Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Difference between revisions

{{quote|However, the giants of the Sul’at League studied the Gyrderi and found a way to counter the [[druid]]s—the giants enacted a terrible [[curse]] that forever bound them in the wild shapes they were wearing, trapping them [[Hereditary Curse|and their descendants]] in the forms of animals.

|[[Eberron]] Secrets of Xen'drik, Chapter 3}}

You know how when you were a kid, your mother always kept saying if you keep making that face, it'd stick?

 

 

Compare [[The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body]], [[And I Must Scream]], [[First Law of Gender Bending]]. See also [[Power Incontinence]]. Contrast [[Involuntary Shapeshifting]].

 

* The goal of the cursed characters in ''[[Ranma ½]]'' was to be cursed again in the Spring of the Drowned Man or Drowned Girl. That way, when splashed with cold water, they'll turn into themselves (effectively not changing). Aside from that, the more common disadvantageous type of Mode Lock appears a few times as well:

** In an early story, Ranma was the victim of a [[Pressure Point]] attack called the [[Meaningful Name|Full Body Cat's Tongue]], which made him unable to bear hot water—the trigger to turn him male—thereby locking him into his girl mode until the cure was found. In at least the anime version, this resulted in a [[Twisted Knee Collapse]] once [[Old Master|Cologne]] told him about it, and vowed he would be cured if only he agreed to [[Accidental Marriage|honor his engagement]] to [[Chinese Girl|Shampoo]].

** Don't forget the second movie ''Nihao My Concubine'', in which the villain has waters from a sacred spring that transformed the one splashed in it permanently into a man. He uses it to threaten girls to come along quietly with him, but the curse spring victims try to use it to break their curse. By the end of the movie, Ranma's falling high speed toward the spring, but {{spoiler|he has Akane falling with him, so he destroys the spring so she doesn't get stuck as a man, [[Yank the Dog's Chain|ruining his chance to break the curse once again.]] }}

* ''[[Hime-chan no Ribon]]'' has Hime-chan stuck in the form of her rival, Hibino. After being hit by a truck and revived, [[Unexplained Recovery|she got better]].

* When Ichigo first turns into a full cat in ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'', both she and [[Mission Control]] fear that it'll be permanent. However, she figures out [[Intimate Healing|how to change back]] after [[Hilarity Ensues|a long and grueling day as a helpless kitten]].

** {{spoiler|Said [[Mission Control]], Ryou, who himself has a cat form named Alto}} is specifically ''said'' to be able to stay in cat form for no more than ten minutes - or else the transformation will become permanent.

* In ''[[Claymore]]'' the more a Claymore uses her Youki power, the more her body transforms into a Youma—the very thing they hunt (since they are part Human part Youma). If they use up 80% of their Youki power, they fully turn into a Youma and cannot transform back into human form and hunter will become the hunted (apart from some rare exceptions).

* Keel's goal of undoing his human transformation in ''[[Buster Keel]]''. He does manage to gain a few items that let him temporarily transform his arms to their original forms for fighting.

* Happens twice in ''[[Those Who Hunt Elves]]'' - once involving a shape-change spell, once involving a lycanthrope. In both cases, having a spell segment imprinted on one's body creates a Mode Lock as long as the segment is in place.

* An example from ''[[Otogi Juushi Akazukin]]'': {{spoiler|[[Big Badass Wolf|Val]] ''used'' to be a werewolf. However, thanks to injuries he sustained while protecting Akazukin's home village from other werewolves several years before the series began, he's now trapped in wolf form.}}

* This happens to the Macross in [[The Movie]] of ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'': when a Meltrandi attack blows off its [[Eva Fins]], the [[Transforming Mecha|Macross]] is locked into [[Humongous Mecha]] mode since those fins, aside from being its [[Wave Motion Gun]], also happen to be the ship mode's forward section. And indeed after the final battle of both the movie and the series, the Macross never transforms into ship mode ever again as it's stuck waist down in a lake.

* In ''[[Suite Pretty Cure]]'', Seiren is stuck in her human "Ellen Kurokawa" form after performing a [[Heel Face Turn]]. On the plus side, she becomes the [[Sixth Ranger|third Cure]] Cure Beat.

 

== Comic Books ==

** Whether this is good or bad depends on the form he's stuck as. Though when he recently got stuck as Banner... he proved to be dangerous even without the Hulk.

*** It's all a matter of perspective. Hulk would love to be mode-locked and never turn into Banner again. Banner would love to be free of the Hulk, but at this point [[Genre Savvy|knows better]]. Both absolutely hate the idea of being mode-locked as the other.

* A story arc in ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' involved Durlan shapeshifter Chameleon Boy getting stuck in his usual form and undertaking a dangerous journey on Durla to a place that would restore his shapechanging abilities. His father, who had long ago been Mode Locked into human form by a disease, came with him, but only to provide support; he had adjusted to having a permanent form and didn't want his abilities back.

* Appears in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' when Calvin's [[Transformation Ray|Transmogrifier Gun]] runs out of juice after a [[Shapeshifter Showdown]], leaving Calvin stuck in the form of an owl until it recharges. Somehow, his mother doesn't seem to notice, but humours him.

 

* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', it happens to George thanks to a flaw in the ring that normally allows him to [[Voluntary Shapeshifter|shape change at will]]. He gets stuck as a pigeon in New Zork and is ''not'' happy about it; he uses his ring more cautiously for a time after it happens.

 

* Occurs in ''[[The Secret of Kells]]''. After {{spoiler|allowing Crom Cruach to hurt her so she can let Brendan sneak past safely, [[Our Werewolves Are Different|Aisling is stuck in her white wolf form]], unable to speak to Brendan anymore. In the [[Distant Finale]] of the movie, however, we ''briefly'' see her in her human appearance, implying the lock is starting to wear off, or possibly already has.}}

* In ''[[The Return of Hanuman]]'', one of the conditions for Hanuman to be reincarnated as a human on Earth is that when he turns back into the original Hanuman, he could not turn back into human form.

 

== Literature ==

** Also used more conventionally within the series: Angua frequently worries about the psychological effects of becoming a wolf, fearing that if she stays in wolf form too long, she will forget how to be human.

** Shown with her father, in particular, who is slowly forgetting how to be human. Mentioned also that the human/reasoning side becomes less powerful the longer they're in Werewolf form, while the senses fade in human form.

** Borrowing can also cause this, in a way; if a witch borrows an animal's mind and stays there for too long, she'll forget she was ever human and it'll take a powerful witch to bring her back.

* An unusual variation occurs in the ''[[Switchers]]'' series. The titular shapeshifters [[Growing Up Sucks|lose their powers at 15]] (which is to say, Midnight on the morning of their fifteenth birthday) and are stuck as whatever they happen to be at the time. This issue is directly and pointedly addressed in the second book, appropriately entitled ''Midnight's Choice''.

* The title villain of ''[[IT]]'' by [[Stephen King]] can be forced into one form if several people all think of it that way at once. {{spoiler|Like a [[Giant Spider]].}}

* There's a German children's book (main character's named Agathe) which involves witches, shapeshifting into cats and a "stay-a-cat-powder".

 

** In the ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' strip, shapeshifting companion Frobisher got stuck as a [[Everything's Better with Penguins|penguin]] for a while. Even before and after that, however, it was the form he most preferred.

* In an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' Garak uses a device on Odo that prevents his shapeshifting. Since he cannot take his natural liquid form, his body begins to deteriorate. Later, he had his powers taken away by his people for a surprisingly long amount of time (unusual for this trope): about half a season.

* This happened to the character Tommy Oliver in ''[[Power Rangers Dino Thunder]]'' when the actor playing him had real life commitments; the character was stuck in his suit, then invisible for the best part of a season.

* In one episode of ''[[Dengeki Sentai Changeman]]'', episode dealt with Hiryū Tsurugi is stuck in his Change Dragon form. Unlike in other instances where it is treated as a minor annoyance at best, here it is treated as a real threat.

* In ''[[Misfits]]'' One of the Super-powered teens has some trouble after his [[Gender Bender|Gender bending power]] makes him stuck as a woman due to his[[Truly Single Parent|Self-induced pregnancy]], lucky all is well by the end of the episode.

 

* In [[Norse Mythology]] Loki suffered a temporary Shapeshifter Mode Lock in form of a mare, before giving birth to the Sleipnir. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Amber]] Diceless Role Playing''. It's possible for someone using [[Shapeshifting]] to lose the knowledge of how to shapeshift or even the ability itself, stranding them in their current form. It's also possible for them to lose their personality and take on the personality of the creature or person they're imitating, so they don't want to change back.

* ''Forgotten Futures''. A magician who transforms into an animal may come to believe that they are that animal and prolong the spell until it becomes permanent and erases their true personality.

 

== Toys ==

* Powermasters in ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'', in theory, required their Nebulan partner in order to transform from vehicle mode to robot mode (in reality, all that was really required was to simply press a button. The toy was capable of working without it, but the partner made it a tad easier—not to mention the toys looked better with the partner attached).

** More severe were the Action Masters, a series of ''non-transforming'' Transformer toys, stuck in their robot modes. The fluff explained that they had taken a substance called Nucleon, that had rendered them more powerful, more 'alive', but robbed them of their ability to transform into vehicles. To compensate for this, the Action Masters were all packaged with transformable ''accessories'', such as weapons or vehicles.

 

== Video Games ==

** A TFT walkthrough states that in one mission, hitting Ilidan with a bunch of damaging spells will have a high chance of distrupting his AI, preventing him from transforming into his demonic form when heavily injured.

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the black dragon boss Nefarian has calls out to specific classes with specific effects on those classes. The class call to Druids ("Druids and their silly shapeshifting. Let's see it in action!") will force all Druids to shapeshift into cat form and block them in it for a while. Feral specialised DPS druids may not be affected if they're fighting in this form anyway, but druid [[Mighty Glacier|bear tanks]], healers and spellcasters will be annoyed. Of course, at the time Nefarian was at the top of the food chain DPS-specced feral druids, and for that matter any non-healer druids, were so exceedingly rare in end-game raiding that Nefarian was probably fine discounting their existence entirely.

* Two examples from ''[[Nethack]]'':

** The amulet of unchanging will mode lock the player. This is usually a good thing, since most transformations are [[Baleful Polymorph|unwanted]].

* Leader units in ''[[Transformers: War for Cybertron]]'' get to inflict this on opponents as an ability, known as [[Lethal Joke Item|Disruption.]] In addition to causing damage, it forces anyone in robot mode into vechicle mode and vice versa, for a set period of time. This can be either pointless or deadly, given that the opponent has weapons in both forms but also can't access all of their abilties. A [[Glass Cannon|Scientist]] without his jet form will '''not''' last long.

* In ''[[Ys]] II'', Dalles traps you in Roo form, and you must go on a [[Guide Dang It]] [[Fetch Quest]] to change back.

 

== Web Comics ==

** Which brings us to Vlad, who was in a de facto mode lock as his attempt to turn human nearly killed him; he ended up staying in some sort of mishmash of forms with weird stuff growing from his face. {{spoiler|He's unlocked after Ellen blasts him..and the idea of being kept away from a human form has her now voluntarily staying in her new human form no matter what.}}

** Also the [[Transformation Ray|TF Gun]] has a built in mode lock related to it's original purpose: If you get pregnant while transformed, you stay female. (There's no mention of being able to turn back after giving birth...)

 

== Web Original ==

* The ''[[World of Warcraft]]''-based series ''[[Chronicles of the Annoying Quest]]'' has Hana. Unlike other druids, Hana cannot shapeshift back from his cat form at will. This shortcoming is a great source of annoyance to his fiancée, Kit.

* Daniel Dockery's collection of Transformers figures in ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s [http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-movie-franchises-that-need-help-from-their-own-games/ 5 Movie Franchises That Need Help (From Their Own Games)] are unable to change back to their vehicle alt-modes.

 

== Western Animation ==