Mirror Morality Machine: Difference between revisions

Usually the effects of the machine will have a time limit, after which its effects will wear off and the hero has to [[Clear My Name|clear his name]] for all the things he's done. However, his [[Sidekick]] will usually stop him before he does anything ''really'' bad and reverse the effects... or the bad guy will do it voluntarily because [[Pity the Kidnapper|the hero is a better villain than he is]]! This applies when the machine is not an [[Instant Allegiance Artifact]], and the hero-turned-villain turns on his "boss".

 

 

The artifact version is [[Instant Allegiance Artifact]]. Compare [[Morality Dial]].

{{examples}}

* ''[[Akazukin Chacha]]'': "Red Riding Hood" Chacha does this repeatedly to an assortment of good guys and villains. Evilness is (usually) visually signified by black and purple eye makeup, which vanishes if a person is de-eviled.

* ''[[Soul Eater]]'': Soul has one of these in the form of Arachnaphobia's creatively named 'Morality Manipulation Machine', which causes Kim and Jackie have issues with inhibitions and moral dilemmas like 'not trying to kill friends with fire'.

* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' has versions of this in the first, second, and fifth seasons - which are not 100% effective when used on the main characters: {{spoiler|Tuxedo Mask, Chibiusa and Uranus/Neptune respectively.}}

 

* The ''[[Fantastic Four]]'' villain, the Wizard, has a gizmo like this (he doesn't use it that often). He once used it to turn the Thing bad, but of course it didn't last. Decades later, he used it to turn the [[Heel Face Turn|reformed]] Sandman [[Status Quo Is God|back into a bad guy.]]

** One reason he doesn't use it more often (although it'd been around for a while by that point) is that he tried it on the Thing again shortly after Johnny Storm's wedding. However, by that time the Thing had gotten [[Darker and Edgier]]—essentially, he was already enough of a "bad person" that the device had no effect. It also may not have helped that the Wizard was [[Moral Event Horizon|about to use it on Franklin Richards.]]

* A story in the ''Young Captain Adventure'' segment of ''[[Penthouse Comix]]'' had a hilarious example of this Trope leading to the bad guys being [[Hoist by His Own Petard|Hoist by Their Own Petard]]. They first used it on Captain Adventure and Herricane (the male and female leads) and for a while, it worked as it usually did, turning them evil; but the device was only temporary, and could not be used on the same person twice. So, they decided to finish their plan by using it on the other members of the Team Supreme - ''bad'' idea. The Team Supreme are a bunch of capitalist [[Punch Clock Hero]]s who are [[Only in It For the Money]], and the device flips their personalities by ''giving'' them morals, leading to them trouncing the villains.

 

 

* The early ''[[Doc Savage]]'' stories had the titular Doc rehabilitate criminals through "delicate brain surgery." [[Science Marches On|You can sure as hell bet that wasn't in the later versions.]]

* ''Evil By Necessity'': The major unethical act of the main 'good' wizard in this story is to invent a spell which brainwashes the evil out of villains, permanently. (Not a spoiler because it's explained in the first chapter or so.)

 

* Played with on ''[[The Mentalist]]''. When Patrick Jane's former psychiatrist asks for his help, he and the CBI agents investigate a murder at a college campus. Jane meets with a group of researchers who are investigating human morality by testing a machine on human subjects. The machine sends impulses to the morality center of the brain, which the researchers believe will turn "evil" on and off at their discretion. Jane finds out that the results have been falsified, and the machine does nothing. This was done to keep the truth from the head researcher so that he will keep funneling money into the university. Jane's gambit near the end is to make the team believe that they have succeeded. Jane's psychiatrist friend uses the machine on him to turn him evil, but doesn't turn him back, so when Jane takes a gun and confronts the chancellor of the university, everyone not in on the con believes that he will kill because he has no morality to keep him from doing it. He shoots his friend (with blanks, of course), causing the murderer to confess in a panic.

* The Ark of Truth in [[Stargate SG-1]] causes morality realignment in the Priors by revealing the truth that the Ori are false gods.

 

* The ''[[Flash Gordon (comic strip)|Flash Gordon]]'' comic strip once had a storyline in which Ming the Merciless invented a device along these lines, which was turned on him in the end; he became a cheerful, friendly individual ([[Bald of Evil|with hair!]]) who immediately agreed to become Prince Barin's "[[Gilded Cage|guest]]". The effect actually lasted a considerable period of time, allowing the writers to take Flash on a variety of different, non-Ming-related adventures for a while.

 

* There was a ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' item called the Helm Of Opposite Alignment that did this to whoever wore it. It was speculated that if it were to be put on the head of an angel-equivalent, all of creation would be in trouble.

** Fortunately, the angel-equivalents have pretty good Will saves, at least in 3.5.

** A certain mace in D&D requires its wielder to roll Will saves or become chaotic evil. It also requires being bathed in blood every day or else it stops having any magic effects. [[Fridge Horror|And when you realize that a mace is a cleric's weapon...]]

 

* ''[[Nethack]]'', being loosely based on ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', also included the Helm of Opposite Alignment. Although it's not permanent in this game.

** Though nine times out of ten the actions of a lawful character and a chaotic character are the same anyways, unless you make a habit of using poisoned weapons. The main effect of switching alignment is to lose all your divine protection (permanently, because the gods are jerks), and to allow you to use altars of a different alignment.

* A text adventure centered around your attempts to escape from such a machine. The final reveal was that {{spoiler|Both sides in a war had built such a machine and nobody can remember what the war was ever about}}.

 

* In the ''[[Beast Wars]]'' episode "Dark Designs," this was how Megatron turned Rhinox evil. Fortunately, it could undo itself, which Megatron was grateful for when that action turned out to be [[Beware the Nice Ones|a]] ''[[Beware the Nice Ones|bad]]'' [[Beware the Nice Ones|idea]].

** And then, in ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'', there was Megatron's "personality destabilizer device" from "Day of the Autobots," which turned nearly ''all'' of the Autobots evil, until their human sidekicks worked up a reversal device.