Emotion Bomb: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''"The Tyrant's Blade no blood hath spilled,''

''But doth the spirit carve.''

''Soulcutter hath no body killed,''

 

 

The effect, which is often [[More Than Mind Control]], can also be accomplished in more "realistic" settings, with a drug that produces or intensifies the emotion in question.

 

A subtrope of [[Emotion Control]]. Compare [[Mind Rape]]. Contrast [[Care Bear Stare]], which is this but with niceness, to be used against a villain. [[I Thought It Meant|Not to be confused with]] [[Angst Nuke]], where a character ''blows up'' from emotion.

 

 

* The [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|aptly-named]] character Despair in ''[[The Faerie Queene]].'' Three guesses as to what he does...

* The [[The Fair Folk|elves]] in [[Discworld]]'s ''Lords and Ladies'' seem to include this in their general aura of "glamour". How could something as clunky and utterly inadequate and ''human'' as you ever hope to defeat an elf? You don't even deserve to ''exist'' next to, much less rebel against, something so perfect as an elf. The Auditors also fight like this when incorporeal, making people think that fighting them is pointless because there's nothing really there to fight.

** However in both the books and films, the Nazgul have this power, mixed with fear.

* [[Ciaphas Cain]] gets a ''nasty'' hit of this in ''Duty Calls'', complete with [[Religious Horror]]. {{spoiler|[[Heroic Willpower]] keeps him sane until [[Anti-Magic|Jurgen]] arrives to break the spell, but he was still out of the fight for a bit.}}

* [[Harry Potter]]'s world has Dementors, who guard the prison of Azkaban. Dementors sense and feed on the positive emotions, happiness and good memories of human beings, forcing them to relive their worst memories. It is notable that Dumbledore is against the use of Dementors, considering them cruel and unusual punishment (as well as a natural fifth column for Dark wizards.)

* The [[Evil Overlord|Lord Ruler]] of ''[[Mistborn]]'' uses his powers of Soothing to deaden the emotions of anyone within about a mile radius of him, sapping them of the will to resist him (though a skilled Mistborn can counteract the effects to a degree by Rioting the emotions of those in his or her immediate vicinity). Later on, [[Extraordinarily Empowered Girl|Vin]] learns to do a similar trick, though because she's much weaker than the Lord Ruler she can only effect a few people at a time.

* The aptly named Despair Squid of ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' causes hallucinations in its victims that are so terrible that the victim commits suicide.

 

 

 

* Fear effects are a common game mechanic in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' and other MMORPGS, with afflicted players and monsters running randomly around the place. Many a player has cursed this when feared right into the ''next'' bunch of monsters, and it used to be that you could be scared right off a cliff!

* In the X-Men Legends series, Emma Frost can do this to every enemy in her range, making all of them bolt. Of course, this only makes it so that you have to run after them to take care of them before the effect wears off.

* In ''[[Sonic the Comic]]'', {{spoiler|Chaos}} did this. It was, however, resistable, as two characters were able to get close to it this way (Sonic achieved it by concentrating on rage).

* The Fear Point in ''Immortal Defense'' may count. It slows down enemy targets, but represents the player character's own anxieties and its effect is probably just caused by its environment's metaphor tangibility. If fully upgraded, it "panics" and fires blindly.

** In 3.5 and [[Pathfinder]], it's not a magical or psionic effect: dragons are just plain scary. Mechanically, if a dragon with greater hit dice than you does anything threatening, you have to roll your save.

* This is how Scarecrow, {{spoiler|and Ra'as Al Ghul, who is directing him,}} plans to destroy Gotham in ''[[Batman Begins]]''. His cronies dump the fear drug into the water supply and vaporize it to drive a large chunk of the city insane.

* Turahk from ''[[Bionicle]]'' has this power. It is so powerful that {{spoiler|Jaller actually died from a Fear blast. He got better, though.}}

* In the animated web series ''[[Broken Saints]]'', this is the form [[Super-Powered Evil Side|angry Shandala]]'s empathic powers take towards any hostiles.

* Zofis, the [[Big Bad]] of an entire story arc of ''[[Gash Bell]]'', is able to manipulate the demons of a thousand years ago into fighting for them by making them believe that, after being freed of their stone curse, that Zofis can ''return them to stone at will''. After spending 1000 years utterly immobile, that fear is enough to get them to do anything for him.

* The myrddraal of ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' emanate an aura of fear, especially along their line-of-sight.

* In "[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Journal]]" Jaroda and Lady Christine have access to an Aura technique called Fear Aura, which Jaroda uses to force Heath to take a job for him.

 

* General: If there are any [[Horny Devils]] who ''can't'' do this, they're very much in the minority.

* A Valentine's Day seasonal event in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has someone do this ''worldwide'' {{spoiler|so that everyone will be moonstruck and distracted for some attack that's never followed through on.}} He has help from some naive individuals who really just want to "help ease the awkward rituals of courtship".

* ''[[Baroque]]'' has Lust as a status ailment. It makes all enemies and treasure chests look like women (and the women all look the same).

* In the first episode of ''[[Torchwood]]'', Owen is shown using some sort of alien breath spray that causes anyone who gets a whiff of it to want to jump him right there and then.

** [[Ciaphas Cain]] ('''[[In Harm's Way|HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!]]''') has had a fair bit of trouble with Slaaneshi cultists. First there was that [[Charm Person|witch]] he just managed to fight off and kill (before she could [[Fate Worse Than Death|sell his soul to Slaanesh]])... then later on more cultists {{spoiler|summoned her back as a [[Horny Devils|Daemonette]]}}, and again he managed to fight it off with [[Heroic Willpower]] ([[Spanner in the Works|and]] [[Power Nullifier|Jurgen]] {{spoiler|and more [[Big Damn Heroes|Imperial Guardsmen]]}}). Naturally, these folks have been a lovely source of his [[Bad Dreams]].

 

* This is its own subtrope, [[Hate Plague]], so examples go there.

 

* The "blamethrower", from ''[[Mystery Men]]'', produces not so much Anger as petty bickering.

** There are a bunch of emotion-affecting spells, including the one actually named ''Emotion''. (That spell includes Despair, Fear, Love and Rage)

** Sympathy and Antipathy are two other good ones. Cast on a place, they make you very strongly want to stay there, or get the hell out as soon as possible. Cast on an object, they make you either covet it and obsess over possessing it, or want absolutely nothing to do with it. Furthermore, they only affect specific beings determined when you cast the spell, leaving all other beings unaffected.

** And of course, Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter. It not only incapacitates the target, but also weakens their muscles for a while after they calm down.

** In 1st Edition the psionic ability "Telempathic Projection" could send an emotion to a target creature.

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the warlock class used to have a spell called Curse of Recklessness. It would drive the target into overconfidence, making them immune to fear effects (and ordinary fleeing, if an NPC) and hit harder but causing them to drop their defence (reducing their armour stat). The spell was recently removed and the armour reduction effect combined with another curse.

* Flinx, main protagonist of [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' universe, has [[The Empath|empathic]] powers that were originally sense-only, but received an upgrade in ''Flinx in Flux'' that allowed him to fully access his latent projective powers. He has used this ability to induce catatonic fear and/or despair in his enemies, at one point immobilizing a youth gang simply by exposing them to a glimpse of the [[Ultimate Evil]] he's destined to fight. In ''Reunion'', he uses his powers to seduce an employee of the Terran Shell complex in order to gain access to restricted data, and even manages to manipulate ''the computer itself''.

* ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' movie has a "Point of View" gun, which forces the person hit to suddenly understand the wielder's point of view. Generally just distracting, but utterly incapacitating when ''[[The Eeyore|Marvin]]'' uses it, as you can imagine.

* Occurs in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4''. When {{spoiler|Liquid shuts off SOP the first and second time}}, the soldiers affected immediately {{spoiler|experience all the emotion the system had prevented them from feeling.}} This involves such graphic displays as soldiers unable to stop laughing as they beat the shit out of their comrades, and other soldiers simply killing themselves as fear and sadness overwhelms them.

* The "Emotion Control" power in ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]'', which can also be used to instill calm or hope.

* In [[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]], {{spoiler|Hinamizawa Syndrome}} is at least as much a Fear/Paranoia Plague as a [[Hate Plague]]. Although the characters start attacking each other, rather than being motivated by outright anger, frequently, it's a poorly-conceived self-preservation method. {{spoiler|Keiichi}} in Onikakushi-hen in particular comes to mind.

* Sweet Sorrow, an [[Emotion Control|emotion manipulator]] from the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'', concentrates on the darker emotions. She once made a successful escape by making a crowd of innocent bystanders both terrified of and furious with the superheroes trying to capture her.

* This is the schtick of the [[Emotion Eater|White Court vampires]] in ''[[The Dresden Files]]''. The most common emotional affinity is lust, especially among House Raith, which is why they're often called [[Horny Devils|succubi and incubi]]. Other branches specialize in fear or despair. (Though, interestingly, real, pure emotion can actively injure them; [[The Power of Love|True Love]] burns lust-feeders, for example) In addition there's, Vittorio Malvora: because he decided to do some finagling outside of the traditional [[Planet of Hats]] line, he has the ability to use despair, plus lust, plus fear, ''all at the same time''. It takes {{spoiler|the [[Heroic Sacrifice]] of a freakin' fallen angel}} to keep it off Harry.

* Freya's "vybe" power in the webcomic ''[[Magellan]]'' falls into this category. In a more benign application, she can make a large group of people collapse into helpless laughter, a good way to break up a fight. In more desperate circumstances, though, she can do a "full-spectrum vybe" which apparently makes someone experience every possible emotion simultaneously at full force, enough to render them catatonic for hours or days.

* An episode of the ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' TV series, "The Flawed Couple", had a [[Villain Team-Up]] between Abis Mal and Mecanicles involving magical stones that could alter people's moods. Aladdin managed to break the fear one by focusing on the fact that Jasmine was in danger.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Stock Super Powers]]

[[Category:Magic and Powers]]

[[Category:Emotion Tropes]]

[[Category:Mind Manipulation Tropes]]