Hypnotize the Princess/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Brainwashing a hostage or Damsel in Distress, to make that character cooperative for the kidnapper's plans.

  • Straight: Princess Mary is kidnapped and hypnotized, so that she will marry Baron Von Bloodlust.
  • Exaggerated: Mary is hypnotized so that the word "kidnap" will put her into a trance.
  • Justified: Mary knows self defense, so this makes kidnapping her easier.
    • She secretly wanted to be kidnapped, and uses this to let him take her.
  • Inverted: Mary was already hypnotized, because she is in love with the Baron, and the King put her in a trance to keep her away. So the Baron kidnaps her to wake her up.
    • Or....Princess Mary hypnotizes Baron Von Bloodlust!
  • Subverted: Mary wasn't really hypnotized.
    • Or she's able to resist the hypnosis.
  • Double Subverted: ... except she still is under a post-hypnotic suggestion.
  • Parodied: Her full name is Princess Maria Hypnotized.
  • Deconstructed: It's not easy to hypnotize people in Real Life, and the Baron just wastes a lot of time trying to put Mary under his spell.
  • Reconstructed: The Baron finds a trance better than nothing, so uses at least that aspect to his advantage.
  • Zig Zagged: Mary is hypnotized, but then wakes up because she is immune to being hypnotized... because she's already hypnotized to be immune to being hypnotized.
  • Averted: The Baron just kidnaps her.
    • Alternatively, if the Baron really needs the Princess to cooperate, he blackmails or threatens her rather than hypnotizing her.
  • Enforced: Executive Veto notes that having the Princess help the Baron would get lots of complaints. So it's written that she is under that Baron's control when doing this.
  • Lampshaded: Mary complains of how cliche it is for villains to do this to the Damsel.
  • Invoked: Mary knows just waiting for the Hero will just be boring, so she uses Reverse Psychology to get the Baron to hypnotize her. So not only does she wake up just after she is rescued, she gets to mess with the hero's head by not giving him the a Smooch of Victory, because she doesn't remember him doing anything worth of it.
  • Exploited: After rescuing Mary, he gives her a few french kisses before waking her up, and she doesn't remember anything.
  • Defied: Mary takes some mental control classes to be immune to this. She's hypnotized anyway, but she still tried.
  • Discussed: So why does a villain end up doing this a lot anyway?
  • Conversed: "Why do I always wake up in the Baron's castle without any memory?"

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