Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Difference between revisions
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Conversely, milder forms of Mode Lock may lock someone ''out'' of a certain form instead of ''in'' to one, or require that they stay in the form they take for a certain amount of time. In practice, used to establish contrivance to why a shapeshifter may not look optimal to a situation.
The name is taken from ''[[Transformers]]'', more specifically, from the ''Transformers: Universe'' profile for Cloudraker, where it is in an issue of the Marvel comic book, which states "His major physical problem is a tendency to suffer "mode-lock"
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]].
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== Anime & Manga ==
* 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
** In an arc in the manga we find out someone with the same curse as Ranma has been locked into cursed form by the water from a magical pail and is looking for the cure. Later, when Ranma pisses him/her off in a fight, he uses it on Ranma. Mousse and Ryoga go with Ranma planning to use it on themselves while in human form to effectively remove the curse, but since it works by splashing you with cold water, you'll always be in cursed form when the Mode Lock take effect.
** Ranma also briefly had a temporary cure when he got a fever so hot it made any water he came in contact with too warm to activate the curse. Conversely, when he got a freezing cold later in the same story, the moisture in the air flash-froze in contact with him, which ''also'' made it impossible to turn into a girl (since solid ice doesn't trigger the curse).
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** {{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 the second season of ''[[Corrector Yui]]'', {{spoiler|the corrector Synchro, who had spent almost the whole first season trapped in the form of Corruptor [[Big Badass Wolf|War Wolf]], was forcibly reverted to his War Wolf shape when he was attacked and infected by a powerful virus.}}
* In ''[[Claymore]]'' the more a Claymore uses her Youki power, the more her body transforms into a
* 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.
* In ''[[Detective Conan]]'', the main character is stuck being in a child's body... for <s>[[Comic Book Time|decades]]</s> [[Comic Book Time|a few months]].
* 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.}}
* Keiki from ''[[The Twelve Kingdoms]]'' is mode-locked in his beast form per orders of [[The Evil Prince
* ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' was the first series to explore this aspect of E[Digi]
* ''[[Marvelous Melmo]]'' has two chief examples of this trope. Melmo, the titular heroine, is gifted from her dead mother of two types of candies. The blue candies make her older, and the blue ones make her younger, [[Promotion to Parent|with the explicit purpose of making her able to care for her younger siblings]]. As early as the first episodes, Melmo discovers that by taking both pills at once, she can de-age herself to embryonic state, then regrow her body in another form, thus shapeshifting to another animal.
** When his little brother Totoo tries that for himself, he turns himself into a frog, spending half the series figuring how to swallow a couple of pills that now are bigger than his own stomach
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* This is a subplot of a Polish story "Academy of Pan Kleks".
* Wilhelm Hauff wrote a story "Halif the Stork" where you need a formula to transform, but will forget it if you laugh.
* In ''[[Harry Potter]]'', Hermione puts Rita Skeeter, the nosy reporter who isn't above ruining people's lives by writing bald-faced lies about them, into a jar that makes her {{spoiler|unable to transform out of her animagus form, a beetle.}} The jar is just sealed and enchanted to be
** Also, Dumbledore has mentioned in ''The Tales of Beedle the Bard'' that anyone other than an animagus that tries to polymorph themselves would permanently become an animal, unable to use magic to change back.
** This also happens to Tonks although it's not too dramatic. Tonks is unable to use her metamorphmagus skills when she becomes depressed about her {{spoiler|love for Remus Lupin}} and thus gets stuck {{spoiler|looking rather like a girl version of him}}.
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* ''[[Lost]]'': Happened to The Man in Black twice. First, {{spoiler|after killing Jacob he got Mode Locked in [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Mode Locke]]}}. He could still change back to the {{spoiler|Smoke Monster form, but couldn't assume other human forms anymore}}. Then, {{spoiler|the removal of the Island's cork in the Finale took that ability away as well, Locking him in a mortal body as opposed to the invulnerable Smoke form, allowing the Heroes to kill him.}}
* On ''[[Fringe]]'', the shapeshifter at the beginning of Season 2 is stuck in the body of {{spoiler|Agent Charlie Francis}} after its shapeshifting device is broken. The shapeshifters' devices are unique so using another's would be pointless. The only way out is to complete its mission and go back before it is too late. {{spoiler|This doesn't happen because Olivia Dunham shoots it in the head.}}
* Happened to David Banner one time on ''[[The Incredible Hulk]]'', but in an [[Incredibly Lame Pun|incredibly]] strange way: in the two-parter "Prometheus", Dr. Banner got a little too close to a radioactive meteorite, and got stuck halfway between himself and the Hulk. For the duration of the
* Played for laughs in an episode of [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]], where a [[The Undead|shapeshifting witch]] visits the satellite and loses control of her powers. She eventually winds up stuck as a bottle of bleach, though she can still communicate ("This is so ''annoying''!").
* In ''[[Sanctuary]]'', a pregnant [[Our Werewolves Are Different|HAP]]'s body will go into lockdown to protect the fetus, because shapeshifting also changes the protean's insides.
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== Myths & Religion ==
* Some variations of the selkie myth have it that they can only go upon land a certain number of times before suffering permanent Mode Lock (either as a seal or human depending on what they were at the time).
* Another shapeshifter myth: the Margotines are fey white cats that can change into pretty human
* In [[Norse Mythology]] Loki suffered a temporary
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== Toys ==
* The Mistika Makuta from ''[[Bionicle]]'' suffered from this, after being exposed to the Pit Mutagen.
* 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
** 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.
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** The ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' [[Two Part Episode|two-part episode]] "Operation Bumblebee" featured Bumblebee's T-Cog [[Organ Theft|being stolen by MECH]], rendering him unable to transform into vehicle mode. {{spoiler|Eventually it was retrieved, however MECH then procceded to turn on Starscream (who'd been working with them), [[Laser-Guided Karma|and steal]] ''[[Laser-Guided Karma|his]]'' [[Laser-Guided Karma|T-Cog]], leaving him stuck in robot mode.}}
* Ben in ''[[Ben 10]]'' has this happen to him a lot, since he's basically got a [[Black Box]] [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum|from outer space]] [[Clingy MacGuffin|permanently attached to his wrist]]. Even leaving aside that when he uses it, it turns him into the alien he chooses (or the one ''it'' chooses instead) until the timer runs down, then turns him back human until it powers up again, there have been a number of Mode Lock incidents, generally involving a weaker alien such as Grey Matter or Ditto.
** As a variant, Kevin winds up submitting to Mode Lock after overuse of previously-acquired Omnitrix-fueled
*** Seems to have happened to Kevin yet again in ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force|Alien Force]]'', since now he's part concrete, metal, diamond, and other stuff.
* In ''[[Visionaries]]'', the title characters are futuristic knights who can [[Shapeshifting|transform]] into animals. During the episode "Lion Hunt", one of the Visionaries gets stuck in animal mode.
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