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{{trope}}
* Something bothers me about the way this trope is used in fiction - it first came to mind in the ''[[
** Hmm, thinking further on it, there was one story where this came up, albeit very briefly. I remember a ''[[Star Trek:
** One ''[[Family Matters]]'' episode had Carl point out how horrendous a violation it was for Steve to read his family's mind when he temporarily got telepathy from one of his experiments, but the one important thought he read (that Laura was in love with him) was treated in all subsequent episodes as if she'd admitted it to him outright.
** In many if not most examples of this trope the telepathy is portrayed as at least slightly involuntary. Meaning it's not a matter of the telepath ''invading'' people's minds, it's a matter of other people's thoughts invading the telepath's mind. From the perspective of the telepath, the person having pervy thoughts may as well be screaming them out loud. The teep can't help but overhear.
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*** Also, because [[Lawful Stupid|the White Council]] [[All Crimes Are Equal|loves its death penalty]].
**** [[Black Magic|FOR]] [[Evil Is Easy|GOOD]] [[The Dark Side Will Make You Forget|REASON!!]]
** Okay, I'm kind of relieved to find there ''are'' examples where the telepath's called out on it. There were three stories that made me wonder about this, and oddly enough they're all vampire tales. A ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer
*** In the Buffy example the entire conflict of the episode was that she couldnt control it she was being driven insane by it even and she was only "smugly superiour" when hearing the perverted thoughts of youre average teen when she started hearing the thoughts of people who had some really bad problems she only wanted it to stop.
**** But she was only being driven insane in the second half of the episode, when she started reading too many minds at once. She was having fun with it up until that point. What bugs me is that people can't help their ''thoughts''. You can't blamed them for simply having a bad ''thought'', if they're not acting on it in any way. Trying to repress your thoughts only makes them stronger and more uncontrollable (that's pretty much the basis for The Game). And Buffy was being a self-righteous hypocrite. She taunts Xander for thinking about sex all the time, and Wesley for having feelings for Cordelia - but what exactly does she think about when she's around Angel or Spike? It's worth noting her response a few seasons later, when Xander found out she was sleeping with Spike: "it's none of your business". Edward and Sookie get along great with people/vampires who aren't really any better than most (and in Sookie's case, way worse in some ways), it's just that psychic ignorance is bliss. Which would be understandable, except that they still judge ''other people'' for it. It's one thing to avoid people because having to read their thoughts is too much to bear. But walking around going "you suck, you suck and you suck" over other people's private thoughts? Unless the telepath doesn't have a single personal thought of their own that they wouldn't want anybody else reading, it's incredibly hypocritical. I'm just surprised more stories don't have muggles saying [[Screw You, Elves]] and calling the psychic characters out on that attitude.
*** To be fair, the fact that Buffy can be something of a self-righteous hypocrite is something that the series does often explicitly note, even if it's not addressed in this specific example. Plus, Buffy's case is one of the 'she can't help it' examples, so while it is invasive, getting on her case about reading their thoughts isn't something that's really going to help given that she can't ''not'' read their thoughts, even before it starts to overwhelm her. While, say, Xander is at that point aware that Buffy can read people's thoughts, so could probably make more of an effort to not think things that would embarrass him.
**** Actually, Buffy would more fall into the other category. Yes, she can't help the fact that she can read people's minds. At the same time, though, she was using the ability to cheat in class and tells what her friends are thinking out loud. She also purposely tried to use it to invade her boyfriend's privacy, but only failed because vampires' thoughts can't be read. As for Xander, he was trying as hard as he could to reign in his thoughts, but he's also a teenager. Teenagers tend to think about sex a lot. Also, if you tell someone not to think about X, then chances are that they're going to be thinking about X twice as hard without meaning to. It's basic psychology.
** This discussion inspired [[Tropers/Brendan Rizzo|this troper]] to write a story where all of this is addressed. See [http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2881798/1/Reading here.]
** This is addressed in a very disturbing way in [[Tales of MU]] by taking the opposite perspective. One of the minor characters is a natural telepath of the "can't help hearing people's thoughts" variety. We get a backstory chapter on her at one point, where when her teachers discovered her abilties, they talked to her parents, recommending that she get training to learn to control her abilities so as to not be constantly violating the privacy of everyone around her. But these are not ordinary, reasonable parents; they're basically hippie parents, and their response can be summed up fairly well as "How dare you suggest that there's anything wrong with our daughter that she needs to learn to control, you horrible evil authority figures! Our daughter's abilities make her ''special'', and if other people have a problem with it, that's their own fault!" Between the way it's written and [[Word of God|the author's statements in comments]], it's clear that the parents are supposed to be 100% in the right in this case. This being [[Tales of MU]], of course, [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]] is [[Anvilicious|intentionally in full force.]] It was [[Values Dissonance|quite off-putting to a lot of readers]] [[Fridge Horror|who actually understood the implications of it.]]
** The ''[[Starcraft]]'' example alluded to above actually plays with this a bit -- sure, Kerrigan has her moment of outrage that Jimmy's fantasizing about her, but she did ''get to see it'', and Ghost powers can be difficult or impossible to control. But given that they get over it pretty quickly (''both'' their next lines are [[Deadpan Snarker|quips about the situation]]), it seems that either they're both just [[Consummate Professional|Consummate Professionals]] or it wasn't actually a big deal for either of them, just a knee-jerk reaction.
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