Empty Shell: Difference between revisions
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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
{{examples}}
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* In the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' first anime, {{spoiler|Tucker ends up creating one of these when he uses a Philosopher's Stone to recreate Nina's body. It's breathing and technically 'alive', but it has no mind and it has no soul.}}
** The league of failed potential rulers of Amestris ([http://manga.animea.net/full-metal-alchemist-chapter-99-page-26.html seen here]) who became the puppet soldiers of the [[Complete Monster]] that is the golden-toothed doctor after being regarded as useless spares once Bradley accepted the Philosopher's Stone is very much implied to be this. They [http://manga.animea.net/full-metal-alchemist-chapter-99-page-28.html attack the groups with single-minded efficiency], [http://manga.animea.net/full-metal-alchemist-chapter-99-page-27.html demonstrate no outward emotions other than wide-eyed stern blankness], [http://manga.animea.net/full-metal-alchemist-chapter-99-page-30.html and sacrificed themselves under a transmutation circle just so that Edward will be transported into the center of Father's country-wide one without a second thought].
** There's also [[Break the Cutie|what happened]] in the first anime to [[The Woobie|Ed's friend Rose Thomas]] as the show gradually slid away from the idealistic end of the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|Sliding Scale]]. {{spoiler|She's left mute and pregnant after some soldiers who invaded her home town gang-raped her}}, ending up so empty that {{spoiler|she was used first as a figurehead of a [[Religion of Evil]], and then just as an
* Going by the once-[[The Cutie|Cutie]] Yukari Hirai early on in ''[[Shakugan no Shana]]''. Actually, this happens to Torches as they gradually fade away from existence.
* Happens in ''[[Rozen Maiden]]'' to dolls who lose their Rosa Mystica; they lose consciousness and become an ordinary doll (albeit with their eyes closed). It is implied though that their souls live on somewhere else, particularly in the manga.
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'''Henrietta:''' Hello roommate, neighbour; I am home. }}
* In ''[[Return to Labyrinth]]'', Sarah qualifies. While not completely empty-shell, she has no real drive, desires, or ambition, and {{spoiler|a large portion of her soul had been removed}}.
* 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
* 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.
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* In ''Harmony'' by Project Itoh, Harmony is supposed to be a program which controls human will via [[Nanomachines]] to make human decisions perfectly logical and beneficial for society, but in the process it turns people into this (since the main conceit of the book is that consciousness is formed from the brain weighing up the benefits of various actions, and since Harmony does this task for people, humans stop being conscious). Somewhat averted, though, because Empty Shells under the influence of Harmony are perfectly functional human beings and experience pure, total bliss, compared to Heaven on Earth - they just have no inner voice.
* [[The Emperor|'Zakath]] in ''[[The Malloreon]]''. The Mirin Codex calls him "The Empty One".
* This is the fate of victims of the revenant (most notably Warren Burgess) in the ''[[Fablehaven]]''
* In ''[[Animorphs]],'' [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|the Ellimist]]'s back story involves him being captured by Father, a huge sea creature that absorbs/enslaves the minds of others. Eventually the Ellimist learns to absorb those dead minds from Father into himself. At the end it seems that Father had no real mind of his own, just a [[Hive Mind]] from everyone he had absorbed.
** Possibly {{spoiler|the Isk, created by the Yoorts and together making up the Iskoort species}}.
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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
* 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
** 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.
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** There have been, in fact, cards for Shedinja in the [[Pokémon (game)|Pokémon]] Trading Card Game who have the special ability "Empty Shell."
** According to legend, Azelf can cause humans to lose all will inside of them, making them completely immobile. Uxie can wipe your memories as a human, and Mesprit can strip your emotions clean. All three of these are likely to do this if you ''really'' piss them off. They are, at least, respectable in that they don't use these powers when trainers play with them in Pokémon battles.
** Shadow Pokémon, which themselves have their emotions wiped clean in some of the worst implied (human-inflicted) [[Mind Rape]] the series will ever know. All of this because those [[Complete Monster
* ''[[Ghost Trick]]'': {{spoiler|After he's struck by the meteorite fragment, Yomiel's body becomes trapped in stasis at the moment right before his death. Wounds heal instantly, hair doesn't grow, and he's neither truly alive or truly dead. Even after he's reunited with his body he feels a crushing sense of isolation from the rest of humanity that eventually drives him to seek mindless revenge on everyone involved with his death.}}
* The epic spell Entropic Husk from the first ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]'' expansion annihilates the target's soul, leaving nothing but a body that randomly attacks whatever comes near it.
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* {{spoiler|Maria}} from ''[[Gears of War]] 2'' is like this when you "rescue" her after she's been tortured, starved, and mutilated by the Locust. {{spoiler|Dom [[Mercy Kill|euthanizes]] her.}}
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks]]'' has a case similar to Kairi from ''Kingdom Hearts'' above with Princess Zelda. Her soul is separated from her body in the very beginning of the game and finding and saving said body, before the [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] can use [[Demonic Possession]] on it is one of the main goals.
** Romani in ''Majora's Mask'' becomes one of these if she gets captured and [[Mind Rape
** 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.
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** [[It Gets Worse]] in Heaven's Feel. After receiving {{spoiler|[[Future Me Scares Me|Archer's arm]], he can use it to greatly enhance his power, but each time he does so, his body is warped into a physical embodiment of his [[Mental World|Reality Marble]]...turning his body into steel, and erasing his mind. If he does this too much, he is reduced to a mindless automaton, his body pierced from the inside by all an infinite number of swords that creak and moan with every step, and the only thing left of his personality is the single-minded desire to save the woman he loves. he does so, and he simply...stops.}}
* In ''[[Tsukihime]]'', {{spoiler|Akiha ends up like this in her Normal Ending}}.
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'': {{spoiler|[[Eldritch Abomination|The Reapers]] control their victims through a process called indoctrination. Prolonged exposure to Reapers or certain Reaper artifacts [[Mind Rape
* This is what happens to {{spoiler|Beatrice}} as a result of the end of Ep4 in ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]''. It isn't until the beginning of Ep5 that we actually ''see'' the effects, though. Basically, {{spoiler|she is incapable of doing anything by herself and sits there with a lifeless expression on her face for a good chunk of the game.}} Massive [[Ship Tease|Ship Teasing]] ensued.
* The Tranquil from ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins''. If mage apprentices are too afraid to go through the Harrowing, the final test to see if they are worthy of becoming full-fledged Circle mages, they can instead choose to have their connection to the Fade severed. This removes their ability to perform magic and along with it any threat they might pose due to uncontrolled magic. Since the Fade is the realm of dreams and spirit the process also robs the Tranquil of their ability to feel. They can't even feel fear {{spoiler|when the Circle is overrun by Abominations}}; though one does mention that he would prefer not to die. That's the closest thing to an emotion that any Tranquil expresses in the game.
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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
* ''[[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
* {{spoiler|The Twins}} in ''[[Nie R]]'' are claimed to be this, being soulless automatons, though given their [[Tear Jerker|rather emotional final moments]], it's probably not true.
* From the [[Touhou]] series we have Koishi Komeiji, a member of the mind-reading satori species. Having grown tired of the resentment people felt towards her, Koishi closed her mind-reading third eye, which had the unintended side-effect of sealing away her own conscious mind. Completely devoid of thought or emotion, she now spends her time wandering around in a trance-like stupor, acting on whatever unconscious impulse happens to strike her at the time.
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* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', possession by a body snatcher aberration seems to result in the original person becoming this.
* In M.C.A. Hogarth's ''Jokka'' stories, this is the inevitable fate of females. Jokka males and females risk "Mind Death" if they become overheated or stressed, losing all ability to reason. Males can avoid this by taking care to avoid pushing themselves, females ''can't'' avoid the stress of childbirth however. Every birth runs increasing risk of inducing further senility for the mother, until their mind is completely gone.
* [[The Nostalgia Critic]]'s [[Heroic BSOD
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* Some portrayals show modern office settings as this, essentially people becoming cogs in the machine and slowly losing emotion in their lives. Whether or not this is accurate is up to the individual.
* Prisoners can become like this after long periods of solitary confinement.
* Severe cases of [[Broken Bird
* There are two types of [[Wild Child
* If you lie in the bed, in dark, silence and deprived of any other stimulus for long enough, you can lose your sense of self.
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