Beat It by Compulsion: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* In [[Soul Eater]], Death the Kid has a crippling obsession with symmetry, resulting in him stopping mid-battle to chew out one of his [[Empathic Weapon|Weapons]] for being off center, going home in the middle of a mission to check whether the picture in his room was centered properly (it was), refusing to attack a symmetrical opponent and going berserk and obliterating an asymmetrical one.

** He manages to ignore such obsessions (specifically not freaking out about the line in his [[Marked Change|hair]]) when he needs to deal with Mosquito. But that arguably is a case of one compulsion being overridden by another - his need to create order between life and death.

* The Contractors of ''[[Darker than Black]]'' have to fulfill a "remuneration", which is a compulsion to do something after using their powers—and the compulsion is so powerful that they ''must'' do it (though it's never really explained what would happen to a Contractor who's unable to fulfill his or her remuneration). This can vary from folding the corners of every page in a book to drinking beer to [[Fingore|breaking one's own fingers]]. The only exception is for someone whose mind is no longer in their original body; for example, Mao, who has the ability to possess animals and whose human body was killed, doesn't have a remuneration. {{spoiler|This is why Hei doesn't have to pay any price for his ability: it comes from his [[Dead Little Sister]]'s [[Soul Fragment]].}}

 

* With a [[Rogues Gallery]] rife with mental instability, many are the times [[Batman]] has won the day simply by playing on his foe's idiosyncrasies. Two-Face is probably one of the most consistent examples, with his need to consult his trademark coin: in theory, the results of the toss are equally as likely to turn up in the hero's favor. ([[Theory of Narrative Causality|In practice...]])

** In ''[[Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth]]'': The doctors, attempting to "cure" Two-Face, try to show him that life has more than two outcomes by replacing his coin with dice and eventually a deck of cards. This reduced Dent to a complete wreck, unable to even go to the bathroom. In the end of the comic, Batman returns the coin and Two-Face immediately flips it to decide whether to kill Batman. He looks at the coin and lets him go...{{spoiler|despite the coin coming up scratched, meaning he ''chose'' to let him go.}}

* A character called ''Fatman'' had the power to morph himself into any size and shape, but his [[Weaksauce Weakness]] was that he would irresistibly turn back if he ever saw something tasty to eat.

 

 

* Played with a fair bit in ''[[Terry Pratchett]]'''s ''Discworld'', where methods to defeat vampires included mixing up their sock drawer (they would then have to pair and sort the socks), and forcing other obsessive-compulsive type behaviour. Another example would be the werewolves in The Fifth Elephant. Saying the word 'bath' actually gets them to wince, and throwing something has them automatically run over and grab it in a doggy-esque manner.

** The bit about socks is genuine folklore: if you steal a vampire's left sock, fill it with stones and throw it in a river, the vampire will be unable to do anything except search for the sock. And since he can't cross running water, he'll never find it.

* In the first ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'' book, the titular [[Villain Protagonist]] uses the fairies' inability to enter a human dwelling without permission, compulsion to obey a human while in their dwelling, and inability to come back later to try get revenge to extract a lot of gold from them. {{spoiler|they get around this by [[Loophole Abuse]] and sending in a non-magical troll.}}

 

* In ''[[The X-Files]]'' episode "Bad Blood", Mulder diverts an attacking vampire by flinging a bag of sunflower seeds. The vampire is compelled to stop and pick them up. Mention is also made of the alleged vampiric compulsion to untie knots, such as tied shoelaces.

** In actual vampire folklore, the creatures ARE compelled to untie knots, or to count things. Putting knots in the grave or strewing newspapers about a victim's house, are ways to distract one. So yes, [[Sesame Street|The Count]] is quite accurate in that respect.

* In ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' they distract a leprechaun (played by Robert Picardo) by spilling salt on the ground and forcing him to count them, giving them time to figure out how to banish him.

 

* [[Youkai|Japanese kappa]] traditionally have a depression on the top of the head, which must contain water for them to have any power. Fortunately, they are compulsively polite and so if you bow to them, they will bow back - spilling the water and rendering them helpless.

** The sneaky tactic of pouring really strong alcohol into the head-bowl in an attempt to reduce the kappa to helpless drunkeness has, as of this writing, produced unreliable results.

* In Britain and Germany, you could often trick a changeling into [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|revealing their true age]] by doing something really strange, usually boiling water in eggshells. Then they'd say something like 'I'm as old as the Eastern Woods, but I've never seen anyone boil water in eggshells before!' Some stories claimed that they'd give up the trick and be defeated just from saying something like that, others used it merely as confirmation before they tortured the changeling to get the true child back.

 

* In the ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' splatbook for were-cats, each tribe of cats had three or four unbreakable compulsions. As most of these compulsions were significant tactical disadvantages to the were-cats, they strongly discouraged their members from revealing these secrets to ANYONE. For example, one tribe of cats had to follow a line of salt. The effectiveness of this tactic when the cat in question was on large natural salt-deposits was not explored.

** In the new WoD, [[Changeling: The Lost|changelings]] who grow powerful enough suffer from "frailities", similar to the old stories about [[The Fair Folk]]. One may be unable to drink anything but alcohol, while another may have to dance when she hears a clock chime.

* The furry RPG ''Ironclaw'' has things known as flaws, physical or personality-based quirks that hamper one's abilities elsewhere. While external (physical) flaws don't fit into this category, internal (personality-based) flaws do, and ''are'' expected to be followed. Considering that said flaws are usually [[Lawful Stupid Chaotic Stupid]] stuff, depending on how strongly you have that flaw, it can be very easy for opponents to exploit them to their advantage and overwhelm you.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

 

 

 

* In an episode of ''[[Danny Phantom]]'', Desiree the Wishing Ghost is compelled to grant any wish she hears. Sam takes advantage of this to undo her mischief so that Danny can defeat her. In her first appearance, Danny ends up wishing her back into her bottle, lampshading that if he were smarter, he would have just done that in the beginning.

** [[Neat Freak|Not to mention his obsession with cleanliness]]. Splash a bit of mud on his tunic and he'll be incapable of anything but whining until he scrubs it all out.

 

* Autistic people of all kinds may exhibit this behavior, helpful or not.