Companion Cube: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|''"{{smallcaps|The Enrichment Center is required to remind you that the Weighted [[Trope Namer|Companion Cube]] [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|will never threaten to stab you]] and, in fact, cannot speak.... In the event that the Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice.}}"''

 

{{quote|''"Treat your cardboard box with care. Take care of the box and it'll take care of you. Don't think of it as just another box. Treat it with love... Don't be rough, okay?"''

 

Take an otherwise uninteresting object, and have the other characters (or at least one character) [[Surrogate Soliloquy|interact with it]] as if it is a real character, and you have a Companion Cube. Sometimes, the object blurs the line between real and imaginary by apparently doing things which would be hard for an inanimate object to do or telling people things they shouldn't have been able to already know, but the defining characteristic is that we the audience never, ever see it move of its own volition on camera, even if it clearly must've done something.

Dolls and teddy bears are especially common examples, probably because they're humanoid, friendly looking, and meant to be bonded with. Typically the owner will treat it as their [[The Confidant|Confidant]]. [[Security Blanket]]s are also common in this regard.

 

 

This can go wrong in fandom. [[Cargo Ship|Horribly, horribly wrong.]]

* Geico's "money you saved from using Geico" which is a stack of money with eyes. They have been known to do things off camera like texting.

 

* Seems to be quite common in the ''Gundam'' series. Particularly, in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing|Gundam Wing]]'', all of the characters who pilot Gundams will talk to their machines at least once every couple of fights. In an early episode, {{spoiler|when Quatre´s about to blow up his own Gundam, Sandrock, the cockpit opens by itself, causing Quatre to wonder: "Are you telling me to get down, Sandrock?"}} A few of the suits also have the ZERO system, which tends to inspire insanity in the pilots who use it. That sure doesn't help.

* ''[[Mazinger Z]]'': Several times the characters talk to or about Mazinger-Z and [[FemBot]] Aphrodite A like if they were sentient beings. Sayaka actually had a [[Heroic BSOD]] when {{spoiler|Aphrodite A was destroyed. She even hallucinated Aphrodite was calling her.}} And then you have Minerva-X, an actual sentient [[FemBot]] and [[Humongous Mecha]] could act, think and feel on her own and was programmed to be Mazinger-Z's [[Battle Couple]], and considered Mazinger was meant to be HER Companion Cube (as Sayaka protested only Aphrodite was allowed to be Mazinger's partner).

** It seldom happened in ''[[Great Mazinger]]'' and ''[[UFO Robo Grendizer]]'', but in one of the versions of the latter, when Duke was fleeing, he pleaded Grendizer carried him far away. However, Grendizer was [[First Church of Mecha|the embodiment of the Fleedian's god of war]], so he could have a point.

** Heck, the cards ''themselves'' fit the bill. Whole "Heart of the Cards" thing and all.

*** What's that [[Memetic Sex God|Dark Magician Girl]]? [[Cargo Ship|You wanna make out?]]

* In ''[[Carnival Phantasm]]'' during the Grand Prix episode, Assassin displays extreme affection for the shrine, even towards {{spoiler|jumping out of the truck in a vain attempt to save it when Berscar knocked it over the cliff}}.

* Herr Schtick in ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]''

 

== Comics ==