapped Nurse Joy in the first movie.
 * Of course, there's the evil king's example, placing Ash and his Sceptile under the evil king's control. Ash and Sceptile were snapped out of the brainwashing, however.
 * Kekkaishi has a fair amount of this. There's Byaku, the prosecution office, the Oumi brothers...
 * Present in the ero-OVA series, Moonlight Lady: the maid, Sayaka, induces this on herself after she was kidnapped and raped. The trope is subverted in that Sayaka doesn't get flashbacks (or the 'mind-control vision') until she's under further mind-control from the magic forces around Kuraki Manor). It's also implied that the other maid, Tomomi, went through the same procedure.
 * Near the end of Brigadoon Marin and Melan, Melan is brainwashed into thinking that he must attack Marin. Fortunately, breaks through the brainwashing and reminds him of what she means to him.
 * In the second to last episode of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, the title character is brainwashed by Gargoyle to follow his every order, including shooting Captain Nemo.
 * Digimon Adventure and Digimon Adventure 02, first caused by Devimon, followed by The Digimon Emporer.

Fan Works

 * About 95% of this guy's output.
 * And by extension, an equal amount of this guy's writing, as he mostly writes fanfics to accompany the above guy's pics.
 * Actually, there is an entire group with output at least similar in percentage to that.
 * in Fuck the Jesus Beam.
 * Two (three) examples in With Strings Attached:
 * At different times, John and Paul get zapped by the mind-controlling pink sword Brox's Kiss (which is also used to collect a bunch of male warriors in a loony effort to build up an army to invade Ketafa). John doesn't get released until the wielder loses the sword, but Paul
 * In Real Life, George's last album was titled this.
 * Twice in Calvin and Hobbes: The Series:
 * Nearly everyone even lightly associated with Calvin in "The Alien Huntress".
 * Calvin himself in "The Five Calvins".
 * "Taming cycles" in the Pokegirls setting. The different levels indicate the intensity. The lower the number the less intense. Level 1 is integrated and run automatically and continuously in modern poke balls. The highest taming cycle level, level 5, involves permanent identity death, and that tends to be reserved for girls who "threshold" into pokegirls and take the change particularly poorly.

Film
"Skeleton: Bring the meteor to the Skeleton. Kro-Bar: Bring the meteor to Kro-Bar and Lattis. Betty: I must make a skeleton meteor using a crowbar covered in lettuce..."
 * The Manchurian Candidate
 * Volunteers has John Candy's character get brainwashed in the middle.
 * It happened to him in Going Berserk as well.
 * A Clockwork Orange has the protagonist strapped down and forced to watch violent scenes while a drug that induces nausea is pumped into him to make him feel repulsion for violence. And sex. AndBeethoven's music (because the film included it in the background).
 * J-Men Forever! (1979). The evil Lightning Bug plans to brainwash the Earth people with rock & roll broadcasts, but is successfully countered by schmaltzy music from the Military Underground Sugared Airwaves Command (M.U.S.A.C.). So the Bug decides to use hashish instead, and only the combined forces of the J-Men (a team of redubbed superheroes from Republic Film Serial clips) can stop him!
 * As indicated by the page quote, one of the crimes that the Galaxy organization commits in the spy-spoof Our Man Flint is turning women into brainwashed "Pleasure Units".
 * The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2004). The evil Skeleton, and Human Aliens Kro-Bar and Lattis, both try to mind-control housewife Betty at the same time.


 * When the eponymous character of Igor creates a Frankenstein's Monster with an F in Evil, he takes her to the local Brain Wash.
 * Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School: Done by the villainess, Repulsa The Witch of The Web, who uses mind-control web headphones to control the female monsters into doing her bidding until she makes them evil permanently at midnight.
 * Happens to multiple anonymous programs in Tron: Legacy, most notably . The process is known variously as "rectifying" or "re-purposing" and is essentially to programs what brainwashing is to humans.
 * In Sleeper, Woody Allen's character is captured by the Big Brother government and reprogrammed into an obedient citizen - we see an electronic mind-control experiment where he's made to behave like a contestant in the Miss America pageant.

Literature

 * The Chronicles of Narnia:
 * The Lady of the Green Kirtle's gnome slaves are all brainwashed, not to mention Prince Rilian, with enchantments. She also tries to do this to the heroes who rescue Rilian, but is thwarted when Puddleglum pulls a Shut UP, Hannibal. Crowning Moment of Awesome ensues.
 * The White Witch's enchanted Turkish delight very quickly gets Edmund 100% on her side, after she intimidates him into eating it. Never take candy from strangers indeed!
 * The Mule, an interstellar warlord in Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy had the telepathic ability to turn anyone, even his greatest enemies, into devoted followers willing to die for him. The Second Foundation, which possesses a similar ability, later turn it against him and transform him into a pacifist.
 * The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon.
 * In The Demon Headmaster by Gillian Cross, the Headmaster has brainwashed almost everybody in the school along with their parents, and brainy new girl Dinah is powerless to resist even though she knows what he's doing. Her foster brothers, however, are among the tiny minority of pupils on whom the Headmaster's powers don't work, so they can help Dinah foil the Headmaster's plan to brainwash the whole country via TV.
 * In the Hannibal novel, Lecter This wasn't carried over to the movie adaptation.
 * Into The Thinking Kingdoms, part of the Journey of the Catechist series has a kingdom with thought-reading birds, allowing people to find people thinking wrong, and brainwash them. It is implied that they have done this successfully to most of the kingdom, although it all comes crashing down when they try it on the main characters.
 * Much like A Clockwork Orange, Crime College in Doc Savage and Psychosurgery in The Stainless Steel Rat are the common ways of dealing with criminals in their setting. A variation might be Execution in the Lord Darcy stories, which punishes practitioners of Black Magic by permanently stripping them of their Ability.
 * Harry Potter has the Imperius Curse.
 * The Wheel of Time has Compulsion.
 * And Semirhage. Compulsion can be unwoven, though in extreme cases there may be nothing left of the original person. Semirhage's work, done with conventional methods, is all but impossible to undo.
 * And of course, arguably the most famous example, was Winston's ordeal in 1984.
 * In the novel All Capable To Bear Arms by Leonid Kudriavcev protagonist use fictional drug abrutine (that 'paralyzes the free will' and limited lobotomy (to provide neurological reinforcement for performing desired tasks) to 'program' several characters. Targets are usually programmed to perform some simple tasks like ramming the gate with a vehicle.
 * In the books of Dale Brown, was brainwashed into helping the Soviets after he gets captured by them. Eventually he gets rescued and somewhat "fixed", but the memories and effects still show on occasion.
 * in The Kingdom Keepers.
 * John Christopher's The Tripods: A series taking place in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has been conquered and enslaved by the Masters, alien entities who use televised mass hypnosis on the human population when they began the turn the tide of battle on their invasion. To make sure the process was permanent, humans at the age of 14 are forced to wear Caps permanently affixed to the skull, removing the victim's creativity and curiosity while regarding the Masters as their saviors. Some "Cappings" can go wrong, however, when a mind is too weak or too strong and eventually collapses under the strain, creating Vagrants who wander from town to town spouting nonsense.
 * Cassie, in the Flux & Anchor series by Jack Chalker. After having magically compelled herself to become the champion of Mother Church on World, her bond eventually falls apart and she is captured by the male-dominated society of New Eden, who use traditional brainwashing methods to turn her into a compliant female. Their task is made easier by the fact that
 * The Guardians of Ga'Hoole series has moon blinking.
 * Steven Gould's Helm was about a mental imprinting device. It was one of the primary causes of Earth's self-destruction in a massive war, because it was used to convert large groups of people over to particular viewpoints. For example, during the war the Iranians of Tehran used the device to forcibly convert Muslims and non-Muslims to their brand of Shiite fundamentalism.
 * The 3-D Hypno Ring in the Captain Underpants books.
 * Time Scout's version of Prince Eddy of Victorian London is under the Mind Control of Jack the Ripper.
 * In the Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition version of Draconomicon, there's a sample mini-adventure in which a green dragon has pulled this on a handful of hapless Eladrin. Yes, even with their boosted Will defense.
 * In one of the Witchcraft gameplay examples they have on the Eden Studios website, the bumbling villain uses a psionic effect to do a kind of Jedi Mind Trick on an NPC, forcing her to do one sentence's worth of activities ("You love me and want nothing more than to follow me out of this bar.") so he can sacrifice her for evil purposes. However, what happens is that the PC breaks the effect, making her believe that he tried to hypnotize her, rather than use mind control, and so the lady proceeds to kick him in the balls, then smash his face in with a pool ball.
 * In Paranoia, "brainscrubbing" is one of the routine ways of dealing with traitors, depending on severity (it's just above "adjust his meds" and just below "terminate him and activate his next backup clone").
 * In Candor by Pam Bachorz, the Stepford Suburbia town of Candor brainwashes its citizens through subliminal messages hidden in the music playing throughout the city. If people try to leave, they often go crazy. Oscar, the son of the town's founder, starts a business where he helps teenagers escape before the brainwashing completely takes hold of them. He himself manages not to be brainwashed by listening to his own subliminal messages.

Live-Action TV
""I am the Master, and you will obey me.""
 * Stargate SG-1, "Divide and Conquer" and "Beneath the Surface"
 * Technically, the way they defeat the Ori's followers in "Ark of Truth" is brainwashing, even if they are being made to believe the truth.
 * In Stargate Atlantis, the "heroes" brainwash the "villains". These are given in quotes because after seeing the relevant episodes (yes, they do it more than once), there's no way you will see them as heroes.
 * And of course, they betray their brainwashed villain.
 * Several times.
 * Which bites them in the ass.
 * The Wraith also have the power of suggestion, not showcased much.
 * in Stargate Universe.
 * Farscape, "Thank God It's Friday... Again", among several others. Including the episode "A Clockwork Nebari", where the induced nausea isn't on the characters, but on the audience, as it involves pulling the eyeball a foot out of its socket and placing a microchip on the exposed optic nerve. Never mind that Eyeballs Do Not Work That Way, gah.
 * Star Trek: The Original Series, "This Side of Paradise".
 * Dark Angel Manticore loved to do this by pumping drugs into X-5's then blasting them in the eye with a laser for hours on end. Leaving them not even knowing what they revealed while drugged.
 * Star Trek: Voyager, "Workforce"
 * Angel, the Jasmine arc.
 * Big Wolf on Campus episode "Manchurian Werewolf".
 * In V, the Visitors have a brainwashing method called conversion, but humans are so resistant to it that it is only considered worth the bother for a few vital individuals.
 * Used on many, many people in many, many ways on Doctor Who, and inherited by The Sarah Jane Adventures.


 * In a series 2 episode of The Mighty Boosh, "The Call of the Yeti," the main characters narrowly escape being brainwashed and raped by yeti.
 * The vampires in True Blood have an ability to "glamour" people into doing things they would not ordinarily do.
 * The enemies attempt this on Sydney in Alias, but it only fails because
 * In an NCIS there was a North Korean assassin named Kai who had in her childhood been to an institution remarkably like The Academy in Firefly and was seeking revenge.
 * In Babylon 5, turns  into a secret agent so secret even  doesn't know it.
 * Dollhouse. The whole reason it exists.
 * Merlin. At least two episodes come to mind where Arthur was brainwashed, and there's also at least one episode where Uther is brainwashed, and one where Merlin is brainwashed, too.
 * Cally from Blakes Seven gets taken over by various alien entities so often that it sometimes seems to be her only role on the show.
 * Earth: Final Conflict the CVI's motivational imperative.

Tabletop Games

 * In the Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition version of Draconomicon, there's a sample mini-adventure in which a green dragon has pulled this on a handful of hapless Eladrin. Yes, even with their boosted Will defense.
 * In one of the Witchcraft gameplay examples they have on the Eden Studios website, the bumbling villain uses a psionic effect to do a kind of Jedi Mind Trick on an NPC, forcing her to do one sentence's worth of activities ("You love me and want nothing more than to follow me out of this bar.") so he can sacrifice her for evil purposes. However, what happens is that the PC breaks the effect, making her believe that he tried to hypnotize her, rather than use mind control, and so the lady proceeds to kick him in the balls, then smash his face in with a pool ball.
 * In Paranoia, "brainscrubbing" is one of the routine ways of dealing with traitors, depending on severity (it's just above "adjust his meds" and just below "terminate him and activate his next backup clone").
 * Both Old World of Darkness and New World of Darkness have many supernatural varieties of this, such as Dominate for vampires, and the Mind Sphere for mages.

Video Games

 * In the old Safari Software game, Traffic Department 2192, the foul-mouthed, gung-ho Action Girl protagonist, Lt. Velasquez, is kidnapped by her hated foe, the Vulture Cult Army, and brainwashed into serving them. Not only does she perform outstandingly in the field, she's also a lot more disciplined than the loose cannon she seemed to be when she was still with the good guys. Naturally, she eventually overcomes the brainwashing and returns to the TD... where her boss is less disturbed by her being brainwashed, and more worried by the fact that she's even-tempered, obedient, and disciplined...
 * Final Fantasy IV loves this trope, pulling it once with The Lancer/Mr. Face Heel Turn Kain Highwind falling subject to it twice, and then again with
 * World of Warcraft features "Mind Control" as a standard Priest spell, allowing control of opposing characters and some monsters for a short period of time. Mind Control and More Than Mind Control scenarios also feature prominently in the canon.
 * Mass Effect uses the term "indoctrination".
 * What makes it really frightening is that it's permanent. It destroys a person's free will. Even if stops giving orders through the indoctrination, the person affected will just be a mindless husk, unable to do anything on their own.
 * Also, in Mass Effect 2 the abilities of to seduce anyone they wish (only to destroy their partner's nerve system when having sex).
 * One BioShock (series) audio diary reveal that Andrew Ryan had the plasmids modified so that Rapture's already brain-buggered population would be susceptible to mind controlling pheromones. Pheromones and mental programming are also used to ensure that the Little Sisters stay close to the Big Daddies, and that the Big Daddies protect the Little Sisters. There's also
 * The Super Robot Wars games uses this exceptionally liberally; If a particular protagonist is one of their original creations, the odds are fairly high that they've been brainwashed at least once, in at least one of the many different timelines. One Big Bad of a faction even makes it part of their standard operating procedure. Okay. More than one...(One faction's plot is to Brainwash/Clone the ENTIRE CAST!)
 * In Mother 3, Porky, with the help of Fassad, use "Happy Boxes" to woo the previously low-tech and peaceful citizens of Tazmily Village into a materialistic lifestyle. Toward the end, most of the villagers move to New Pork City, except the Main party and their companions.
 * This becomes one of the Overlord's powers in Overlord, in which using it on civilians will cause them to flock to the Overlord and either attack the nearest enemy when in battle or just help create resources if in a town.
 * The Big Bad does this, prior to the actual in-game events, to the palace guards in The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past, so they abandon all loyalty to Princess Zelda and obey his orders to hold her prisoner.
 * In Cave Story, the Mimigas are brainwashed by the Doctor into growing the red flowers known to turn Mimigas into mindless monsters.
 * At one point, the player has to keep this from happening in The Art of Theft.
 * Temporarily happens to anything hit by the Ordos Deviator in Dune II.
 * All over the place in Final Fantasy Dissidia and its sequel. Between the two games so far, Terra, Tidus, Jecht, and  have all been brainwashed to fight for evil instead of good, the former two in Duodecim and the latter two in Dissidia.
 * In Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, Gharnef is doing this to Dragon Princess Tiki. Though Tiki was older than she looked, this leads to Unfortunate Implications.
 * Donkey Kong Country Returns has this trope, and started at the very begining of the game! But Donkey Kong was able to resist the brainwashing effects.
 * Donkey Kong Country Returns has this trope, and started at the very begining of the game! But Donkey Kong was able to resist the brainwashing effects.

Web Comics

 * In Sluggy Freelance Oasis was the brainwashing victim of Dr. Steve, though since his death she's gone into Brainwashed and Crazy territory. (Or maybe not. It's still not at all clear who or what Oasis actually is.) Sam also developed the ability to control people's mind, though even that's not enough to make girls think he's cool.
 * A Girl and Her Fed features mass brainwashing as a major plot element.
 * Newshounds has
 * Apparently the main method of recruitment for the Joy group of A Path to Greater Good.
 * Homestuck: While the full effects haven't been explored, Jane has at least subtly been effected by Subliminal Seduction - by the

Web Original

 * Obviously, every story on The Erotic Mind Control Story Archive uses this trope.
 * What happened to Cavalier and Skybolt in the Whateley Universe. It took nearly a hundred stories before we found out what really did happen to them, and it's worse than we thought:
 * Soyburger Patricia in the League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions.
 * In Arcana Magi, Alysia Morales and Reya Everheart were brainwashed by an Evil Corporation.
 * Happens to when captured by the Cloaks in Suburban Knights.

Western Animation
""Didn't you ever see The Manchurian Candidate? Even the remake with Denzel?""
 * Codename: Kids Next Door, "Operation: CAMP"
 * A brainwashing toy called the Boyfriend Helmet appears twice. Oddly, when Lizzie uses it on Nigel, he just tells her, "Don't ever use one of those things on me again, Lizzie!" and continues to date her for six seasons, but when Jimmy (who apparently thinks he's Darth Vader) later uses it on Lizzie, he's thrown in KND prison. Fair?
 * Quite, as Jimmy was trying to make the entire school attend an assembly to watch him be crowned King of something (haven't watched the episode in forever) and make Lizzie his queen, even making his female assistant contact her uncle, The Common Cold, to give Nigel a case of the illness so he'd be out of commission while Jimmy executed his plan. All Lizzie wanted was a more available boyfriend (since she had felt left out when Nigel went on more and more missions). (To anyone who cares, Jimmy's female assistant was crushing on him something major, something he doesn't realize until he's hauled off to whatever form of prison the KND used and she confesses.)
 * Not quite the same, but many devices in the Transformers multiverse are able to temporarily "overwrite" the personality and faction programming of one side with that of the other.
 * Of particular note, on Beast Wars Megatron gene-washes Rhinox into a Predacon, but he becomes so evil Megatron is forced to change him back. Perhaps ironically, he does this when Rhinox is monologuing on the machine that changed him in the first place.
 * And then there's the Robo-Smasher from Generation 1, which put the "-con" into the Constructicons. Luckily for Omega Supreme, he merely ended up getting mind-raped.
 * Filmation loved this trope, as several of their eighties shows feature Mind Control powers or technology. The He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode "The Mystery of Man-E-Faces" showed Beast Man using his power over beasts to make Manny-in monster-mug form—attack He-Man; however, he clearly didn't wish to and showed this with a tear in his eye. In the She Ra Princess of Power episode "The Perils of Peekablue", Shadow Weaver forced the all-seeing heroine to be Hordak's spy with her mind-control magic. Peek wasn't content with one demure tear; she fairly flowed. In fact, it was her streaming eyes that told her fellow rebels she wasn't serving the Horde willingly.
 * Used on Jet in Avatar: The Last Airbender, but none too effectively; with appropriate urging, he is able to break through it and lead the heroes back to where he got brainwashed... playing right into the villain's hands, not long after which he shifts into Brainwashed and Crazy mode. (Leads to a puzzling scene early on when, trying to clear up Jet's odd behavior, the characters - without a hint of precedent at any point in the series - somehow jump, correctly, straight to "Jet's been brainwashed.")
 * The behavior of the Joo Dee was somewhat indicative.
 * Kim Possible falls victim to it at least three times and it's used at least a few more.
 * In Word Girl, this is the recurring villain Mr Big's gimmick.
 * And Victoria Best.
 * Freakshow does this to Danny in Control Freaks to make him a part of his ghostly group who steals goods for him. Naturally he's freed by the The Power of Friendship through a Catch a Falling Star moment.
 * Also in Danny Phantom, Ember does this to Danny in order to distract him. She makes him believe
 * Also by Undergrowth, who not only turns the citizens of Amity Park his slaves under the control of his mind vines, but making Sam his "daughter" due to her love of plants. Not coincidentally, both Undergrowth and Sam were voiced by Mark Hamill and Grey De Lisle, who voiced Lord Ozai and his daughter, Azula in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * The Venture Brothers does this to Colonel Bud Manstrong as a parody of The Manchurian Candidate. Abraham Lincoln's ghost even lampshades this.


 * Space Ghost episode "The Sandman". Jan and Jace are subjected to the title Villain's mind control device.
 * Brother Blood of Teen Titans has this as his MO. Only Cyborg was able to consistently resist his powers.
 * Totally Spies! LOVES this trope, especially for Sam as a running gag in the series. In fact, this was done not only to them, but their families and friends as well (Tim Scam brainwashing their mothers to kill them, a disgruntled child mind controlling all the children in the world including one of the girl's younger siblings, Jerry's being turned evil by his evil brother, the previous trio of female spies, the list goes on).
 * Martin Mystery is also rather fond of using monsters or alien invaders brainwashing innocent human victims or some of the cast to be their slaves. Unsurprising as it is produced by the same TV production company as Totally Spies.
 * Quack Pack: Huey duck sets off for the dentist, but winds up instead subject for an evil scientist, who accidentally equips the duck with the bio-remote the big bad needed to use to conquer the world. As the headgear gives Huey the near-infinite power of mind control, Huey becomes mad with power and makes himself emperor of the world by forcing the populace to worship him, but realizes he's still miserable. Played for laughs but still a WHAT THE HELL HERO? moment.
 * W.I.T.C.H: Appeared in both episodes, "Walk This Way", and "G is For Garbage", as a mystical horn that hypnotized it's victims into trance-marchers who did anything they could by those who possessed it.
 * Done a few times in X-Men Evolutions, mostly by Mesmero, who used his hypnosis powers to gain control of the X-men several times.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: In one episode, Robotnik uses a stolen crystal computer's "submission spell" to control Princess Acorn and Bunny.
 * Beverly Hills Teens: Used by Pierce, who uses a spherical device to hypnotize both Larke into going on a date with her and a bunch of people on the beach.
 * Bratz: The snobby antagonist Burdine uses a hypnosis tool called the Hypnozapper she brought over the internet to force Sasha and Jade into sabotaging the Bratz on the night they're set to receive the "Teen Choice Award." Meanwhile the Tweevil twins try to hypnotize Cameron and Dylan so they will fall in love with them.
 * Jonny Quest TOS episode "Pirates from Below". Hadji hypnotizes a guard by tricking him into watching a flashing ruby and using the usual hypnotist's patter.
 * The final arc in Superman: The Animated Series opens with some space dude in Apokolips-style armor brutally conquering a fleet. At the end of the opening he accepts their surrender, takes off his helmet, and...it's Superman!
 * Turns out Darkseid got hold of him and gave him to Granny Goodness, whose specialty is brainwashing, so that he thinks he's Darkseid's son, Kal-El of Apokolips, happily conquering star systems for his father. Darkseid likes the irony, the military advantage, and apparently having a son he can be proud of. (Kalibak is not happy.)
 * Oddly, given the setting, Granny's brainwashing didn't make him actively evil, it just made him believe in Darkseid and his empire and not think too hard. Darkseid even assigned four of his elite troops to be Kal's 'buddies,' who he's 'known all his life' and jokes around with. They actually hate him. They fake it pretty well. And he's polite, and reacts to his regular sessions in Granny's chair like a very good boy being sent to the dentist. He's still basically the same guy. This makes it creepier.
 * Darkseid gets addicted to irony and sends him to conquer Earth. Lois breaks him out with the Power of Love before he and his army do too much real damage, but his reputation is wrecked and there are still repercussions years later on Justice League.
 * In the season 2 premiere of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Big Bad Discord brainwashes Twilight's friends into going against their respective Elements of Harmony: the honest Applejack becomes a compulsive Bad Liar, the happy-go-lucky Pinkie Pie becomes bad-tempered and overly-serious, the generous Rarity becomes greedy and possessive of a boulder she thinks is a giant diamond, the kindly Fluttershy becomes a bully, and the loyal Rainbow Dash is tricked into ditching her friends to save her supposedly endangered birthplace of Cloudsdale. This turns out to be part of Discord's plan, so that

Real Life

 * The term in English is derived from the Chinese 洗脑 "clean/wash the brain", used to describe the combination of torture and propaganda-barrage used on U.N.-aligned troops, mostly Americans, during the Korean War in order to extract false confessions for use in broader propaganda. The actual efficacy of any form of brain washing, from torture to subtle persuasion to drugs to hypnotism, is highly disputed. It is generally held that such techniques can be very good at extracting compliance from the victim, but true ideological turn-about à la the books and film 1984 or The Manchurian Candidate is not to be expected—in the few cases where this seems to have happened, it has generally been linked to the prisoner's captors treating her better than her own nominal side (see: Japanese POWs during World War II).
 * Arguably, some religious and corporate groups are capable of this.
 * Drink the Kool-Aid! Flavor Aid.
 * Look at the profile of the individuals they had to start with. Predisposition makes it possible. Now you can redirect your Paranoia Fuel to whether you fit the profile.
 * The traditional view of Hell definitely counts as this, as avoiding eternal torture is a pretty good motivation to do just about anything. Especially when its not just murderers and rapists and the like who are supposed to go there, but everyone who isn't the right religion. (this was probably a great way for missionaries to convert people.)
 * As with quite a few other kooky schemes, you can bet your bottom dollar that NATO and the Warsaw Pact did experiments with brainwashing during the Cold War. Thankfully, nothing ever came of those experiments.
 * There are quite a few online fetish communities centered around mind control and brainwashing.