Amulet of Dependency: Difference between revisions
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Sometimes a character finds, or manages to manufacture, an [[Amulet of Concentrated Awesome]]. [[Curiosity Is a Crapshoot|This can be a risky endeavor]]. Sometimes the character goes on to become a successful superhero or supervillain, but sometimes that amulet turns out to be a [[Magic Feather]], an [[Artifact of Death]] or an [[Artifact of Doom]]. And sometimes the Amulet of Concentrated Awesome turns out to be [[Blessed with Suck]].
Using an '''Amulet of Dependency''' gives you great power or other benefits that you quickly come to rely on, so after a short time it's not exactly easy to live without it. It also exposes the user (and sometimes his allies as well) to an [[Achilles' Heel]] that could be exploited by an enemy, ''and'' a [[Mana Drain]] that weakens him ''without'' help from an enemy.
Though the trope name says "amulet", this trope isn't necessarily something that's been created deliberately, or something that deliberately came into the user's possession. It can be someting acquired accidently, a natural object, etc. It can also be a direct consequence or side effect of being [[Cursed with Awesome]] or [[Blessed with Suck]], or part of a being's nature it was born with, such as supernatural beings that have certain vulnerabilities.
If the owner of the Amulet of Dependency is also carrying the [[Villain Ball]], his response is usually to set up all sorts of [[Death Trap
Can be [[An Aesop]] about illegal drugs, but it often isn't.
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* ''[[Laserblast]]'': A teenage boy finds an alien laser gun and necklace. He must wear the necklace to activate the laser gun, but doing so corrupts him into a monster.
== Folklore
* In Irish folklore Merrow are forced to wear a red-feathered hat called a ''cohuleen druith'' or else lose their water-breathing and shapeshifting powers. Similarly, Selkies are able to transform between human and seal using magical sealskins.
** The logical extension of this is the tale that a handsome man comes across the hat, shawl, or animal pelt of a beautiful faerie maiden. He hides it and then forces the maiden to marry him. Years later, after bearing children for him, she comes across the article of clothing and then runs away to freedom.
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* In traditional stories, werewolves were witches who commonly transformed by wearing a wolf-skin pelt or belt, and without the skin they were powerless. As in the ghost story, destroying the skin could have serious consequences.
* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', [[Ring of Power|The One Ring]] is both an [[Artifact of Doom]] and a [[Soul Jar]], but it deserves special mention here because it confers such powers on the user it is very tempting to use it to try to defeat [[Big Bad]] [[Evil Overlord|Sauron]]. Many of those tempted to use it don't understand that the Ring itself can never be used to defeat Sauron, as the Ring and the Dark Lord are one and the same. Plus, anybody with enough power to wield the Ring to even a fraction of its full potential will inevitably be corrupted by it. Sauron would still use other people's lust for the ring (like Saruman's) to his own advantage. And he ''did'' play a deep game with the ''other'' rings of
** All the Rings are fundamentally Amulets of Dependency in their concept.
*** The Nine Rings given to Men granted the bearers power but soon they corrupted and enslaved their bearers, thus creating the Ring-Wraiths.
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* Voldemort's [[Soul Jar|horcruxes]] in the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' series are an odd example: obsessed with the idea of immortality, he intentionally [[Our Souls Are Different|tore his soul to pieces]] [[Murder Is the Best Solution|through multiple acts of murder]] so he could hide them safely away inside specially-chosen objects. Ultimately, doing so has given him a critical weakness: if he ''ever'' feels so much as a shred of genuine remorse for his actions, his shattered soul will recombine, [[Cool and Unusual Punishment|an experience so painful that it could well kill him.]] (This turns out to be the merciful option, as dying otherwise will condemn him to a [[Fate Worse Than Death]].)
* Zelazny's ''[[Chronicles of Amber]]'' brings this trope up a number of times, especially in the second half as it can then be tied into the concept of using raw power to cover for sloppiness and lack of forethought as habit-forming. Here using these stays as a viable if deprecated option.
* In ''[[Jonathan Strange
* The vampires of 19th century fiction are commonly tied to something of significance to them. Dracula was forced to sleep in contact with his native soil, Carmilla had to sleep in a coffin filled with the blood of her victims, and the brothers Ténèbre revived from repeated deaths by regenerating from within their tombs.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Cinema Bums]]'' features an evil Halloween wig in [https://web.archive.org/web/20111120070655/http://www.cinemabums.com/?p=164 these] [https://web.archive.org/web/20111120070700/http://www.cinemabums.com/?p=166 strips], which Doug continues to wear after the holiday is over. Fortunately, he's [[Genre Savvy]] enough to remove it before it completely takes over.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]
[[Category:Magic Items Index]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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