They Would Cut You Up: Difference between revisions

[[File:cit tsukihime c47 - ciel - 43rd procedure.jpg|link=Tsukihime|frame|[[Who Wants to Live Forever?|A downside to immortality.]]]]

 

 

A standard justification for any unusual character to maintain a [[Masquerade]], because [[The Government]] is Evil and [[Science Is Bad]] and if [[Government Conspiracy|the authorities]] got their hands on them, they'd [[Pounds Are Animal Prisons|stick them in a concrete box]] and [[Playing with Syringes|perform all sorts of cruel experiments]] to find out what makes them and/or their special powers tick, either [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|destroying their quality of life, or killing them outright]] in hopes of getting [[Captured Super Entity|all sorts of goodies.]]

* [[Mad Scientist|Mayuri Kurotsuchi]] in ''[[Bleach]]'' wants to cut up and experiment on anybody who demonstrates abilities he's unfamiliar with.

* In ''[[Nichijou]]'', miss Nakamura wishes to do this to the robotic Nano, so she can take credit for inventing her. If Nakamura weren't so inept at her repeated attempts to kidnap Nano, this would be quite dark for such an upbeat show.

 

 

== Comic Books ==

* A different example has [[Deadpool]] supporting character Montgomery at the mercy of a corporation that keeps him hooked up to machines, the better to utilize his precognition to their advantage.

* In ''[[G.I. Joe]] vs. the [[Transformers]]'', the Joes are ordered to do this to [[Kid Appeal Character|Bumblebee]] and Wheeljack by their superiors, who [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|only see them as machines]]. They almost carry them out, until a stunned Wheeljack reveals that the army's plans of nuking Cobra Island will have disastrous consequences...

* This was the motivation behind mutated child Batwing's rampage in ''[[Untold Tales of Spider Man]]''. When Spider-Man discovers him and promises to get him help, he freaks out completely because, as he put it, "Not going... get cut up by scientists... like mom said!"

* [[Nikolai Dante]] refuses to report back to the the Makarov Dynasty after the Romanov Dynasty Weapon Crest fuses with his body for fear that the Makarovs would cut him up to learn how to design a similar Weapon Crest for themselves.

* ''[[The Sandman]]'': One of the reasons Hob keeps his immortality a secret from most people he knows, including the mortals he falls in love with. It's too easy for him to imagine a bunch of "Noble-prize wannabes examining slices of my pancreas."

 

 

{{quote|''First, blanket statement: we're not going with your ridiculous military scientists. No poking, no prodding, no examinations, no experiments. If you're that curious you can ask nicely, but we reserve the right to say no. And especially don't do the cliché kidnap-them-in-the-middle-of-the-night-when-they're-off-guard thing.''}}

* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', Shag points out that John can't go home with [[Winged Humanoid|wings]] because he'd be dissected; Paul unknowingly echoes this when he tries to talk John into finding a way to change back. Much later, after he really is facing the return home, John sourly reflects that at least the scientists won't be able to hang onto him.

** Also, Jeft refers to extremely powerful psionics as suffering this fate while Shag is yelling at him for apparently inducing psionic powers in Ringo.

* In ''[[Emergence]]'', Sam, Cliff and the other students who find and help the members of Team RWBY explicitly worry about government agents doing this to the girls -- unnecessarily, as it turns out.

 

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* Invoked in [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''The Star Beast'' by John's ancestor when he acquires a native pet {{spoiler|(or rather, inadvertently kidnaps a native princess)}} while exploring an alien planet.

* Flinx of the ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' series was [[Designer Babies|genetically manipulated]] by the [[Evilutionary Biologist|Meliorare Society]] as part of their secret program to produce [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke|supermen]]. When their [[Body Horror|more spectacular failures]] came to light, they were outlawed and hunted down along with all their experimental subjects. Those that could be "made normal" were corrected; those that could not were destroyed. Despite being superficially normal, Flinx is possessed of strong [[Psychic Powers]], which alone would be enough to get him put in a fishbowl and studied for the rest of his life, but that plus his affiliation with the Meliorares means he is exceedingly careful to reveal his talents only to people he absolutely trusts. Even then, he runs afoul of this trope on several occasions, most specifically in ''Flinx in Flux'', where not just one but two separate antagonists join the hunt—one to "fix him" and the other to "study him". On several occasions, he also runs afoul of surviving members of the Meliorares who see him as an opportunity for vindication of their cause.

 

== Live-Action TV ==