Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Difference between revisions

* One ''[[Flash Gordon (comic strip)|Flash Gordon]]'' story centered on a tank-sized ray that could turn entire crowds into happy, good-hearted pacifists. Ming the Merciless takes control of it and use it to subjugate the opposition, until the protagonists manage to turn it on him. Flash even remarks what a swell guy Ming is when he's not evil. Justified since the ray's effect is temporary, and the rebound causes a lot of trouble later on.

* [[Doctor Strange]] on occasion has used [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]] to make villains forget the evil magic they have learned—mostly for those who stumbled into it by accident and had no idea what they were doing.

 

== [[Film]] ==

** It is also hinted that the technology could be used in this way for some positive applications, such as curing mental illnesses. For example, Sierra was taken against her will as a "charity case" because she had schizophrenia (the Dollhouse staff not knowing/believing that she had schizophrenia because a man she rejected was drugging her). Unfortunately, these are vastly overshadowed by the much more dangerous negative applications, most of which fall under some variation of [[Brainwashed and Crazy]].

* In ''[[Angel]]'', Angel becomes the CEO of evil lawfirm Wolfram & Hart's L.A. branch in exchange for them altering reality to give his son Connor a well-adjusted past with a normal family, and wipe everyone else's memories.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Interestingly, Nova (one of the most powerful, if not THE most powerful, Terran psychics ever) actually ''chose'' to have her memory wiped, unable to cope with the memory of {{spoiler|her parents being murdered in front of her and living a year as a slave to a psychopath}}.

* In ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 5'', {{spoiler|the antagonist Dr. Regal gets his memory erased and becomes a nice guy. No repercussions. Less of a [[What the Hell, Hero?]] since it was done by Wily not the heroes}}.

* In {{spoiler|Legion}}'s loyalty mission in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', the heroes find out a way to turn the {{spoiler|Heretic}} [[Cyber Cyclops|Geth]] against the Reapers by introducing a computer virus into their network, essentially overwriting their thoughts. Given that the 'verse features several villains (including the Reapers) and [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]] trying or succeeding in [[Not So Different|doing the same]] for their less-than-noble purposes, the parallels are made quite clear.

** Interestingly, this [[Grey and Gray Morality|isn't treated like the obvious good option]], with several characters pointing out that if you alter the geths' thoughts, you're still "killing" who they used to be. The alternative is to kill all those geth outright, but...it's still a strange moral issue.

** The MK Guns are an earlier version of this. It's implied they were designed to force altered states of consciousness. {{spoiler|While they are excellent against [[Demonic Possession]], that's not to say there are not repercussions for the higher-ups when they are confronted over the possibilities of what amounts to portable brainwashing equipment and the extent of what they expected the crewmen to do.}}

* This is how criminal rehabilitation functions in ''[[Startopia]]''. Apart from removing all current criminal impulses from the subject it appears to have no other side-effects and allows the ex-criminal to fully re-enter society (and re-offending is possible if the peep gets enough of a soul hit later), making it one of the less problematic instances of this trope. Besides, you get paid 1000e per rehabilitated subject.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

== [[Web Original]] ==

* Maven tries to hypnotize [[The Nostalgia Chick]] into never thinking about [[Todd in the Shadows]] again, but it doesn't even come close to working.

 

== Western Animation ==