Living Bodysuit



In the process of Demonic Possession, BodySnatching, or similar body theft abilities, a Living Bodysuit is a type of Meat Puppet and Host that acts somewhat like that of a Soul Jar, as it allows the hijacker to act from within the character/victim via it mental or spiritual projection.

The purpose of a Living Bodysuit varies just like when regarding other forms of Meat Puppets. Usually, the L.B. is used for a disguise, however, sometimes it is also used as a way of gaining immortality, or power via the intellect of the host's mind and experience.

Unlike the average meat puppet, the Living Bodysuit is also completely under the hijacker's direct control (though there are exceptions to the rule); this can usually leave the possessor's real body (if any) prone to attack, due to being comatose without a soul, or mind, which can in itself lead to a Demonic Possession from another Body Snatcher.

Also, should the body of the possessor be destroyed, the hijacker either becomes a permanent resident in the Host (usually the occurrence when regarding soul possessors), or dies along with its physical presence, (this usually happening to mental possessors) thereby freeing the host of control.

Anime & Manga

 * Yu-Gi-Oh! centers around the main character of Yugi Moto, who acts as a Living Bodysuit for an ancient Pharaoh's soul, while another character, Ryo Bakura, acts as such for a less benevolent spirit.
 * In the Devil May Cry anime, the secret Big Bad, Sid, is a weak demon who late into the series shows to have the power to literally wear humans like the trope's name suggests, grusomely tearing the skin from the body and using black magic to make himself appear as the now dying or already dead victim.
 * Digimon season 2 has  hiding out in
 * Medusa in Soul Eater uses a snake, then  after being killed. In the Manga she later   but in the Anime.
 * D.Gray-man: Akuma are made by making a deal with The Millennium Earl to bring back a recently deceased loved one. The price, unbeknown to the victims, is that the victim's soul is sealed in a skeletal machine forced to obey him and the first thing they are forced to do is kill the person who wished them back and wear them like a Halloween costume. And this is only the beginning.
 * Two examples from Naruto:
 * Orochimaru is one of the main villains and a former member of the Akatsuki, who is obsessed with Immortality. He succeeds at this by transferring his soul into the body of anyone unfortunate enough to be his victim once every three years.
 * The Yamanaka clan is a family of ninja capable of mind jutsu. Their most frequent technique is a form of possesion which allows them to send their mind into an enemy's body and use it against them and their allies.

Film

 * The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie End of Days has a couple of moments where The Devil possesses people to disguise himself... while being very indiscreet.
 * The djinn in Wishmaster does this with a dead body he finds in a med school lab.
 * The premise of The Exorcist.
 * Rasputin in Hellboy is this. He has some part of the Eldritch Abomination creature inside of him, which, when released is much bigger than Rasputin's normal body.
 * Edgar the Bug from Men in Black.
 * In Howard the Duck, The Dark Overlord of the Universe takes over the body of one Dr. Jennings.

Literature

 * H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos has Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos, who in Robert Bloch's Mythos story "The Shadow From the Steeple" (arguably non-canon), has one form that can possess humans.
 * Also the Mi-go, some interpretations of Shoggoths, certain ancient wizards,, and.
 * This is also an ability of the Shan/Insects from Shaggai.
 * The climax of The Light Fantastic: Rincewind expects the Things From The Dungeon Dimensions to break through in the sky above Ankh-Morpork, tentacles waving, but all they really need to do is break into Trymon's mind.
 * They do the same thing with Simon in Equal Rites. Unlike Trymon he gets better.
 * In Stephen King's Desperation the shapeless ancient evil entity called Tak has to possess others to interact with the world. Tak uses the body of a Sheriff's deputy to incarcerate travelers so it can use them later. When Tak occupies a body it wears it out quickly.
 * In the Alternate Universe version, The Regulators, Tak has instead found a body which it can stay in indefinitely: an autistic boy named Seth. Where in Desperation it was trapped in the titular town, in this one it manages to relocate to Ohio, where it proceeds to twist the neighborhood according to its whims.
 * This happens to in the last few Percy Jackson and The Olympians books.
 * Narcoblixes from the Fablehaven series can take over the bodies of sleeping people.

Live Action TV

 * In Babylon 5, Lyta Alexander is Kosh's suit whenever he wants to travel or run errands incognito.
 * In The Vampire Diaries a spell is used to possess with   Given the level of
 * Both angels and demons in Supernatural. Rank-and-file demons can possess just about anyone; angels need people who are "vessels", and a vessel needs to give the angel permission to possess them. The most powerful angels, such as Michael (and Lucifer, who's also technically an angel) have one specific person as their designated vessel. It's implied that a vessel has some kind of "toughness" beyond that which is possessed by most mortals, as when non-vessels have been seen in encounters with angels, their eyes get burned out.
 * The vessel thing runs in bloodlines. Lucifer spends most of Season Five wearing a fellow called Nick whose wife and child had recently died; containing him does visible damage to the body, so they had the actor in creepy makeup. Exactly how inheritance and destiny interrelate on the subject of 'true vessels' is never elaborated upon, nor is whether Nick is related distantly to the Winchesters or to that guy Gabriel's always wearing, or if he's a lower class of vessel like Jimmy, whom Old Nick is making work short-term. Probably not related to either of Raphael's bodies, given they are black.
 * The kid warlock in 'Swap Meat' did this with Sam, although (apparently unexpectedly) this also let Sam walking around wearing him. They showed this by having the actors port with the characters, so while mirrors and all other characters and the physical world agreed that Sam's scenes involved a scrawny little asthmatic, magic viewer-vision still saw Jared Padalecki.
 * In Angel when Illyria tried to return to life its body had been destroyed eons ago, requiring it to find a new one.
 * In the Family of Blood episode of Doctor Who, the titular Family possesses (and kills) four people so that they could leave their suspended animation and hunt The Doctor.
 * The Slitheen use literally hollowed-out human suits, with zippers in the forehead, to disguise themselves while on Earth.
 * The... thing in "Midnight" uses Sky as one of these.
 * Also in the TV Movie. The Master possesses Bruce the paramedic, but his ultimate goal is to . He also happens to wear a Badass Longcoat with Cool Shades.

Tabletop Games

 * Dungeons and Dragons (v3.5) held a necromancy spell called "Magic Jar" which allowed a spell caster to possess a Living Bodysuit while the body's original soul was sent to a jewel of a container. Also, Psionic characters held the chance to switch minds or dominate those of their victims, allowing for a Living Bodysuit to be made with a mere thought!
 * Ghostwalk is a setting that details on a city of ghosts characters can venture to, and become part of. One type of ghost the characters can choose to be allows for them to possess specific races they choose after gaining the ability.
 * There's also a race of creatures called the Tsochar who use meat puppets to pass off for humanoids in order to gain power and control.
 * The skinthief, an obscure monster from Ravenloft, invokes this trope by being Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
 * Illithids can make people suits, from humanoids, that give them a bonus on disguise checks.
 * World of Darkness: Immortals has a race of humans known as Body Thieves, who could take complete and permanent control of their victims, their last body dying as if through natural causes.
 * Vampire: The Requiem has a discipline called Domination, which holds as its heighest level of power the ability called "Possession" allowing the vampired in question to tranfer his/her mind into the body of any living bodysuit until that body falls unconcious (this can be a serious drawback however, if the vampire uses this ability and doesn't move their own body away from possible exposure to sunlight).
 * The Dominate discipline from Vampire: The Masquerade also had the Possession ability. The Animalism discipline had a similar ability that only worked on animals.
 * The Earthbound from Demon: The Fallen usually have their Thralls hollowed out of all free will so that they can ride the meat puppets as they wish.
 * Excruciators from Monsters and Other Childish Things have a particularly nasty way of rendering people into a Living Bodysuit. They're bizarre and overly-tentacled monstrosities, so to hide their true nature they literally hollow out a person, then use their (still living and conscious) outer layer as a suit to disguise themselves as human. Oh, and there's no indication in the game that the bodysuit can be saved or returned to normal.

Toys

 * In Bionicle, Lewa becomes one of these for Tren Krom via a Grand Theft Me. He gets better, though.

Video Games

 * Geist was famous for the possession mechanic, as you made everyone your personal costume and disguise.
 * The Big Bad is also incorporeal, so it takes over the wheelchair-bound old man heading the corporation which had accidentally released it.
 * BioShock (series)'s Big Daddies are perhaps literal examples of this trope, as they are made by grafting human organs into a diving suit.
 * In Mass Effect, The Reapers can commandeer their mooks and boost their combat abilities significantly.
 * An arguably nicer BioWare example is the sweet little girl Wild Flower in Jade Empire. The poor child has two entities battling for supremacy inside her. You end up having to forcibly evict one of them.
 * In the H-game School Mate 2, the female lead accidentally desecrates a shrine to three sisters, who take revenge by possessing her until she performs a series of tasks, all of them sexual, with the assistance of a male acquaintance who was present. Any of them can hijack her body at any time, switching hair, eyes and bust to each character, but they're also capable of manipulating her without taking direct control.
 * Eddie from Guilty Gear is actually the shadow that Zato-One manipulates for his attacks. However, after a bout of Real Life Writes the Plot following the death of Zato-One's seiyuu, Eddie was made the primary host of the body with Zato-One merely acting as the vessel through which it connects to reality.
 * In Alan Wake, the Dark Presence wears the skin of Barbara Jagger to lure Alan and his wife out to her cabin on Diver's Isle, but strangely never drops this disguise even when it becomes obvious what she is.
 * Well, it does eventually reveal itself to be
 * Impa in The Legend of Zelda Oracle of Ages gets possessed by Vera in order to sneak into the Oracle's sanctuary with Link.
 * Satanael does this to one of your allies in Soul Hackers. Played for all the horror possible (normal and otherwise) when he bursts out.
 * It gets worse. He doesn't make it all the way out.