Stupidity-Inducing Attack: Difference between revisions

* [[The Messiah|John Coffey]] does this to Percy Wetmore in ''[[The Green Mile]]'', not through evil intentions but to remove the threat to his friends, resulting in the guard ending up in an insane asylum. It says a lot that Coffey only does this to people he considers to be pure evil.

* Used in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' {{spoiler|by Lara Raith on [[Abusive Parents|her father]], turning him into little more than a weak-willed puppet for her to control [[The Man Behind the Man|from behind the throne]]}}. To be fair, though, the victim in that case ''[[Kick the Son of a Bitch|really deserved it]]''.

* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'', several characters have realized that warping the World of Dreams to make their opponents stupid can be a disturbingly effective attack. When {{spoiler|Mesaana}} attempted to use this against {{spoiler|Egwene}}, her defense was so strong that it broke {{spoiler|the Forsaken's}} mind, reducing her to an infantile mental state.

* Used as a main plot point of an entire arc in ''[[Perry Rhodan]]'', when extragalactic invaders did this to the ''entire Milky Way Galaxy''. Some rare few people were immune (including most of the protagonists), but civilization basically broke down right then and there because those few were usually too busy trying to keep all the morons in check and from accidentally killing themselves and each other to keep things running on the necessary scale, let alone go after the actual threat; the need to figure out what was going on and find a countermeasure drove much of the early plot. (The scale of the event was later [[Justified Trope|justified]] in that the so-called 'Cosmic Swarms' were revealed to have been created by [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] with the intent to help spread ''intelligence'' on a cosmic scale. This particular one had simply been hijacked by ambitious underlings who decided to [[Reverse the Polarity]]...)

* In [[Mutant UA]], this exists as a psionic power known as "Parasit" (would be "Parasite" in English). The character increases one of his own attributes by stealing it from someone else, and Intelligence can be the chosen attribute.

* [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] 1st edition had the 1st level Battle Magic spell [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Steal Mind]], which temporarily reduced its victims to a drooling vegetable capable of doing little more than gibbering and eating grass.

* [[Warhammer Fantasy]] has a special rule called 'Stupidity' which causes you to have to take an LD test or just wander forward. Several armies have magic weapons (such as the Wood Elf 'Dragontooth Arrows') or abilities that cause a wounded model to be subject to the special rule, playing this trope literally. On the other hand, since it's on a model-by-model basis, and most models only have 1 wound, it's usually a wasted effort, but hey.

 

== Western Animation ==

* [[Jimmy Neutron]] uses this on himself as the entire basis of one episode, when he decides to be less of a genius.

* In one ''[[Kim Possible]]'' episode, Drakken uses "Silly Hats" to avenge himself on the members of the Cerebellum Ultra-Smart Super Genius Thinking Society for [[Revenge SVP|not letting him join]].

* Appears twice in ''[[The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]''. In ''Grounder the Genius'', Hacker creates a "Stupid Chip" as a decoy for the one with the Super Genius Program he stole from Robotnik. When Robotnik thinks he's recovered the Genius Chip, he ends up using the Stupid Chip on himself, with predictable results. Another episode had Robotnik inventing a Stupid Ray, which became the episode's [[MacGuffin]]: a crazed general thinks he can use it to make an army of brainwashed soldiers, and [[Honest John's Dealership|sleazy salesman Wes Weasley]] figures it will make it easier to sell people his worthless junk.

 

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[[Category:Contrived Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Stupidity-Inducing Attack]]