History Main / AmuletOfDependency

-> ''"This magic keeps me alive, but it's making me crazy. And I need to save you. But, who's going to save me?"''
-->-- Simon Petrikov's ApocalypticLog, ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime''

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''ForeverKnight'' had a case of this when Nick was 'cured' with Lidobuterine, a drug normally used in cattle. It made him basically human, able to eat and be in the sun, but he got more and more addicted and needed more and more to get the effect. When he didn't get it, he went into withdrawal and became agitated and irritable, just like an addict.
* ''The Borg'' from Franchise/StarTrek gain some advantages from their cyborg parts, but also grow dependent of them to the point of not being able to survive without them. Those implants are also frequently used to try to destroy them via HollywoodHacking or [[ComputerVirus Computer Viruses]] or [[LogicBomb Logic Bombs ]] or some such.

* ''{{Champions}}'' features the "Independent" limitation which can be placed on superpowers purchased through devices or magic items. The limitation effectively means that the points you spend on the power are separated from the character. If the device or magic item is lost, stolen, or destroyed, the points the character invested in the object are gone forever and must be regained through ExperiencePoints.

* In the ''MetroidPrime'' series, Phazon is a toxic substance that mutates and corrupts those it touches while giving them great power. It brings on many weaknesses such as draining life force and the possibility of a terminal corruption. The bad guys created many unstable freaks and mutants in their attempts to utilize Phazon as a weapon.
** The PED suit in the third game, ''Corruption'', allows the user (Samus) to use Phazon to her advantage without suffering immediate harm. However, if you stay in the SuperMode that makes use of it for too long (approximately ten seconds of not using any attacks, the risk growing the longer it is turned on), you get a non-standard game over where Samus turns into a [[EvilTwin Dark Samus]] (or a copy thereof). You can be forced into it non voluntarily (if you're hit by a phazon based weapon or have the PED Suit hacked). Also, you use up health to use it (though the game is kind enough to return a percentage of your health used to start Hypermode if you manually disengage before it berserks).
* You rely on your flashlight a ''lot'' in ''AlanWake'', since DarkIsEvil. In a few levels where you lose it, your only option is "run away really fast".
* Stat-increasing items in "DungeonSiege" , the ones that let one use more powerful equipment. If this trope is extended from just amulets to armor and weapons, it not only may limit the power of the items you can use (sacrificing damage bonuses), it will be harder to (if wanted) find desirable replacement items of greater power. Made easier to contend with in the Legends of Aranna expansion, in which progressively-with-level bonuses are made available.

-> "This magic keeps me alive, but it's making me crazy. And I need to save you. But, who's going to save me?"

* ''{{Laserblast}}'': A teenage boy finds an alien laser gun and necklace. He must wear the necklace to activate the laser gun, but doing so corrupts him into a monster.

* In ''JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell'' Norrell recounts how magicians would often seal some of their power in an object to prevent them being lost with illness or old age. Norrell explains that he resisted the temptation because the objects invariably get lost or stolen, weakening the magician even to the point of death unless they're retrieved.

* ElricOfMelnibone's sword Stormbringer has aspects of this, along with being an EvilWeapon [[ArtifactOfDoom Of Doom]]-- in particular, it allows him to go without the drugs he needs just to be able to do much of anything from day to day.

* The girls from ''GunslingerGirl'' are given medication that follows their implants conditioning. As we're shown, the implants and conditioning already gives them extraordinary strength and skill at the cost of their previous memories and possibly their humanity. The medication that's supposed to help them along is also a crutch, with weird things happening to them should they be unable to take them; Triela becomes weak and unable to fight properly, while Angelica becomes so desperate to get her hands on a weapon she breaks Priscilla's wrist.

-> [[LyricalDissonance "This magic keeps me alive,]] [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity but it's making me crazy.]] [[ParentalSubstitute And I need to save you.]] [[WhoWatchesTheWatchmen But, who's going to save me?"]]

* In ''TheGodsMustBeCrazy'', a relatively primitive civilization discovers a modern Coca-Cola bottle. The tribesmen discover all sorts of positive uses for it, but the fact that they don't understand it and have only one leads to disputes, infighting, and injury. As a result, the hero goes on a quest to 'return it to the gods'.

* Modern civilization gets a large portion of its energy from oil, but keeping the supply flowing can be a challenge and vulnerable to enemy action, the supply is finite, and its use has ecological implications as well.

* Most magical items on ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' tend to default to this, with items like the Gonne, Imp Y Celen's Lyre, and Coin's Metal Staff proving that anyone who uses them for power and wealth will soon be used by them in turn.

Sometimes a character finds, or manages to manufacture, an AmuletOfConcentratedAwesome. [[CuriosityIsACrapshoot This can be a risky endeavor]]. Sometimes the character goes on to become a successful superhero or supervillain, but sometimes that amulet turns out to be a MagicFeather, an ArtifactOfDeath or an ArtifactOfDoom. And sometimes the Amulet of Concentrated Awesome turns out to be BlessedWithSuck.

* In ''StarWars'', many fans believe the decision to build the Death Star actually made TheEmpire ''easier'' to defeat.
** Arguably, the Force itself can work like this. The more one taps into it and uses it, the more it uses them back, to the point of reducing ''everyone'' to a CosmicPlaything and the Jedi / Sith even more so. At least that was Darth Traya's thinking.
*** The Dark Side of the Force tends to become this far more often as the mindset of the Sith makes them more desperate to maintain their physical bodies and by extension their power in the material universe, to the point where many older Dark Lords were fine with becoming husks sustained only by the Dark Side.

* ''The Borg'' from StarTrek gain some advantages from their cyborg parts, but also grow dependent of them to the point of not being able to survive without them. Those implants are also frequently used to try to destroy them via HollywoodHacking or [[ComputerVirus Computer Viruses]] or [[LogicBomb Logic Bombs ]] or some such.

* [[WesternAnimation/AdventureTime The Ice King]]'s crown. If not for the crown, he'd have died long ago.
** Although he can apparently go a while without it now. It's implied that the main reason he needed the Crown so badly initially is that without it, he'd be a normal human, and he was in [[AfterTheEnd an]] [[AtomicHate environment]] that no normal human could survive.

* The few times [[Series/DoctorWho the Doctor]] has gone without his sonic screwdriver since 2005, the results have been mostly disastrous. Of course, he manages to get out of everything anyway, but ''still''...

** The PED suit in the third game, ''Corruption'', allows the user (Samus) to use Phazon to her advantage without suffering immediate harm. However if you stay in the SuperMode that makes use of it for too long (approximately ten seconds of not using any attacks, the risk growing the longer it is turned on), you get a non-standard game over where Samus turns into a [[EvilTwin Dark Samus]] (or a copy thereof). You can be forced into it non voluntarily (if you're hit by a phazon based weapon or have the PED Suit hacked). Also, you use up health to use it (though the game is kind enough to return a percentage of your health used to start Hypermode if you manually disengage before it berserks).

* The girls from ''GunslingerGirl'' are given medication that follows their implants conditioning. As we're shown, the implants and conditioning already gives them extraordinary strength and skill at the cost of their previous memories and possibly their humanity. The medication that's supposed to help them along is also a crutch, with weird things happening to them should they be unable to take them, Triela becomes weak and unable to fight properly, while Angelica becomes so desperate to get her hands on a weapon she breaks Priscilla's wrist.

* The MarvelCinematicUniverse gave Film/IronMan one of these in the form of a removable and compact Arc Reactor, which he uses in this continuity to power both his heart magnet and his armor. The comic versions of the character previously used more integrated power sources like sunlight, kinetic energy and mains current though Tony's Bleeding Edge era designs have adopted the Reactor as well.

* Creator/RogerZelazny's ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfAmber'' brings this trope up a number of times, especially in the second half as it can then be tied into the concept of using raw power to cover for sloppiness and lack of forethought as habit-forming. Here using these stays as a viable if deprecated option.

* In ''{{Mistborn}}'', the [[GodEmperor Lord Ruler's]] [[spoiler: bracers]] which are the source of his immortality, but by the same token [[spoiler: if they're ever seperated from him, he'll revert to his natural age- of about ''one thousand'']]. Needless to say, keeping a hold of the things is pretty important to him, and he wears a lot of other metal (despite it being impractical in a setting where people who can telekinetically control metal aren't uncommon) largely to distract attention from them.

[[folder: Folklore: ]]

* ''{{Champions}}'' features the "Independent" limitation which can be placed on superpowers purchased through devices or magic items. The limitation effectively means that the points you spend on the power are separated from the character. If device or magic item is lost, stolen, or destroyed, the points the character invested in the object are gone forever and must be regained through ExperiencePoints.

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