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Heel Face Brainwashing: Difference between revisions
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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]].
In-universe, the [[Godzilla Threshold]] can justify almost anything, but on a meta level, when this happens, it means that either the morality is [[Black and Grey Morality]] (or [[Grey and Gray Morality]]), or there is ''serious'' [[Values Dissonance]] going on, or maybe just thoughtless [[Moral Dissonance]]. Occasionally, the heroes ask first, and the villain figures that he's stronger than whatever they will do, and accepts, only for it to work.
Someone who breaks the brainwashing that put him in a Heel Face [[Mind Screw]], if he doesn't decide on his own to stay good (the [[Power of Friendship]] [[Department of Redundancy Department|is powerful]]) similar to [[Amnesiac Dissonance]], will likely be [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|a more formidable enemy than before]] out of [[Pygmalion Snapback|righteous indignation]]. If they have some special powers, [[Bad Powers, Bad People|it's much more likely that they'll break the brainwashing after exhibiting said powers]].
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*** Guess what was the [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|reaction]] of a character named Frenzy, after she found out that the ''"good guys"'' brainwashed her...
* ''[[Ghost Rider|Ghost Rider's]]'' [[Mind Rape|Penance Stare]] occasionally has this effect, although forcing people to feel all the pain they have inflicted on the innocent is more a [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|punishment]] than anything else.
* This, and all of its myriad [[Unfortunate Implications]], was a huge part of Mark Gruenwald's ''[[Squadron Supreme]]'' series. The Squadron (an [[Expy]] of the [[Justice League]]) institute brainwashing as the all-purpose punishment for crimes. The [[Black and Grey Morality]] of the series shows the brainwashing being a good thing for one character (who was just misguided to begin with and stays a good guy after the brainwashing is undone), and tragic for two others (one of whom becomes irreversibly catatonic after running into a contradiction in her programming).
* 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.
* In the [[X-Men]] [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Exiles]]'', the reality-altering, body-swapping villain Proteus {{spoiler|takes over [[Shapeshifting|Morph's]] body, which doesn't degrade like other bodies Proteus inhabits do. The team manage to use some [[Applied Phlebotinum]] (from the world of the [[Squadron Supreme]] mentioned above, in fact) in order to brainwash Proteus into [[Becoming the Mask|thinking he IS Morph]]. However, the ramifications of this action are explored in future issues.}} It does help that Proteus WAS planning on making the entire universe his plaything.
* 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).
* Two [[Silver Age]] [[Superman]] [[Elseworlds|"Imaginary Stories"]] featured this trope. The first, "Superman-Red and Superman-Blue," had Superman split into the titular super-genius versions of himself. They then create an "Anti-Evil Ray," which they then upload to a bunch of satellites and bombard the planet with. Sure enough, the ray brainwashes everyone into being "good," which leads to [[Utopia Justifies the Means|a perfect world, free from disease, crime, and war.]] The second (whose title escapes me) has Luthor get [[Mind Rape|Mind Raped]] by psychic aliens until all evil is removed from him. He then marries Lois Lane, has a son, and [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|becomes the world's most famous and beloved scientist.]] {{spoiler|That is, until his son grows up, becomes a supervillain, and murders him.}}
* 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.
* In the first appearance of the Legion of Super-Villains, Saturn Queen explains her backstory, that she was good while she lived on Titan, and just suddenly became evil after leaving it. Supergirl [[Bat Deduction|deduces from this]] that Saturn's rings emit radiation that keeps Titan natives good, scoops some up, and changes Saturn Queen's alignment so she betrays her allies. She promises to keep a chunk of ring-rock with her at all times so she will stay good forever. None of our heroes is bothered by this in the slightest. This aspect of her character is ignored in every subsequent appearance, thankfully!
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== Literature ==
* In ''[[The Stainless Steel Rat]]'' series, the protagonist's future wife starts at as a brilliant but hideously evil con artist. She is brainwashed in a way that allows her to retain her personality but lose the crazy (except for some [[Mama Bear]] and [[Beware the Nice Ones]] moments).
** This operation can be seen as a cure for sociopathy, which contemporary research suggests is more like a cognitive and emotional disability than a character trait. The moral implications of this type of "brainwashing" are probably less negative than most other examples given here.
*** Slippery Jim refers to it as a "surgically implanted conscience".
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** 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]].
* In ''[[Villains by Necessity]]'', this is the force driving the plot. The [[Anti-Villain]] / [[Anti-Hero]] main character doesn't want to have his free will stripped away by a do-good [[Knight Templar]] priest who has nearly driven all evil from the world using a magic brainwashing staff. However, this is in a [[Dungeons and Dragons]] type setting where the [[Balance Between Good and Evil]] is imperative, and the world will end when the last evil is wiped away. (The last evil is implied to be within the main party.)
** 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.
** It ''is'' canon, or close enough. The stories have already influenced the canon books. Percy mentions in 5th book that he's seen Persephone in winter (which happened in the same story with Iapetus/Bob), and in ''[[The Heroes of Olympus]]'', the kids use the bronze dragon from one of the other stories as transportation for their quest.
** 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.
* In ''[[Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows]]'', Harry casts the Imperius Curse on a Death Eater. Granted, he only made the Death Eater play along with the Hermione-is-Bellatrix facade, but still! It could be seen that he had no other option, however--it was either use the Imperius curse or be revealed as imposters. The Order (and later Harry) also give Kreacher orders that are supposed to keep him from betraying them, knowing that he's really on the Death Eaters' side - as a House Elf, he can't help but obey.
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** ''[[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...}}
* Zordon's purification of the villains in the ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'' finale "Countdown to Destruction". Most of the villains are reduced to dust, but Zedd, Rita and Divatox become ordinary people (Karone survives too, but by that point brainwashing was the only thing keeping her ''evil'').
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* ''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!
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' features an item known as Helm of Opposite Alignment. While it's meant to be a torment to the players, some parties have used one as a portable redemption machine.
** 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.
* GURPS has the Crown of Benevolent Rulership in Magic Items 2, it makes whomever wears it into a kindly and benevolent ruler. Personality effects can persist if worn too long, however the compulsion disappears with the removal of the crown. However the blurb about the crown subverts the trope. [[Evil Overlord]] Wenceslaus who had the the crown created to lull his neighbors into a false sense of security. (He had obviously read the [[Evil Overlord List]], noting the part about how adhering to the list makes one indistinguishable from a competent good ruler.) However, it's implied that it worked too well and he never did get around to his evil schemes.
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* In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', you have the option of doing this to {{spoiler|the Geth "heretics," i.e., those who have sided with the Reapers}}. And yes, the game treats this as the Paragon choice.
** Then again, since the alternative is ''genocide''...
*** Indeed, while it may be the Paragon choice, it's by no means presented as the "good" choice. The whole thing is treated as a grey area from start to finish (One of your squad members even points out that it's morally equivalent to killing them, since by brainwashing them you're "killing their viewpoint"). {{spoiler|Legion, as the representative of the Geth present}} indicates how grey the situation is when its 1000+ individual personalities split almost evenly on what to do. And yes, the only alternative is to kill them.
*** {{spoiler|Legion}} also points out that the concept of [[Brainwashing]] may not even apply in this situation, because {{spoiler|the Geth are a [[Hive Mind]] by nature for whom the concept of individuality does not exist. He goes on to argue that imposing human attitudes like "democracy" or "opinions" onto the Geth, or "even benign anthropomorphism", could even be considered racist}}.
* In ''[[City of Villains]]'', Scirocco does this to his lackey, Ice Mistral, as a prelude to his plan to attempt to do it on a worldwide scale.
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== Web Original ==
* In ''[[Fine Structure]]'', it is implied that {{spoiler|[[Big Good|Mitch Calrus]] transferred John Zhang's [[More Than Mind Control]]-induced loyalty to the [[Big Bad]] to himself, using the same power.}}
* The Legion in the [[MSF High]] setting, which has only come up in the RP, are naturally capable of doing this. They actually consider it very immoral, allowing it only in clear cases of self-defense, since they kinda went overboard with doing it beforehand. To the point where they weren't the 'Face'.
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** Also played with in "Snow Problem", Robotnik implants Scratch and Grounder with mind altering chips that turn them into (even more) mindlessly loyal droids. These malfunction and make them loyal to Sonic instead. While the heroes have no deliberate play in this, they get the gist of what's happened and make the two into their servants for the temporary length it lasts. Interestingly the chip is also implanted onto Tails during the episode, turning him into a mindless zombie (in contrast to Scratch and Grounder who act more or less like good versions of their normal sentient selves).
* ''[[Sonic Sat AM]]'' has an instance of this in the episode "No Brainer." For most of the episode, Snively, with the help of a "memory scrambler" device, has brainwashed Sonic into working for the bad guys, but by the end, the tables have turned, and Sonic brainwashes Snively. While he doesn't really force Snively into doing anything directly helpful for the good guys, Snively does physically attack Robotnik when he sees him, thanks to Sonic filling his freshly-laundered brain with insults about Robotnik. It doesn't end well for Snively. But then again, for Snively, [[Butt Monkey|nothing ever does.]]
* This happened in an episode of ''C.O.P.S.'', where one of the bad guys was forced by a judge to wear a headset that prevented her from thinking negative thoughts. Unlike most examples on this page, the good guys were very much against it and quite vocal about how immoral it was, citing free will and the fact it would not be true reform but rather something forced on her by a piece of technology (which of course fails at a critical plot point).
** ?by making the one sentenced to wear the headset so [[Lawful Stupid]] they let the episode's [[Villain of the Week]] go so they can chase a litterbug.
* In the 90s animated version of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', this once happens to Shredder. By accident. Except the trigger to turn the brainwashing on and off is the word "Shredder." So, of course, they go into a factory, which just happens to have a cheese shredder in it...
* In the original ''[[Transformers]]'' episode "The Core," Optimus and the Autobots suffer a ''major'' [[Out-of-Character Moment]] when they authorize Chip to use [[Mind Control]] Phlebotinum on the Constructicons. In fairness, another episode had revealed that the Constructicons were victims of a Decepticon [[Mirror Morality Machine]] and had originally been ''nice,'' but Chip's gizmo didn't reverse that, it appeared to be just enslaving them (although it really isn't clear; they don't get many lines during the brief time they're working for the 'Bots). Particularly glaring in light of the fact that the Constructicons' obvious camaraderie in this episode makes them seem downright [[Anti-Villain|sympathetic.]] [[Moral Dissonance|"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" indeed!]]
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*** Interestingly Chip is disappointed that the Constructicons remain loyal to Megatron after escaping control, hoping they would learn something from their experience as an Autobot, laying some ambiguity as to whether the device was designed to enslave their mind or merely give them good will.
* [[The Venture Brothers]] does it with Sargent Hatred, when the OSI deletes pedophilia from his brain. Although it doesn't seem to have been 100% effective.
* [[Punch Clock Villain]] and/or [[Hero with an F In Good]] Shego from [[Kim Possible]] [[Heel Face Mind Screw|turns]] into the [[Tastes Like Diabetes|painfully sweet and kind]] Ms. Go after getting zapped by the [[Mirror Morality Machine|attitudinator]].
** This was, in fact, the second episode to feature the Attitudinator. The first had Drakken get temporarily turned to good.
* In one episode of ''[[The Dreamstone]]'', [[Big Bad|Zordrak]] takes a shortcut through [[Negative Space Wedgie|some kind of dimensional rift]] so that he can return to his body before it crumbles to dust. [[The Narrator]] is happy to inform the viewers that if he strays off course, his worst fears will come true, [[Tempting Fate|and sure enough,]] [[The Starscream|Urpgor]] comes through the vortex at the exact same time, knocking Zordrak off course and causing his worst fear to come true: he comes out the other end as "a very nice person", and stays that way long enough to admonish [[Terrible Trio|Blob, Frizz and Nug]] for stealing [[MacGuffin|the Dreamstone]] and send Urpgor back to return it (with "an apology and flowers"), along with suggesting a few other changes including a dancefloor and a more colorful reburbishment to his lair. He returns to normal after a piece of rubble lands on his head, and he's not happy when Urpgor triumphantly tells him what he's done...
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Heel Face Index]]
[[Category:Mind Manipulation]]▼
[[Category:Betrayal Tropes]]
[[Category:Heel Face Brainwashing]]
[[Category:Esoteric Trope Names]]
▲[[Category:Mind Manipulation Tropes]]
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