Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Difference between revisions

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* In ''[[Transformers]]: Spotlight'', Soundwave gets locked by the Decepticon Pretenders when he tries to stop them after learning the full extent of their plans.

* The Thing from the ''[[Fantastic Four]]'', but not in all continuities.

* Happens to [[Incredible Hulk ~~(Comic Book)~~|Bruce Banner]] on occasion.

* Happens to [[Incredible Hulk|Bruce Banner]] on occasion.

** 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.

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== Literature ==

* This is part and parcel of [[Magic a Is Magic A|the rules of shapeshifting]] in ''[[Animorphs]]''; stay in a morphed form too long (around 2 hours), and you'll get stuck in it (this is called ''nothlit''). Tobias gets stuck in red-tailed hawk form early in the series. He still manages to be useful to the team, though, and he eventually gets the ability to become human again, although the hawk becomes his default form from that point on: If he stays human for longer than two hours, mode lock applies again and he loses his ability to morph at all.

* This is part and parcel of [[Magic A Is Magic A|the rules of shapeshifting]] in ''[[Animorphs]]''; stay in a morphed form too long (around 2 hours), and you'll get stuck in it (this is called ''nothlit''). Tobias gets stuck in red-tailed hawk form early in the series. He still manages to be useful to the team, though, and he eventually gets the ability to become human again, although the hawk becomes his default form from that point on: If he stays human for longer than two hours, mode lock applies again and he loses his ability to morph at all.

** Besides the intervention of a [[Reality Warper]] (which is how Tobias got his ability to morph back), the only other known way to escape being a nothlit is if your animal form undergoes a natural metamorphosis. Once this happens (as when Cassie was stuck as a caterpillar but became a butterfly), your biological clock is reset and you have 2 more hours to change back.

* "Yennorks" are ''[[Discworld]]'' werewolves born with permanent mode-lock. Angua had a sister Elsa who was unable to turn into a wolf and her brother Andrei passes himself off as a sheepdog because of his inability to take human form. She makes it clear to Carrot that this doesn't make them a human and a wolf, they're both still werewolves, just werewolves unable to change.

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* In the "Outernet" books by Steves Barlowe and Skidmore, the shapeshifter-characters Sirius and Vega are trapped in the forms of a cat and dog, respectiely. This remains throughout the whole of the series (with two brief exceptions).

* Mikey McGill in ''[[The Skinjacker Trilogy]]'' gets stuck in his hideous monster form whenever his negative emotions overwhelm him, and it usually takes some sort of trigger to bring him back to normal.

* Inverted in ''[[~~Dragons~~ Winter ~~(Literature)~~|Dragons Winter]]'' when Karadur is locked in his human form (he's a dragon shapechanger). Later in the novel, Hawk is also so locked. Her alternate shape should be [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|rather easy to guess]].

* Inverted in ''[[Dragon's Winter|Dragons Winter]]'' when Karadur is locked in his human form (he's a dragon shapechanger). Later in the novel, Hawk is also so locked. Her alternate shape should be [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|rather easy to guess]].

* In ''Prospero's Children'' by Jan Siegal, a sorceress with the ability to turn into a wolf would use her form to hunt humans for sport. One day she met a wizard who cursed her to remain in wolf form permanently until she could repent for her evil ways. After several years, she sought out the wizard so that she could show him that she had changed, but the wizard no longer had the power to change her back.

* ''[[Curse of the Wolfgirl]]'' reveals that werewolves are unable to shift out of their human forms if there is a lunar eclipse. Then things [[It Got Worse|get worse]] when the [[Big Bad]] of the book finds a spell that can simulate an eclipse and conspires with a bunch of hunters.