Heel Face Brainwashing: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

This is most notable when it's [[Protagonist-Centered Morality|considered inherently different, or better]], than when the heels do the Brainwashing. Then it sends the classic "[[Utopia Justifies the Means|the ends justify the means]]" [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]].

 

It should be noted that if any kind of brainwashing is successful in turning a person from one side to the opposing side, the brainwashee will automatically consider the change (by virtue of the brainwashing itself) to be a [[Heel Face Turn]], no matter what the real case is.

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Death Note]]'', {{spoiler|Light did this to himself in a [[Memory Gambit]], although he merely intended to "prove" his innocence by helping to catch the "real" Kira. He planned to provide himself with a way to reverse his [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]] after he had earned the good guys' trust}}

** Less morally ambiguously, this happens to {{spoiler|Viletta Nu}} who develops [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]] and is taken in by a nice guy (who happens to be a rebel) who does his best to take care of her.

* In ''[[Dragon Ball]] Z'' this happens... sort of... when Goku has Buu resurrected as a good person, though technically he's not actually being controlled. He's simply been reincarnated with all of the power retained, but all the evil cleansed from his soul between lives.

** Made a bit clearer in the books, where it's less this, and more the fact that she sent away a guy who was a serial killer, and said villain happened to have kids somehow.

* ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' has the superweapon Nirvana, which can deal these out en masse (as well as [[Brainwashed and Crazy|making good guys evil]]). While it's used by the villlains (and a bunch of people spontaneously changing their alignment is recognized as a bad thing), one of the villains is hit by accident, and no one sees the brainwashing as wrong. It helps that it was an accident, the heroes weren't actually involved, and the villain was revealed to be a [[Fallen Hero]] anyway.

* The titular protagonist of ''[[Kajika]]'' has the ability to literally punch the evil out of people, which he does to a few villains who offend him. A couple of secondary characters who get caught up in the events see him do this, and he politely asks if they want him to help them get rid of their evil, too, but they nervously turn down the offer.

* This is how [[Knight Templar|Dartz]] actually recruits new members of Doma during the fourth season of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]''.

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', {{spoiler|Itachi}} does this to ''himself''. That was an accident, though. {{spoiler|He meant for it to happen to Sasuke. Itachi didn't count on being revived as a mind-controlled zombie.}} And since [[It Only Works Once]], his plan was ruined.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* In Volume 5 of ''[[Empowered]]'', {{spoiler|we find out that Mind**** <s>did</s> habitually does this... to herself.}}

* In an issue of Swedish children's comic [[Bamse]], notorious villain Krösus Sork is given a drink that makes him temporarily kind and generous.

* When [[Martian Manhunter|J'onn J'onzz]] undoes a mental block that makes him afraid of fire and unconsciously sends himself into a [[Face Heel Turn]], one of his first "evil" acts is to use his mental powers to perform this on various criminals. Inmates in high class prisons begin watching Sesame Street, the patients in Arkham are suddenly overcome with grief over their crimes and have to be restrained from committing suicide, KKK members begin lynching ''themselves,'' and [[Lex Luthor]] (at the time president) is put into a coma.

* The entire Indigo Lantern Corps. Their rings specifically seek out people who lack compassion for others such as Black Hand and ''force'' them to feel it. The rings also use their ability to manipulate other emotions on the emotion spectrum to control the feelings of the Indigo Lanterns (the Indigo entity itself, however, averts this and seeks out hosts who are already compassionate).

* In ''[[Thieves and Kings]]'', {{spoiler|Soracia uses this to herself to complete her own Heel Face Turn: She enters the dream of a dragon who dreams of her as a good person which enables her to actually cut off all ties that bind to her dark master.}}

* Discussed at the end of ''Mandrago'', an obvious parody of ''[[Mandrake the Magician]]'' by the Italian Jacovitti. The protagonist, who has acquired limitless magic powers, decides to make the world a perfect place and brainwashes ''every single inhabitant of Earth'' into being unable to do evil. When Mandrago overdoes it, loses his powers and the world [[No Ontological Inertia|snaps back to normal]], the narrator points out that mankind lost world peace, but regained free will.

* Done in ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'' to {{spoiler|Asakura Ryouko}}. It was considered a better option than {{spoiler|killing her or waiting for her to come back and try to kill Kyon yet again.}}

** Technically, she wasn't brainwashed. Haruhi thought that brainwashing was not cool.

 

 

* In [[Robin Hobb|The Farseer Trilogy]], this is done to Regal (the morality is admittedly grey anyway.) Frustratingly enough, he is then killed by a rodent in the same (last) chapter, so the reader never gets to actually see good!Regal in action.

* [[Doc Savage]]'s Crime School, which bears [[Values Dissonance|an uncomfortably close resemblance to lobotomization for modern readers]].

** Given a [[Shout-Out]] in the [[Whateley Universe]] story 'Razzle Dazzle', in which the narrating supervillain (who probably [[Unreliable Narrator|isn't entirely honest overall]], mind) reminisces about how he basically shut down the setting's Doc Savage [[Expy]] hard by blowing the whistle on the massively debilitating ''long-term'' consequences of his version of the process...

* In the ''[[Foundation]]'' novels, the Mule is a terrifying, unpredicted mutant who has the power to conquer worlds by brainwashing their leaders into liking him. He effortlessly topples the First Foundation with nothing but this ability. The Second Foundation eventually beats him by, uh, brainwashing him. Into being a nice guy. Really, though, the Foundation is never exactly portrayed as morally good. Its survival is simply considered necessary.

* In a supreme irony, a [[Knight Templar]] who engages in this behavior in ''[[Charles Stross|Glasshouse]]'' is forced to reprogram herself so she believes it's wrong to change people like this. Decide for yourself whether that's hypocrisy or [[Karma]].

** Considering that the world ending would be evil (and appears to be viewed as evil [[In-Universe]]), it appears that the last evil would never be wiped away. Consequently, problem solved.

* In a noncanon ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'' side story, Percy battles the Titan Iapetus near Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness. Percy dunks himself and Iapetus in the river. Percy, a son of Poseidon, stayed dry, and Iapetus is soaked so he forgets everything. He gets renamed Bob and even helps cure some nasty wounds.

** Annabeth, also in ''[[The Heroes of Olympus]]'', tells Jason that Percy told her about the power of the River Lethe to erease memories, even from Titans, which is what happened to Iapetus. Its Canon alright

* In the third book in the ''[[Sea of Trolls]]'' series, we meet a dwarf (not the [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|fantasy kind]], but a "[[Unfortunate Implications|little person]]"). He seems decent at first, but we later learn that he's a shady, treacherous [[Jerkass]] working for the evil king. After his memory is erased, he becomes a perfectly decent guy.

** He's certainly a gray character at best, but Barty Crouch Sr. breaking his son out of Azkaban and then using the Imperius curse to control him could qualify, since his purpose was mainly to keep him from revealing himself and killing people/trying to resurrect Voldemort.

* ''[[Artemis Fowl]]''.

* Played with in the ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Rebel Force]]'' series. A brainwashed Imperial assassin, X-7, has been trying to kill Luke Skywalker, but his continuing failures and time away from his master shake the brainwashing - not much, but enough that he's bothered by stray emotions and fragments of memory with no context to them. He goes rouge in order to search for his obliterated past - the Rebels, aware of this, decide to set things up to convince him that he's the long-lost brother of one of them, in the hopes of turning him against the Empire. It's much milder than what was done to him in the first place, but still harsh. {{spoiler|And has very mixed results.}} The brother in question comes to believe that X-7 used to be his brother, then doubts it again {{spoiler|- and the books themselves never quite confirm or deny it.}}

** In the next book Luke Skywalker pulls off a much kinder example {{spoiler|on a base full of people who'd undergone similar brainwashing. He uses a desperate wide-scale [[Jedi Mind Trick]] to ''undo'' the Imperial brainwashing, leaving it a base full of people who were confused and didn't know who or where they were - he couldn't restore the memories that had been lost - but didn't think and act as appendages of the [[Big Bad]] anymore.}}

 

 

* The entire first season of ''[[Viper]]''.

* In the final episode of volume 4 of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', {{spoiler|Matt Parkman brainwashes Sylar, turning him into Nathan Petrelli... post-[[Face Heel Turn|Face-He]][[Heel Face Turn|el-Face]] [[Heel Face Revolving Door|Reversion]], that is.}}

* Mr. Smith from the ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'' got this after being revealed to be the [[Big Bad]] of Series 1. Of course, the Earth would've gotten destroyed if Mr. Smith didn't get brainwashed.

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' used this as an alternative to the death penalty. Heavily inspired by ''The Demolished Man'' above, from which it got its idea of telepathic police.

* Angel, from ''[[Angel]]'', would seem to qualify for this: the most evil vampire in history, he was given a soul by Gypsies against his will, and spent the rest of his life atoning for the horrible deeds he'd done. Except when he went evil again, and then, you guessed it, [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] ([[Omnicidal Maniac]], even). The difference, of course, being that the Gypsies weren't the good guys - they did it as the worst ''punishment'' they could think of, after he killed one of them.

** Wait. Punishing "the most evil vampire in history" for murder means they aren't good guys?

** ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'''s Season 4 gives us {{spoiler|Spike's chip}} which is very much like ''[[A Clockwork Orange (novel)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' in that it doesn't change the personality, just makes it impossible to hurt humans. {{spoiler|And then later in series, he actually does get his soul back. This does not necessarily make him a nice guy, though.}}

* At the end of ''[[Dollhouse]]'', the good guys {{spoiler|brainwash the [[Big Bad]]}}, which is revealed to be {{spoiler|Boyd(!!!)}}, into {{spoiler|blowing himself up with his own company.}} {{spoiler|They meant to just shoot him, it's just that the only gun they had was a mind-wiper, and, well, they were going to blow up the building anyway, so they might as well use him to do it...}}

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''Warhammer 40,000'', this trope applies to the Space Marines. The Space Marines often recruit ''Complete Monsters'' and somewhat more savoury gangers, barbarians, war criminals, cannibals and etc. They take the nastiest bastards in the human race, because they're vicious and tough enough to survive in conditions that would drive a normal person insane or dead. But the Marines must first do psychic-surgery and hypnosis on these guys to give them a modicum of conscience or at least make them less likely to commit an atrocity at the drop of a hat. That said after the procedure, the new Battle Brother has no complaints about it and will likely argue for its necessity!

** Perhaps more frighteningly, the Book of Exalted Deeds (the good equivalent to the Book of Vile Darkness) includes a spell (Sanctify the Wicked) only useable by the most pure 'good' casters that imprisons its target in a diamond where the target "reflects on past evils and slowly finds within itself a spark of goodness" which then leads it to becoming a good entity like the caster. Yet oddly enough, if the gem is shattered before a year is up, the target is restored and is amazingly ''pissed'' at the caster. Thus there are some who would see this conversion via imprisonment as not unlike a specific use of the evil spell (From the Book of Vile Darkness) Mind Rape. Unlike Redemption Mind Rape could be used to (in example) remove horrible memories. (Not that anyone who knows it is likely to do so, just that it could be used that way. Well, they technically created a neutral version of this spell called "Programmed Amnesia" that allows you to do anything you wanted, good or bad.)

*** The main advantage of Sanctify the Wicked over Programmed Amnesia is that it is perfectly effective on fiends (devils and demons, who are literally made out of evil). Altering a fiend's alignment with Programmed Amnesia is likely to be temporary, either until it finds a cure or its inherent nature causes its alignment to drift back to its natural state.

* In ''[[Exalted]]'', the various types of Exalted are all capable of learning to be supernaturally persuasive, occasionally to the point of [[Mind Rape]], and often leading to this trope. The books are very much aware of the implications, however. [[Beware the Superman|Stuff like this is one of the many reasons the Usurpation happened.]]

 

== Video Games ==

* Similar to the B5 example above, this is apparently the replacement for capital punishment in ''[[Xenosaga]]''. Unfortunately, it doesn't always take & in at least one case wound up making the guy even crazier.

** Partially because the guy was a {{spoiler|[[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|Artificial]] [[Super Soldier|War Realian-type construct]] left loose in normal society and had no outlet for the soldier-instincts}}, and that his lawyer/wife was just using him.

** In another novel, a female marine turns out to have been a serial killer preying on men by seducing them, taking them home then slowly flaying them. Her resocialization programming had problems when she was under heavy stress and when she was caught by Zerglings, it gave out completely: she whipped out a knife and went [[Ax Crazy]] on them. Didn't save her from getting [[Half the Man He Used To Be|killed]] off-screen, though.

** To be fair, the marine in the first example didn't regain his memories on his own or by accident. This was done deliberately by a Protoss Preserver, a powerful psychic. [[Adventurer Archaeologist|Jake]] [[What the Hell, Hero?|calls her out on it]], as many of his friends and colleagues die because of this. On the other hand, this was the only way for Jake and Samara to escape and avoid Jake being vivisected by Mengsk's people.

** A similar case within ''[[City of Heroes]]'' could be the case of Malaise, an insane supervillain who projected his thoughts onto others in the form of intense illusions. He was eventually subdued by the psychic superheroine Sister Psyche, who 'healed' his mind and had him serve as her sidekick while maintaining a [[Mind Link]] with him. Of particular, suspicious note however: when the [[Mind Link]] was broken, Malaise quickly reverted. {{spoiler|And, in any case, he has recently turned evil anyway, joining a conspiracy to depower/kill as many of the most powerful heroes as possible, with a personal interest in Sister Psyche.}}

* Happens to {{spoiler|Darkrai}} at the end of ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon|Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky]]'' due to him being {{spoiler|hit by Palkia's attack while escaping through a portal.}}

** It becomes a point of contention with the crew at an earlier point {{spoiler|when it's revealed the MK Guns the ''Red Sprite'' carries are essentially brainwashing equipment. These are used as extremely effective weapons against [[Demonic Possession]], but that doesn't mean nobody imagines the implications of a gun designed to induce altered states of consciousness.}}

* In ''[[Age of Empires II]]'', priests can do this to enemy troops.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Betrayal Tropes]]

[[Category:Esoteric Trope Names]]

[[Category:Mind Manipulation Tropes]]