Empty Shell: Difference between revisions

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In [[Real Life]], the closest term for it is probably "catatonic". However, catatonia is as likely to result from the inability to initiate movement as it is from lack of consciousness; the individual could be anything from fully conscious to nearly comatose, and [[And I Must Scream|you could never tell]].

How did this happen? Here's a few ways: regular old [[Crapsack World]] induced trauma, psychological torture, [[Mind Control]], [[Mind Rape]], and high end uses of an [[Agony Beam]]. It can be done metaphysically by being drained of all their [[Liquid Assets]] or [[Life Energy]], or having their [[Our Souls Are Different|Soul]] or part of their [[Anatomy of the Soul|Soul Anatomy]] stolen. Then again, sufficiently radical body alterations can do this too, like being [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul|"upgraded" into a machine body]] or a [[Came Back Wrong|less-than-successful]] attempt at [[Back ~~From~~ the Dead|resurrection]].

How did this happen? Here's a few ways: regular old [[Crapsack World]] induced trauma, psychological torture, [[Mind Control]], [[Mind Rape]], and high end uses of an [[Agony Beam]]. It can be done metaphysically by being drained of all their [[Liquid Assets]] or [[Life Energy]], or having their [[Our Souls Are Different|Soul]] or part of their [[Anatomy of the Soul|Soul Anatomy]] stolen. Then again, sufficiently radical body alterations can do this too, like being [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul|"upgraded" into a machine body]] or a [[Came Back Wrong|less-than-successful]] attempt at [[Back from the Dead|resurrection]].

Sometimes it's curable, others it's a permanent [[Fate Worse Than Death]]. Expect these characters to be the preferred [[People Puppets]] for [[Telepath]]s and [[Demonic Possession|demons]] for being not so much [[Weak-Willed]] as ''No Willed.'' Contrast [[The Soulless]], who are like Empty Shells filled with drive and ambition, and lacking all moral restraint. Compare to [[Soulless Shell]]s, who died and were brought back without their souls.

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* In ''[[Flame of Recca]]'', clone Aoi does this to [[Healing Hands|the local healer]] [[Damsel in Distress|Yanagi]] by erasing her memories and pushing back her thoughts, removing her consciousness so that the satanic monster resulting from the fusion of two [[Complete Monster]]s, Tendo Jigoku, can absorb her soul without being rebelled by healing powers. It takes the timely arrival of her lover Recca to bring her back to her senses.

* Happens to {{spoiler|Agnieszka}} in [[Kurobara Alice]]. {{spoiler|As the corollary to her [[Break the Cutie]] process, she stabs herself to death; a vampire named Maximilian, however, stabs her almost lifeless body with a magical blade, and renders her as this.}}

* {{spoiler|Yuu}}<ref>{{spoiler|The real one, that is.}}</ref> opt to become in the 2012 anime of ''[[~~Black~~ ~~Rock~~ Shooter]]'', due to the soul-crushing situation of her life.

* {{spoiler|Yuu}}<ref>{{spoiler|The real one, that is.}}</ref> opt to become in the 2012 anime of ''[[Black★Rock Shooter (band)|Black★Rock Shooter]]'', due to the soul-crushing situation of her life.

* In ''[[Ai no Kusabi]]'', this happened to {{spoiler|Kirie}} by forcefully being [[Brainwashed]] to be a Pet. AKA a [[Sex Slave]]. For him it was a [[Fate Worse Than Death]].

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== [[Fan Works]] ==

* In [[Harry Potter and ~~The~~ Methods of Rationality]], Harry becomes this for a few paragraphs due to prolonged exposure to a Dementor. He still acts and reacts, but his internal monologue is utterly mechanistic.

* In [[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]], Harry becomes this for a few paragraphs due to prolonged exposure to a Dementor. He still acts and reacts, but his internal monologue is utterly mechanistic.

* Marty in [[No Antidote]], increasingly so because of his neural degeneration.

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* Scott Tyler in ''[[The Power of Five]]'' is one of these at the end of Nightrise. Probably understandable, considering he spent most of the book being tortured, both physically and mentally.

* Some of [[Isaac Asimov]]'s robots became like this if they got stuck in the robot equivalent of a [[Heroic BSOD|really bad infinite loop]] (eg, by running into a [["Three Laws"-Compliant|Three Laws conflict]] that couldn't be resolved without hurting at least one human. The smarter ones found a solution that minimized human injury; simpler models just went insane.)

* Within the ''[[Gentleman Bastard]]'' series, this is the result of inhaling the smoke of wraithstone. It's commonly used on animals to "gentle" them, effectively removing all desire other than a mild desire to eat, sleep, and follow commands. It works on humans too...

* Within the ''[[Gentleman Bastard Sequence]]'' series, this is the result of inhaling the smoke of wraithstone. It's commonly used on animals to "gentle" them, effectively removing all desire other than a mild desire to eat, sleep, and follow commands. It works on humans too...

* ''[[Battle Royale]]'' demonstrates why this can also be a bad thing for those ''around'' the Empty Shell. Kazuo Kiriyama was brain-damaged at birth, and his emotional responses are extremely limited. With no feeling of reward for accomplishment, he's been drifting through life, and with no sense of guilt, he has difficulty resolving moral dilemmas. When forced to kill his classmates to survive, he can't tell whether it would be better to fight it and potentially get himself killed too, or go along and ensure his own survival if nothing else. A coin flip resolves things in favor of going along, so he calmly, emotionlessly kills as many students as he can as fast as he can.

* In [[Robert Silverberg]]'s novel ''Recalled to Life'', a process is invented that can restore recently dead (i.e. within a day or so) people to life. (It doesn't actually heal whatever killed them, so it's mostly useful for drownings and the like.) One catch: there's about a one-in-six chance of restoring a mindless shell.

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== [[Tabletop RPG]] ==

* This is a result of [[Our Souls Are Different|soul loss]] in the [[New World of Darkness]]. Initially, the newly soulless person develops [[Somebody Else's Problem|the inability to care about others around him]] as his [[Karma Meter]] erodes to 1, but then his Willpower starts to vanish, and once ''that'' hits zero, they become what is basically this, so long as [[Demonic Possession|someone doesn't realize that the vacated meat puppet is a good body]]. If their soul—or someone else's -- is grafted back to them, they gradually return to normal.

* This is one of the ways to describe what happens when you lose all of your charisma (by being poisoned or subject to magical draining attacks, for example) in ''[[Dungeons ~~and~~ Dragons]]''. Losing all Wisdom—a measure of a character's mental balance, the base stat for Willpower—causes you to "fall into a nightmare-filled sleep." Losing all your points in any vital stat generally means you can't act at all and automatically fail checks based on that stat until you recover at least one point in it - the exception is Constitution, which measures your health, and if that falls to 0, you [[Death Is Cheap|simply die.]]

* This is one of the ways to describe what happens when you lose all of your charisma (by being poisoned or subject to magical draining attacks, for example) in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''. Losing all Wisdom—a measure of a character's mental balance, the base stat for Willpower—causes you to "fall into a nightmare-filled sleep." Losing all your points in any vital stat generally means you can't act at all and automatically fail checks based on that stat until you recover at least one point in it - the exception is Constitution, which measures your health, and if that falls to 0, you [[Death Is Cheap|simply die.]]

** This is what happens to people who stay too long in Hades, the lowest plane of the lower planes in the default cosmology. The idea presented is that pure evil is not torture or manipulation; it's the complete loss of hope.

** The upper plane of Elysium has an "entrapping" trait almost identical to Hades, except it operates through contentment rather than despair.

* This is the second-worst thing that can happen to someone in ''[[Don't Rest Your Head]]'', if the [[Dark World|Mad City]] completely breaks them.

* Waisen from [[~~Seventh~~ Sea]]'s [[Germanic Depressives|Eisen]] are like that. Thirty years of war can do this to helpless civilians.

* Waisen from [[7th Sea]]'s [[Germanic Depressives|Eisen]] are like that. Thirty years of war can do this to helpless civilians.

* In ''[[In Nomine]]'', this is what happens to angels and demons who lose all of their Celestial Forces; They become Remnants, wandering the Earth in whatever body they last used before they were killed, without the perception to remember what they were or the will to do much of anything. Angels and demons alike tend to consider them both sad and creepy.

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{{quote|'''Canas:''' ...Unfortunately, the darkness took my brothers... They live...and breathe... their eyes open and close... But...they do not move. And they do not speak.}}

** And in the same game, Bramimond takes this just about as far, but no in the same way. He basically gave up his soul for the power to fight dragons and now he simply reflects the soul of whoever is in front of him. While [[Dark Is Not Evil|dark may not be evil]] it most certainly is [[Evil Is Not a Toy|not a toy]]

** ''[[Fire Emblem ~~the~~ Sacred Stones]]'' has two tragic instances of this. {{spoiler|Emperor Vigarde of Grado died and was revived via dark magic, as was the wife of the traitor to the good guys, Orson, who defected after it was promised his dear Monica would be revived. Sadly, Emperor Vigarde is a husk that barely resembles the persona of the man he once was, and Orson basically gets a zombie version of Monica who can only say the word "Darling...", and she apparently has started to decay so much by the time you slay said traitor that the good guys give her a [[Mercy Kill]]. As a further tragic note, even after "getting Monica back", Orson realized on some level his wife was actually still dead, and trying to maintain the illusion her zombified shell was the original [[Despair Event Horizon|drove him completely insane]].}}

** ''[[Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones]]'' has two tragic instances of this. {{spoiler|Emperor Vigarde of Grado died and was revived via dark magic, as was the wife of the traitor to the good guys, Orson, who defected after it was promised his dear Monica would be revived. Sadly, Emperor Vigarde is a husk that barely resembles the persona of the man he once was, and Orson basically gets a zombie version of Monica who can only say the word "Darling...", and she apparently has started to decay so much by the time you slay said traitor that the good guys give her a [[Mercy Kill]]. As a further tragic note, even after "getting Monica back", Orson realized on some level his wife was actually still dead, and trying to maintain the illusion her zombified shell was the original [[Despair Event Horizon|drove him completely insane]].}}

* The Horned Girl from ''[[Baroque (video game)|Baroque]]'' is an Empty Shell, who, lacking any thoughts of her own, instead repeats aloud the thoughts of those that try to speak to her.

* In ''[[Persona 4]]'', {{spoiler|Mitsuo Kubo's}} [[Shadow Archetype|Inner Shadow]] is a [[Nietzsche Wannabe]] Empty Shell. Since his Shadow is as much a "true self" as the shadows of your other party members were their own "true selves", it implies that {{spoiler|Mitsuo}} is driven by the subconscious fear that he is insignificant and will never amount to anything. As a first for the game, {{spoiler|Mitsuo is unable to see through his own delusions of grandeur and own up to his own insecurities, unlike your party members, and his Shadow simply dies as a result.}}

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** Happens to {{spoiler|Zelda}} in ''[[Twilight Princess]]'' after she sacrifices herself to save Midna. {{spoiler|Ganondorf possesses her body for the first of the [[Final Boss]] fights}}.

* In ''[[Baldur's Gate|Baldurs Gate]] II: Shadows of Amn'', {{spoiler|Imoen}} becomes temporarily like this after having her soul mostly drained, with an additional aggressive streak. She gets better after having her soul returned.

* ''[[~~Blaz Blue~~]] [[All There in the Manual|Setting Material Collection]]'' establishes v-13 as one of these. The personality seen in-game is contained entirely in the Murakumo Unit, her armor.

* ''[[BlazBlue]] [[All There in the Manual|Setting Material Collection]]'' establishes v-13 as one of these. The personality seen in-game is contained entirely in the Murakumo Unit, her armor.

** {{spoiler|Noel Vermilion}} was created as an Empty Shell. Her Murakumo unit "tempering" was interrupted, allowing her to develop a personality, albeit a [[Extreme Doormat|very weak and passive one.]]

* ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]''. {{spoiler|Shirou}} is revealed to be a borderline case in the Unlimited Blade Works scenario, due to losing his self-perception in a childhood trauma. He has no real desires or goals of his own, instead latching onto his savior's ideal of 'saving everybody', and is only able to feel happiness when someone else is happy. {{spoiler|He also uses this lack of self as both the concept and fuel for his [[Reality Warper|Reality Marble]]...[[Field of Blades|An empty field, surrounded by flames, with only himself and an infinite number of weapons]]}}

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* The end result of being a Zuul captive in ''[[Sword of the Stars]]''. The Zuul systematically [[Mind Rape]] their victims with their [[Psychic Powers]], ripping their knowledge, memories, thoughts, and eventually their very identities from the victims' minds and leaving them catatonic husks. Even partial exposure is often enough to cause either this trope or simply turning into a gibbering wreck with all of their memories and knowledge jumbled up and full of holes.

* In the bad ending of ''[[Shadow Hearts]] Covenant'', {{spoiler|Yuri ends up like this as a result of the Mistletoe curse finally devouring his soul and his memories. He is taken under Roger's care after that.}}

* ''[[~~Starcraft~~]]'': The victims of the Terran Dominion's neural resocialization, a brainwashing process to create new soldiers, would be considered this, or at the least [[Extreme Doormat]]s. According to the wiki, the minds of a resocialized person are described by telepaths as being "fuzzy" and lacking the depth of personality found in ordinary humans, possess little to no initiative, and will shift loyalties if their commander does so as well.

* ''[[StarCraft]]'': The victims of the Terran Dominion's neural resocialization, a brainwashing process to create new soldiers, would be considered this, or at the least [[Extreme Doormat]]s. According to the wiki, the minds of a resocialized person are described by telepaths as being "fuzzy" and lacking the depth of personality found in ordinary humans, possess little to no initiative, and will shift loyalties if their commander does so as well.

* ''[[Knights of the Old Republic|Knights of the Old Republic II]]'': The ''entire crew'' of [[Humanoid Abomination|Darth Nihilus']] flagship, ''The Ravager'' are like this from having their life energy, willpower and sense of self drained by Nihilus' presence. They are incapable of individual thought, speech or anything outside of their task on board the ship, which they perform like lifeless mechanical drones. On board the ship, your character encounters Colonel Tobin, the [[Smug Snake]] who shot down your freighter earlier in the game, this time as an eerie, [http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/7/77/TobinRavager.jpg zombie-like] man [[Go Mad ~~From~~ the Revelation|at the edge of his sanity]], just from being on Nihilus' ship for a ''few days''.

* ''[[Knights of the Old Republic|Knights of the Old Republic II]]'': The ''entire crew'' of [[Humanoid Abomination|Darth Nihilus']] flagship, ''The Ravager'' are like this from having their life energy, willpower and sense of self drained by Nihilus' presence. They are incapable of individual thought, speech or anything outside of their task on board the ship, which they perform like lifeless mechanical drones. On board the ship, your character encounters Colonel Tobin, the [[Smug Snake]] who shot down your freighter earlier in the game, this time as an eerie, [http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/7/77/TobinRavager.jpg zombie-like] man [[Go Mad from the Revelation|at the edge of his sanity]], just from being on Nihilus' ship for a ''few days''.

* ''[[Alice: Madness Returns]]'' has {{spoiler|[[Complete Monster|Dr. Bumby]]}} creating children out of this {{spoiler|for prostitution}}.

* Oichi in the third game of the ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'' series verges between this and [[Extreme Doormat]]. Her mind appears to be mostly gone as she speaks entirely in [[Ironic Nursery Tune]]s and [[Word Salad]] which makes her sound like she's asleep, she has no opinions or drives any more apart from what she picks up from others, and she seems mostly unaware of her surroundings. If it hadn't been for the demonic hands dragging her body along like a puppet, she probably wouldn't even be ''mobile''.

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== [[Western Animation]] ==

* Zombunny of an early 1990s TV show ''[[~~Dr. Zitbags Transylvania Pet Shop|~~Dr. Zitbag's Transylvania Pet Shop]]'' is a zombified rabbit who never seems to move. None the less, this has never stopped Dr. Zitbag from using Zombunny to mind the pet shop, baby sit, or perform other tasks he's clearly incapable of performing. The running gag is that Zombunny always manages to succeed through the power of doing nothing.

* Zombunny of an early 1990s TV show ''[[Dr. Zitbag's Transylvania Pet Shop]]'' is a zombified rabbit who never seems to move. None the less, this has never stopped Dr. Zitbag from using Zombunny to mind the pet shop, baby sit, or perform other tasks he's clearly incapable of performing. The running gag is that Zombunny always manages to succeed through the power of doing nothing.

* The alternate universe of the Justice Lords in ''[[Justice League]]'' has [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] Superman using his heat vision to perform crude lobotomies on Batman's most dangerous criminals and, now barely above mindless zombies, placed in Arkham Asylums. It's truly disconcerting when the group meet the lobotomized Joker in an abnormally calm and docile state but heartbreaking when the Flash happens to encounter the lobotomized version of Poison Ivy, who now has no signs of her former ambitions and no longer cares what happens to the world and its plants. Even though they were villains, the ruthless lengths the alternate Superman was willing to go through to maintain order places him squarely in [[Moral Event Horizon]] territory (if he hadn't already crossed it in his first appearance already).

** This was what apparently happened to Gorilla Grodd in his first appearance after Flash "crossed a few wires" in his mind control helmet and tricked him into using it. This fried his brain and turns him into a brain dead vegetable. But Grodd not only recovered from this, but no longer needed the helmet to control minds.