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* [http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/3697/arkunefullzu6.jpg Arakune] of ''[[Blaz Blue]]'' has this on a few levels. Originally he was a scientist, researching the neitherworld of lost souls called the Boundery. As he learned more and more, he eventually fell into the Boundery, and now... he is a shapeless mass of insects, who lives only to pursue knowledge. You see that face-like white plate? That's not his face. He has no face. That's just a mask he stuck onto himself to try and make communicating easier. Also, while he thinks he's talking perfectly normal, h{{spoiler|is sp}}eec{{spoiler|h i}}s ac{{spoiler|tually f}}ragme{{spoiler|nted and i}}nco{{spoiler|mpr}}ehe{{spoiler|nsible.}} When his former love interest, who is trying to save him, finally tracks him down, {{spoiler|he is able to remember her, and speak clearly for the first time in years, and tries to warn her that she is dangerously close to becoming like him... and while he tried to stop her from pursuing him further to avoid getting even closer, she also realizes that just running away at that point would pretty much doom her to the fate...}}
** Lambda-11's story mode in [[Blaz Blue]]: Continuum Shift both plays it straight and combines it with [[Mind Rape]]. The former when she is {{spoiler|the subject of durability tests with high voltage (which the researchers note would fry most Murakumo units), but is only partially online so she cannot voice her agony or requests for help. Later, Kokonoe acquires her and wipes her mind so she can be used as a combat drone. Lambda hears Kokonoe talking about mind-wiping her and panics, but again is not able to speak. Even her supposed "gag reel" has these elements present, making it more soul-crushingly depressing than funny.}}
* Happens to {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]]}} in ''[[Disgaea 3 Absence of Justice]]'': {{spoiler|after defeating the would-be "hero", Mao}} decides against killing him and concludes that {{spoiler|his immortal body}} would make him a perfect lab rat for his experiments... old school [[Mad Scientist]] type-experiments that usually involve rusty needles and a complete lack of anesthesia. For thousands of years.
* ''[[Dragon Quest V (Video Game)|Dragon Quest V]]'' has a sequence in which the protagonist and his wife are turned into self-aware statues for the better part of a decade (primarily as an excuse for a [[Plot-Relevant Age-Up]] for the protagonist's children).
** Another case appears in ''[[Dragon Quest VIII (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VIII]]'', where the townspeople of Trodain are immobilized via magical vines by [[Monster Clown|Dhoulmagus]]. Its clear to see that judging by the expressions on their faces that they are completely aware of what's going on... {{spoiler|they get better when the curse is broken after defeating [[Big Bad|Rhapthorne]], natch}}. Also, according to {{spoiler|[[Squishy Wizard|Jessica]], anyone being controlled by the [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can|staff]] must feel this way considering they are [[Brainwashed and Crazy|being controlled]] by [[Big Bad|Rhapthorne]]}}.
* In ''[[Bio ShockBioshock]] 2'', {{spoiler|Gilbert Alexander was experimented on by Sophia Lamb - her first test subject for what she plans to do with her daughter. He is reduced to a giant floating tentacled blob, his sanity long since disappeared, howling in the dark at the splicers and calling himself Alex the Great. His last recorded message to you begs you to kill him, to put him out of his misery. In a curious subversion that also manages to be a wallbanger, honouring his wishes and killing him is treated just as bad as killing the innocent little girls.}}
** The spoilered item only comes about because of a programming oversight they didn't catch until after it was released, {{spoiler|namely that the achievement for being a saint involves not killing Alexander at the end, despite the implications of this.}} Why they don't just fix this in a patch is beyond me.
** There's another instance in ''Bioshock 2'' that can be considered a good example of this - {{spoiler|when Lamb turns Sinclair into a Big Daddy, he [[Dying Asas Yourself|begs with the last ounce of humanity in him for death]]. The player can use the fully upgraded version of Hypnotize to have Sinclair aid them in killing the Splicers around and to follow them, but every moment not spent wailing on the poor bastard is more time for him to brokenly plead for death.}}
** Some of the Big Daddy conversion subjects had their minds left intact. Yikes...
* Towards the end of ''[[Ghost Trick]]'', {{spoiler|Sissel, Lynne, Kamila, Missile's ghost, and Yomiel are left trapped in a submarine that's slowly sinking towards the bottom of the ocean. Kamila and Lynne will obviously die, but the other three will be left as ghosts to forever haunt the dark wreckage.}} Scary enough. {{spoiler|But in Ray's timeline, where Sissel never tried to help out Lynne, it still happened...except Yomiel was down there alone.}}
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** Also, Soul Gems. The other games had you assume that they were harmless and just capturing the soul of a dead thing that lived on peacefully. However, in Skyrim, you have to enter a soul gem to remove the soul from it, revealing that the soul trapped inside is ''completely conscious and alive'', left floating in nothingness except for a few crystal platforms potentially forever. To make matters worse, trapping the souls of people, as long as they are killed legally, is ''okay'' and is a supported practice ''by the world'' to make enchanted items.
*** Actually, only animals and monsters can be done this. Doing it on a man, mer, or beast-man requires a special black soul gem, and is generally frowned upon.
* This seems to be the fate of [[Cosmic Horror|Mantorok]] in ''[[Eternal Darkness]]''. Impaled by spikes and trapped between realities [[Hoist Byby His Own Petard|by his own Magick]], Mantorok is often referred to as 'The Dead God', despite being clearly alive. One popular theory holds that, although being ''technically'' dead/dying, Mantorok is immortal and will therefore never actually die. Also, theoretically, no force in any universe can save him because his Magickal alignment is supreme.
** And Anthony and Ellia both remain entomed and live on for centuries within their own rotting bodies. [[Mercy Kill]] doesn't begin to describe it.
* In ''[[Fallout]] 3'', {{spoiler|Vault 112 contains a set of pods that keep their occupants alive forever, their minds trapped in a [[Virtual Reality]] simulation as the playthings of the sadistic Overseer Dr. Stanislaus Braun, who tortures, kills and revives them at his leisure. When the Lone Wanderer becomes trapped in the simulation with his/her dad, he/she can activate a hidden fail-safe that [[Your Mind Makes It Real|kills all of the Vault's residents]] except for Braun, leaving him trapped alone inside the simulation, presumably forever. While this would normally be a horrible fate, the fact that Braun was a [[Complete Monster]] of the first order makes it a fitting punishment for his atrocities.}}
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*** [[Munchkin|But being nice gives more pluses!]]
*** This creates an even greater [[And I Must Scream]] situation; {{spoiler|Harold}} makes it clear that harming his tree-self isn't enough to kill him; you'd have to take out his heart, which is a considerable distance away. Setting his tree body on fire, gruesome and painful as it is, does little except remove his ability to interact with the outside world. Even if all he could do was talk to people who didn't listen to a word he said, he could still talk.
** In [[Fallout: New Vegas|New Vegas]], there's a potential one of these involving {{spoiler|Mr House}}. If/when you decide {{spoiler|to remove him}}, you have to enter {{spoiler|the control room where his decrepit, ancient physical body is maintained by a Life Support Pod}} and once you {{spoiler|open the pod}}, he is {{spoiler|doomed to die because even a second's exposure to the microbacteria and such in the air is lethal to his unimmunised, 261-Year-Old body}}. The player then has the choice of {{spoiler|killing him, conventionally or by overloading the electrical circuits in his LSP}}, or, in an invocation of this trope, {{spoiler|disconnecting his brain from the cerebral matrix of the Lucky 38 - leaving him conscious and sustained physically by the life support machine (for a year, we are told, until he is killed by infection) but barely able to twitch or speak, isolated/forgotten, and with no way to influence or even access his computer network}}. At least it's only a year.
*** At the end of Dead Money, {{spoiler|you can sentence Father Elijah to this by getting him to trigger a trap in the Sierra Madre Vault set by casino creator Francis Sinclair for Dean Domino that locks him in the vault indefinitely. Similarly, [[Too Dumb to Live|you yourself can trigger the trap]] [[Schmuck Bait|after being warned by a message left by Sinclair]].}}
*** In Honest Hearts, Joshua Graham, who was covered in pitch and set on fire, claims that every time he changes the bandages on his body he exposes his wounds to open air and goes through the feeling of being burned alive and due to being [[Immune to Drugs]] chems such as Stimpacks or Med-X (AKA morphine) are useless to him. Being [[The Atoner]], he believes that he deserves just this. They don't call him "The Burned Man" for nothing.
*** Lonesome Road introduces the Marked Men, Ghouls whose flesh have been stripped off by the harsh winds of The Divide, kept alive through [[The Power of Hate|pure rage and hatred]].
* [[Fate/stay Stay Nightnight]]. Fate route. [[Nightmare Fuel|Under the church.]] Made worse by the fact that if you DON'T go there it's game over for you. Despite the protagonist actually saying that he feels a massive evil pressence from the church's basement and that he should leave. This feeling has saved his and Saber's life around 5 times before, but the game designers suddenly just expect you to go against it. And the reward is [[Body Horror]]. [[Sarcasm Mode|Joy.]]
** And then there's the Bad End where Caster turns Shirou into a living wand for projection magecraft. ''[[Nightmare Fuel|Yeesh.]]''
** And the Bad End where Ilya puts Shirou's soul in a doll. And the one where she carries off his [[A Love to Dismember|severed but still living head]] to torture. Really, this trope shows up with disturbing frequency.
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{{quote| "You may ponder the futility of your ambitions as you spend a deathless eternity beneath a mountain of rubble: you and your Soul Reaver will go equally mad as the eons pass."}}
** In the intro to ''Soul Reaver'', Raziel is executed by being cast into The Lake of the Dead. Water burns like acid for vampires, but the Lake's waters operate so slowly that the official sentence is to "burn forever." As such, Raziel spends several hundred, if not ''thousand'', years burning alive before finally dissolving and awakening in the Underworld.
* In ''[[Lost Souls MUD]]'', the ''sun'' is [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can|the elder god Hyperion]] sealed in a crystal sphere, with its light and heat produced by his [[Go Mad From the Isolation|relentless battering at his prison]].
* ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]'': {{spoiler|Pokey/Porky's fate in the Absolutely Safe Capsule, shortly after being defeated by the heroes. Subverted somewhat, in the fact this may just be exactly how he likes it.}}
** {{spoiler|That's probably because Porky shortsightedly didn't realize that he would never be able to escape the Absolutely Safe Capsule.}}
*** The game's creator mentioned in an interview that even {{spoiler|5.5 billion years later, when the sun dies and the world grows cold, Porky would ''still be alive'' inside that thing.}}
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* Lisa from ''[[Resident Evil]]''. She's kidnapped, experimented on, turns immortal, only wants her mother, kills her mother by mistaking her as an impostor, wears her mom's face over her own so she doesn't forget her face, was abandoned by the scientists, is left living forever in what might be grueling pain wandering around a mansion, and by looking at the original ''Resident Evil'' and the ''Umbrella Chronicles'', Lisa has "died" three times. First Jill or Chris make her fall into an abyss, then Wesker shoots her down, then Wesker shoots her down SOME MORE until he traps her under a chandelier leaving her to die inside the exploding mansion.
** ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'' has a lite version of this: {{spoiler|Jill Valentine, after supposedly having fallen to her death, was rescued by her (and your) nemesis Weskerm, who initially wanted to use her as his first subject for his new toy, the Uroboros virus. Turns out Jill's exposure to previous viruses has made her organism create antibodies for them, so she spends several years in suspended animation for Wesker to harvest those antibodies for his research. Then she is connected to some apparatus releasing mind-control drugs in her bloodstream and made to serve as his enforcer and right right hand. Yep, that's her in the intro video, watching the man get consumed by Uroboros. The bad part? At least during her mind-control, she was aware... she just couldn't do anything about it, right up to the point when she and Wesker fought against her former partner, Chris.}} Subverted in that, in the course of the campaign, Chris and Sheva get the gizmo off, but still...
* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' subjects Erazor Djinn to this fate in ''Sonic and the Secret Rings'', using the third wish from [[Hoist Byby His Own Petard|Erazor's own lamp]] in a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
** And then he tosses it into a giant container of molten metal.
** Shadow the Hedgehog was forced to sleep in a container for 50 years with the knowledge that his only friend had sacrificed her life to save him. Suffice to say, he [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|did not take this well.]]
*** Mad enough to {{spoiler|A) Try to wipe out the human race, B) Successfully destroyed the Black Arms alien race, C)takes down 40 or 50 GUN troopers in a level on Shadow the Hedgehog, although it happens in his memories of BEFORE Maria is killed.}}
** Eggman's former habit of turning cute fuzzy animals which may or may not be sentient (it varies) into his robotic slaves.
*** In [[Sonic theSat Hedgehog (TV)AM|SatAM]], it's even stated that ''they know what they're doing, but cannot do anything about it''.
* In ''[[The Suffering]],'' after he was executed in the seventies, Horace Gage's spirit was bound to the electric chair he died in, still being electrocuted and unable to communicate with the living. It's not until the disastrous events of the game that he's allowed to temporarily leave the chair and travel the prison as an [[Psycho Electro|electric ghost]], and he's still in horrible pain.
** Warden Elroy's approach to solitary confinement, which Ranse Truman calls "akin to live burial." It involves the victim being placed in a lightless, soundproofed room and left alone to scream and cry and attempt suicide. And since death isn't as permanent as it was, the inmate's tortured souls are ''still there, still screaming.''
* ''[[Tales of Symphonia (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia]]'': {{spoiler|Anyone who's been sacrificed to an [[Human Resources|Exsphere or Cruxis Crystal]] suffers this fate, even if they retain their body to a degree, like [[The Woobie|Colette]] and [[Emotionless Girl|Presea]]. Most who do retain their ability to speak after becoming an Exsphere beg to be killed or have the Exsphere broken, even the [[Big Bad]]. Most of the time, [[The Hero]] Lloyd ends up shattering the thing and freeing the person's soul, but in the sequel, even though his ''own MOTHER'''s soul is trapped in ''HIS CRUXIS CRYSTAL'' and he knows this, he's still using it.}}
** He uses it because he has to. Since he's collecting Exspheres to destroy, he's going to have to fight people who have Exspheres and don't want to give them up. Without an Exsphere himself, he would be putting himself in a lot of danger fighting an opponent better equipped then him. In the sequel Sheena DOES say that eventually the original cast is going to have to give up their Exspheres, too. But for the moment, so long as other people have Exspheres, they need to keep them since they're the people governments trust to do things.
** And then in ''[[Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World]]'', {{spoiler|Richter's}} fate if you get the neutral or good ending is like this. {{spoiler|He has to burn alive for as long as the mana in his body lasts, functioning as a living door to the demon world. According to Ratatosk, it'll take 1000 years for him to be able to free Richter. So if Richter's mana can last that long, he'll be free. If not... [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|well...]]}}
*** We know he'll last the full thousand years. {{spoiler|He acquired/tried to acquire two items. One let him burn mana for fiery power and the other gave him unlimited mana. He uses the former in your boss battle against him}}
* The point-and-click adventure game ''[[Uninvited (Videovideo Gamegame)|Uninvited]]'' had two endings where you become a member of the undead. Made especially creepy as it was nearly all text, narrated in second person and played dead-serious.
* The backstory of ''[[Utawarerumono]]'': {{spoiler|Witsarnemitea granted the scientists their wish [[Be Careful What You Wish For|by reducing them to immortal slimes]]. And you learn this after you beat the living crap outta those slimes. Because it's not like you can kill them.}}
** {{spoiler|And presumably they're still there, eternally trapped as screaming red jelly. The bastards.}}
*** Well that was nice of him. They ''are'' still allowed to scream! Aaaand... [[Life of Brian|always look on the bright side of life~]]
* Aaron from ''[[Clive BarkersBarker's Undying]]'' was chained in a dungeon and {{spoiler|eaten alive by rats}}, with his jaw removed so he couldn't scream.
* This is what happened to Ner'zhul when Kil'jaeden captured him and transformeated him into the Lich King between ''[[War CraftWarcraft]] 2'' and ''3''.
** And after defeating the Lich King in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', {{spoiler|Bolvar Fordragon takes his place in order to keep the legions of undead in check and will forever remain frozen upon his throne. To make it worse, no one will ever learn of his sacrifice, as he instructs Tirion Fordring to tell others only that the Lich King died and Bolvar along with him.}}
** Arthas's fate in the afterlife, as revealed in Sylvanas's short story on the official website.
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** He suffers an even ''worse'' fate than that later. After Zero {{spoiler|defeated him for good, Weil, [[Body Horror|fused to the remains of]] [[Colony Drop|Ragnarok]], remains immortal, but now, he's completely immobile. He could've stayed that way forever if it weren't for an unlucky group of humans that ''just'' happen to find his remains, and he [[Demonic Possession|possesses one of them]], still intent on revenge on humanity.}} Try to guess who is responsible for everything that's happened in the ''[[Mega Man ZX]]'' series?
* Gremio's fate in ''[[Suikoden I]]'' - {{spoiler|if being eaten alive by flesh-eating spores isn't a classic case, I don't know what is}}.
* Jovani in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess]]'' sold his soul to the Poes and was turned into a living gold-and-jewel statue.
** He could still talk.
*** And after you got a certain number of Poe Souls, he was able to move again.
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** The Skultulla Cursed Family in ''[[Ocarina of Time]]'' could very well fit in this trope. They can't free themselves and being it a side-quest, you could skip it completely.
*** Actually, it gets kind of worse. You do, after all, free some of them. But chances are you didn't free them all. Which means that some of the relatives are still trapped in [[Body Horror|that shape]] after the end of the game. And that they will watch the saved ones grow old and die, leaving the still cursed one alone, [[Fate Worse Than Death|forever]].
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword]]'' loves this trope:
** The entire Lanayru desert is littered by the time-ravaged, rusted remains of the ''Ancient Robots'', a population of robots who used to thrive in the past, when the desert was a luscious forest filled of precious "Time Stones". It's implied they may be still active, reacting with a pitiful beep when you try to communicate with them. One of them, restored to life by a "Time Stone" (that "resets" his personal timeline to a point in the past) is shown as fully aware of being living on borrowed time.
** Lanayru himself {{spoiler|,before you can fix it,}}, died a long time before Link can first meet him. So, you can only meet a rotten skull, [[Glowing Eyelights of Un-Death|staring at you with his empty eyesockets as you try to communicate with him.]]
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* A nice handful of people in ''[[Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep]]'' have pretty horrible fates. No worries, though. [[Messianic Archetype|Sora]]'s probably going to save 'em, along with any other good person who dies and/or disappears in the series.
** Also implied to happen to Ansem the Wise after the betrayal of his apprentices, when he was trapped in the realm of Darkness {{spoiler|1=and became DiZ.}}
*** {{spoiler|Special mention goes to Terra's fate; his Heart endured [[And I Must Scream]] by entering an unending [[Battle in Thethe Center of Thethe Mind]] with Master Xehanort, which has been going on for over ten years. His ''soul'', on the other hand, is trapped inside of his armor and marooned on a virtually inaccessible world, unable to focus on anything besides his hatred for Xehanort and his promise that he will, someday, set things right. It's little wonder that the Lingering Sentiment is a ''tad'' unbalanced when Sora accidentally encounters him, having a brief breakdown when Sora's presence reminds him of Xehanort and rampaging until Sora beats him to calm him down.}}
**** Oh, and {{spoiler|Terra's}} body? Currently in the possession of the person who placed him in that state, made even worse by the fact that there's evidence that there's ''still'' some of the original owners' being left in there, unable to fight off the intruder without his soul and heart.
* ''[[Afterlife (Video Game)|Afterlife]]'' has a few punishments like this, specially Lust's Screaming Subspace Voids, where the damned are put in a straitjacket, blindfolded, have their ears plugged, and are suspended by a cable in a black void with no sides to touch. Description states insanity comes real quick.
* In ''[[Homeworld (Video Game)|Homeworld]]: Cactaclysm'' the Bentusi (a advanced space-faring race that exist as individuals physically linked with their ships) preferred suicide to being captured and corrupted by 'The Beast' - a borg-like infection entity that took control over any ship it touched. Normally, it would convert the crew of a ship into 'bio-matter' that was recycled into bio-circuitry. With the Bentusi, who are linked directly to the ship itself, the beast's infection rendered the ship's sole crew member completely paralyzed and corrupted, unable to move or act of their own accord. As such, any Bentusi that was infected would destroy itself before being corrupted.
* Implied in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' by the confused, yet relieved expression with which {{spoiler|the Collector General faces death after being released from Harbinger's control}}. Also, the [[Fate Worse Than Death]] of anybody who gets taken alive by the Collectors consists of suffering this {{spoiler|while waiting to be processed into pure genetic slurry and watching others endure the same agonizing fate}}.
** Anyone affected by [[Eldritch Abomination|Reaper]] [[More Than Mind Control|indoctrination]] fits this trope as indocrination is [[Nightmare Fuel|the Reapers forcefully destroying a]] [[Fate Worse Than Death|person's free will, making them mindless husks]]. While you may never be fully aware of it, it's implied that you can always feel yourself slipping more and more.
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** The Project Overlord DLC. {{spoiler|David Archer is strapped to a machine intended to be a Geth mind control device and is forced to have Geth communication beamed into his skull constantly without being able to move or do anything about it. To add to it, he has autism that means he probably finds loud noise ''really'' disquieting. By the time you get to him his mind is broken by the trauma to the degree that can only scream for the voices to stop and recite math equations -- and the renegade option involves leaving him there.}}
* ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]: Assault On Dark Athena'' introduces us to the Ghost Drones, who are humans that have had most of their insides ripped out and replaced with machinery and cheap AI so that they can be remote-controlled (no word on whether they retain their original human consciousness, though). Riddick encounters one man in the middle of this horrifying conversion, and obliges his request to be killed. Riddick's charitable like that.
* In ''[[Prototype (Videovideo Gamegame)|Prototype]]'', you can, if you like, read this as Alex's ultimate fate. The people he consumes add their memories to his, their identities to his own - and this includes the moment he pounced on his victim, viciously beat him/her to death and absorbed them. As he himself says, he can still hear them in his mind, screaming and crying and begging for mercy; since he seems immortal, memories he'll relive forever.
** Elizabeth Greene suffers an even worse fate. Once a perfectly ordinary teenage girl before she was made a test subject, she is ageless and possibly immortal, held captive for 40 years, subject to multiple experiments and treated as little more than a living petri dish (her head has been shaved for cranial surgery; her bodysuit has channels for nutrients, so she can't feed herself; and no one involved in her capture and containment seems to feel even the slightest pity for her). Needless to say, when Mercer unknowingly frees her from captivity, she's very happy. In fact, so happy that she goes on a biochemical rampage and covers the entire island of Manhattan in viruses that all work on a rural network, all connected to her. As you do.
*** Her child, PARIAH - who has been described as the end of things to come - was taken away from her, and is also presently held captive somewhere in the world in a location ''higher than top secret.'' Though held in military facilities and watched at all times with snipers, he seems an ordinary male toddler...and he's stayed one all the decades he's been in captivity.
* The ''[[Super Mario]]'' games: [http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1935593 Koopa's Hell], a video by College Humor about a Koopa rebounding between two pipes indefinitely.
* In ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro Nini]]'', this is the consequence of a witch causing a Logic Error. The offending witch becomes trapped in the paradox until they can think of a way to resolve it -- or for all eternity, whichever comes first.
* In the [[Girls Love]] [[Visual Novel]] ''[[Akai Ito]]'', [[Our Vampires Are Different|Nozomi]] was trapped inside the [[Magic Mirror|Ryugetsu]] for... a long time. Even though in other characters' route she is always a villain, when you are in her route it's explained that she was a princess of some sort, and discarded her original body to obtain freedom from the deadly political game of her era. She then became a ghost that is [[Haunted Fetter|attached to the Ryugetsu]]. How did she accomplish this? By making deal with [[Big Bad|Nushi]], which, at that time, seemed sympathetic. When Nushi was defeated and [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can|sealed]] by the onikiri, she became trapped in the mirror. As she wondered why Nushi never come for her, [[And I Must Scream|her psyche crumbled]], and out of loneliness (and low self-esteem, she's really a messed-up person) she created another persona that act as her twin little sister. {{spoiler|But [[It Got Worse]]: That little sister, Mikage, was really a part of [[Our Souls Are Different|Nushi's shattered soul]], and manipulates her into manipulating the owner of the mirror to do atrocious things, all to free Nushi.}}
* In ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]: [[Persona 3]]'' {{spoiler|the Main Character is turned into the Great Seal preventing the culmination of humanities call for death, Erebus, from reaching Nyx, a stoic being that will cause all people to become mindless husks, and bringing about the end of the world. It can be assumed that the main character is still conscious in this state and must spend an eternity guarding humanity against complete annihilation}}.
** ''[[Persona 4]]'' mentions that {{spoiler|Elizabeth has left the Velvet Room}} and is currently searching for a way to free {{spoiler|the Main Character}} from this.
* [[Zork Grand Inquisitor|Zork: Grand Inquisitor]] introduces the [[Cool and Unusual Punishment|totemizer]], a nasty piece of machinery that traps any being inside a small bronze disc for eternity. What's even worse about it is that the Inquisition uses it over ''ten thousand'' times a day.
** There's also [[Ninja Butterfly|Dalboz,]] who was personally trapped in a lantern by the Grand Inquisitor.
** Infocom also had the [[Multiple Endings|Bad Ends]] of ''The Lurking Horror'' {{spoiler|(You're turned into the semi-intelligent puppet of an [[Eldritch Abomination]]. In the few moments of clarity you have while in this state, you wish you had been murdered instead.)}} and ''Sorcerer'' {{spoiler|(Nothing says it better than the text: "You feel an overwhelming sense of oppression as the demon seizes control of your mind and body. (...) You see the enslaved people of the land toiling to erect great idols to Jeearr. Parents offer up their own children upon these altars, as the rivers of the land fill with blood. And YOU embody Jeearr; you are cursed by ten thousand generations of victims; your face adorns the idols. And worst of all, you remain awake and aware, a witness to horror, never sleeping, and never, ever to escape.")}}
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* Parodied in ''[[Freemans Mind]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63S3vacxI9c#t=5m25s episode 3]: "I have no tail, and I must swing".
* Should you choose to ally with the Kuei-jin in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'', {{spoiler|Ming Xiao will -after you defeat the Sheriff- chain you to the Sarcophagus and throw it in the ocean. Since vampires cannot drown and the blood will prevent decomposition, your best hope is to be eaten by sea creatures (good luck, you traitor).}}
* Centeol in ''[[BaldursBaldur's Gate]]'', a minor NPC found in Cloakwood, was once a beautiful sorceress, but has been transformed into a grotesque blobby thing that is unable to move from the centre of its nest, where it is fed and protected by giant spiders.
* Happens to {{spoiler|Wheatley}} in [[Portal 2 (Video Game)|Portal 2]]. Just as you look like you're about to finish off the final level, {{spoiler|Wheatley (in a rare moment of cunning) boobytraps the button you needed to return control of the facility to [[G La DOS]]. Cue Chell firing a portal onto the moon, which sucks him out into space, where he will float, spinning, forever. Even worse, the final video just has him saying that if he could do just one thing he'd apologise for all the problems he caused. But now he can't.}}
** However, unlike most examples, {{spoiler|he has someone else to experience it with. Even if he won't shut up.}}
** What about [[G La DOS]]? She tells you that she had to relive her last two minutes over and over again for HUNDREDS of YEARS!
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{{quote| '''Narrator''': ''His is an existence that has no possibility of redemption, no end.''}}
* The mysterious Hag from ''[[Thief]]: Deadly Shadows'' skins her victims both to take their form as a disguise and to extend her life. One of the cutscenes show the many faces on her body move and blink, suggesting they're still alive as she wears them.
* The are several such opportunities for an immortal protagonist of ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' to "lose", despite being unkillable. If the character decides to {{spoiler|become the next Silent King}}, you arguably get a variant of this trope as you get stuck to the magical throne that comes with the job, unable to move until death claims you (which will be never). {{spoiler|Hargrimm and the rest of the Dead Nations will be keeping you company}}. The manual also states that The Nameless One can also be [[Buried Alive]] or eaten or in many other ways rendered incapable of moving or dying, making them potential examples that never happen.
** Another danger that is mentioned is being sent to a crematorium. It's unclear what would happen to him; either he'd be killed for good because he couldn't regenerate, or he would still be able to regenerate only to die again in horrible, burning agony. If the latter, then it would fit this trope.
** Also, if the Nameless One tells the Transcendent One that he no longer loses his memories upon death and will just come back to the Fortress of Regrets again should he be defeated, the Transcendent One angrily replies that he will keep him locked in a pocket dimension for all eternity to prevent this.
* In ''[[The Seventh Guest]]'', the spirits of the children who died from [[The Plague]] were sealed in dolls. Also, Elinor Knox ends up being turned into a mannequin.
* [[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]: [[The Medic]] keeps a disembodied BLU spy head in his fridge along with his beer and monkey hearts. The spy in question is [http://youtu.be/36lSzUMBJnc far from happy about it].
{{quote| '''Spy head''': Kill me.<br />
'''Medic''': Later. }}
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* ''[[Dark Souls]]'': The eventual and inevitable fate of all those cursed with the Darkbrand and whoever links the Fire.
* In ''[[Baten Kaitos]]'', the five islands are kept aloft by pieces of the dead god of evil, Malpercio. {{spoiler|In the prequel, you learn Malpercio was actually five people (Seph, Thoran, Ven, Marno, and Pieda) who sold their soul to the Dark Brethren for power, and it was their bodies that were sealed into the End Magnus. Moreover, a chunk of Marno is inside Sagi, and Marno serves as Sagi's guardian spirit. Have the five of them been conscious ''while they're entombed in the islands''?! Moreover, in ''Eternal Wings'', the five End Magnus get ''fused together''. Are they still conscious after ''that''?}}
* In ''[[Sonic Generations (Video Game)|Sonic Generations]]'', {{spoiler|its heavily implied that Sonic's friends that have been [[Taken for Granite|petrified]] by the Time Eater are fully conscious and aware. Not a fun thought.}}
** Also from Generations, we have the punishment of the final boss, {{spoiler|the Classic and Modern versions of Eggman}}. After you win, they are trapped inside the game's hub White World with all the stage acesses removed and thus no way to any other world, for presumably eternity. Sometimes you just have to feel bad for poor {{spoiler|Eggman}}, but then you remember the demonic Time Eater and stop caring. {{spoiler|Earlier in the game, Classic!Eggman was disturbed at how maniacal Modern!Eggman was. This was probably a major contributor to that. Thanks for breaking the villain, ''Sonic''.}}
* ''[[Arcanum]]'' has several cases of this.
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** In the Void, {{spoiler|Arronax}} was defeated by [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Kerghan}} and imprisoned for 2000 years in some kind of force field just wide enough for him to stand, speaking only ocasionally with {{spoiler|Kerghan}}. And the Void is the weird place where the only way to die is by violence. However, not only did it not affect {{spoiler|Arronax}}'s sanity, but, as he states, actually gave him time to think about his life and deeds, eventually leading to his [[Heel Face Turn]].
*** Interestingly, a spiritual snake-like creature which has been sustaining {{spoiler|Arronax}}'s magical prison suffered almost the same fate, being summoned from the other world and forced to roam the same room for all 2000 years, apparently able to communicate only with the owner of the control medaiilon (which was given to the undead). If you get the medallion in posession, it will say that this place hurts it, and plead for release.
* ''[[Monkey Hero (Video Game)|Monkey Hero]]'' : This is the fate of the Great Dragon in the Dragon Mountain . He was reduced to an immobile yet sentient skeleton by the [[Big Bad|the Nightmare King]] and locked away in a room inside a dungeon all alone. He even [[Lampshades]] his plight by telling the hero that his misery knows no bounds and begs him to end his suffering. Also {{spoiler|The fate of The nightmare king in the ending}}
* The previous {{spoiler|Steef guardian of the Grubbs}} in ''[[Oddworld Strangers Wrath|Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath]]''. {{spoiler|He had his body [[Personal Space Invader|taken over and used as a host by Sekto]], who then proceeded to hunt down other Steef and have their heads ''mounted on his wall''. Not only that, but Sekto also dammed the river and persecuted the Grubbs that that particular Steef used to protect. And it's implied that the Steef was concious the ''whole time''. To top it all off, Stranger kills him, only learning that he's a [[Last of His Kind|fellow Steef]] after Sekto has [[Villain Exit Stage Left|abandoned the body and escaped into the river]]. But at least the Steef [[Dying Asas Yourself|dies as himself]], and with the knowledge that the river is free.}}
* Thaddius in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' zig-zags this. When you read up on Thaddius, you find out that Thaddius is made from the flesh of women and children, and their souls are stuck underneath that. By the way, you know that "Please noooo!" and "Help me! Save me!" cries you hear? That's Thaddius. When you run after these voices, Thaddius shouts, "You are too late, I must obey!". Zig-zagged the most because upon death, Thaddius says, "Thank...you."
* In the MMORPG ''[[Runescape]]'', there's a species of living obsidian creatures called the TzHaar. When TzHaar die, their bodies are broken up into what they call Tokkul, which they use [[Human Resources|as currency.]] What they don't realize though, is that the consciousness of the dead TzHaar still inhabits those Tokkul. A recent quest had the player character find a way to release the consciousness into TzHaar that were born without memories, using a Tokkul that had been made ''very'' recently. That one TzHaar had a bad [[Heroic BSOD]], and was nearly driven insane. From a ''recently made'' Tokkul. And there are Tokkul that have been in circulation for ''hundreds of years''. [[Fridge Horror|Think about it.]]
* In Chapter 18 of ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising]]'', {{spoiler|Pit's mind is trapped in a ring. He cannot move or communicate with anyone unless they are wearing the ring themselves. It takes a while for this to sink in, because Pit doesn't really realize how terrible it is until magus starts walking away from the ring. All Pit could do was beg for Magnus to wear the ring, but Magnus couldn't even hear him.}}
* Lechuck plans to do this to Guybrush in ''[[Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge]]'', burning his flesh of his body, leaving only his bones "still alive and very much in pain" which he'll make into a chair that screams when he sits on it. Luckily Guybrush escapes before this happens.
** In ''[[The Curse of Monkey Island]]'' this happens to Lechuck in the end, as he's trapped under his own roller coaster iceberg, though he's rescued prior to the beginning of ''[[Escape Fromfrom Monkey Island]]''.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates]]'' The [[Big Bad]] Galdes is stuck, eternally repeating his action of casting a spell to undo the heroes' victory over him. "Over, and again."
* In the standard ending of the [[Interactive Fiction]] game ''The Act of Misdirection'' you end up as a {{spoiler|sentient bust in a hat store}}. You are in this state for a few turns before the game ends with the implication that you will be like that forever. In these few turns you can try several actions including "shout" and "move" and the game will disturbingly remark on your inability to do them.
* One of the endings in the [[Cthulhu Mythos|Lovecraftian]] [[Interactive Fiction]] ''[[Anchorhead]]'' involves the protagonist being trapped in a dimension filled with nothing but "the necrotic folds of the womb of Nehilim".
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