History Main / EmotionSuppression

* One arc of the "threeboot" ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' sees several of the Legionnaires trying to lead a RagtagBunchOfMisfits against a well-organized team of supervillains. In an effort to boost their chances, Saturn Girl uses her powers to suppress the misfits' ability to feel fear.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In some continuities, this is how Kryptonian culture is depicted. They've OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions but also everything else not related to cold rational science, sometimes to the point of replacing sex with [[UterineReplicator artificial reproduction]]. Jor-El for his part is a [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch cultural rebel]], and one of the motivations for sending his son to Earth is that humans are like what Kryptonians used to be instead of what they are now.

* In ''Manga/SPYxFamily'', the spy training and years of espionage have formed the main protagonist, Loid Forger aka Agent Twilight, into the emotionally-absent secret agent that the series introduces us to. The years of traumatic experience and depression as an orphan has also invoked this on him. However, ever since he formed his fake family for Operation Strix, he steadily starts to feel ranges of normal emotions, but he often refutes them or tries to shut them away (thankfully, his adoptive daughter is able to read his mind and know what he's feeling, greatly reducing the potential for emotional neglect).

* In ''Manga/SPYxFamily'', the spy training and years of espionage have formed the main protagonist, Loid Forger aka Agent Twilight, into the emotionally absent secret agent that the series introduces us to. The years of traumatic experience and depression as an orphan has also invoked this on him. However, ever since he formed his fake family for Operation Strix, he steadily starts to feel ranges of normal emotions, but he often refutes them or tries to shut them away.

** In "The Serpent's Pass", Aang acts [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness uncharacteristically]] emotionally withdrawn for the entire episode in response to losing Appa and his HeroicRROD about it in the previous episode. He even agrees with the pass's warning about "Abandon hope", because being too optimistic will set you up for disappointment, right? In the climax, Katara tells him that it's okay to hurt and he should never stop caring, and HesBack when the characters-of-the-day give birth to a healthy baby girl.

* ''WesternAnimation/ElenaOfAvalor'': In the episode "Dreamcatcher", Elena determines that the best way to control her new EmotionalPowers, especially in light of [[spoiler:Esteban's betrayal and the discovery of his role in the death of her parents]], is to suppress her emotions. We even get a neat song to go with it, though the events of the episode show that this is NotQuiteTheRightThing to do. AnAesop of the episode is delivered by Elena realizing that the real solution is to confront her issues about [[spoiler:Esteban]] so that she can have proper closure.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In the episode “[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E2AllBottledUp All Bottled Up]]”, after Trixie accidentally teleports Twilight’s enchanted map table to who knows where and spends most of the episode making light of it despite the potential for it to get Starlight into a great deal of trouble, Starlight deals with her mounting anger with Trixie by magically siphoning off her negative emotions into a bottle whenever it seems like she might lose control. This works fine, until the bottle breaks.

Sometimes it is portrayed as a bad thing. In that case the character in question [[StealthPun can at best hope]] to be [[LonersAreFreaks a loner]] or an EmotionlessGirl not knowing ThisThingYouCallLove. Alternately, when a character has been emotionally hurt previously, or seen someone close to them be hurt, they may decide to seek SafetyInIndifference, and often need time before they [[PowerOfTrust feel comfortable letting down their guard again]]. At worst, the character will be put in a sort of UncannyValley, being human in appearance but not human in behaviour -- arguably the worst form being the StepfordSmiler. Any sort of permanent Emotion Suppression will probably turn out this way, especially if it is not voluntary.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has the tragic example of [[spoiler: Maddie Pryor]], who was raised to be a TykeBomb by [[TheSociopath Essex]], a cold, unfeeling, and obedient HumanWeapon without anything in the way of a normal moral compass -- the fic even notes how traditional fairytales were given a HardTruthAesop to reinforce the 'human terminator' mentality. The level of control reaches MoreThanMindControl levels; even after months, if not ''years'', of [[spoiler: Gambit]] [[TheCharmer working every wile and charm]] he has on her [[DefusingTheTykeBomb to encourage her to embrace the fact that she is a person, not just a weapon,]] it takes a while to get through to her that she is more than just a weapon. Even after her epiphany and HeelFaceTurn, she's [[TheStoic very reserved]], quite shy, and has a lot of trouble dealing with her newfound emotions. All of this, when contrasted with Jean Grey [[spoiler: (her twin sister, who she was stolen from at birth)]], is [[PlayedForDrama played as tragically as possible]].

* Vampires in ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'' have the ability to turn off their emotions, presumably to stop things like guilt getting in the way of their hunting. Apparently, this ability fades after a few centuries. In the first season finale, [[spoiler: Jeremy attempts to become a vampire so he can shut off his grief.]] In the third season, [[spoiler: Klaus compels Stefan into turning his off so he'll stop resisting his orders.]]

* Magus of ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' has a "Calm" spell [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2423 that suppresses emotions.]] He uses it to [[spoiler: keep Ashley from panicking after he possesses Elliot and kidnaps her. [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2426 Bluntness is a known side-effect]].]]

* In ''Manga/SPYxFAMILY, the spy training and years of espionage have formed the main protagonist, Loid Forger aka Agent Twilight, into the emotionally absent secret agent that the series introduces us to. The years of traumatic experience and depression as an orphan has also invoked this on him. However, ever since he formed his fake family for Operation Strix, he steadily starts to feel ranges of normal emotions, but he often refutes them or tries to shut them away.

* In ''Series/TokusouSentaiDekaranger'', the Tokkyou Division of the Space Police apparently train their officers to keep their emotions in check for the sake of efficiency, as seen with [[SixthRanger Tetsu/Deka Break]]when he first arrives. Tetsu's former mentor, Lisa Teegel/Deka Bright, is an even more extreme example, to the point she intended to take Tetsu back and retrain him to be "the perfect officer", until she saw how emotions can be a source of strength rather than a hindrance.

** Fixer is a drug co-produced by the Citizens Alliance Research Institute and the Association of Victims of Avarice Crimes that suppresses a person's emotions and desires, making them numb to everything going on around them, even danger or the government's own crimes. It's mixed into rain so that the whole population can be Fixed at once, and AVAC bans umbrellas to force it on them. Stabilizers hunt down Floaties, or people who haven't been Fixed, and enforce Emotion Mitigation Treatment upon them, [[MortonsFork but if they can't afford it, they're labeled as an Avarice Criminal and are arrested and Fixed.]] Emotion suppression was enforced by the government during the Rainy Period (2076 onwards) because they believe it cuts on the costs for curing mental illnesses and removes emotional conflict. When AVAC officers arrest people for "Avarice Crimes", they force them to pay the fine to "prove their Apathy", otherwise they get Fixed.
** Because of their lack of emotion, Fixie customers do not care about subjective appraisals (blue cards), preventing you from accurately appraising an item with them.

* In ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Log_of_Phileas_Fogg The Other Log of Phileas Fogg]]'', Creator/PhilipJoseFarmer retelling of ''Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'', Phileas Fogg is actually an agent of an alien race. His habitual reserve is due to a mental ability to shunt aside negative emotions so he can act normally.

** In ''ComicBook/RiseOfTheThirdArmy'', the Guardians of the Universe, when preparing plans for their new InternalAffairs officers, decide to include protocols to this effect as part of the cyborg conversion, represented by a permanent link to the Book of Oa, intended to make them perfect, impartial and logic-driven, since by then they'd begun to fear all emotions except willpower, and they felt restricting them would only improve the officers they envisioned. To no one's surprise, the conversion wound up creating idiotic martinets without any emotions to back up their willpower, with the added downside of making them extremely vulnerable to DemonicPossession and even common ''hacking''.

* Kleene in ''Manga/EdensZero'' seems like an EmotionlessGirl with [[ExpressiveAccessory Expressive Accessories]] emoting on her behalf at first, until it's revealed those accessories are also suppressing her emotions because she suffers a condition that triggers potentially lethal [[FreakOut mental breakdowns]] whenever she feels anything. [[spoiler:Once the root of the problem--a [[TraumaInducedAmnesia repressed memory]] of being ForcedToWatch her big brother get dismembered when they were just little kids--is removed via LaserGuidedAmnesia, Kleene is able to emote normally again.]]
* ''Manga/GunslingerGirl'': The 'conditioning' the cyborg children undergo includes this, though the effects vary as it's up to TheHandler how much conditioning they receive.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', the Vinsmoke brothers Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji had their ability to feel and understand empathy surgically removed by their {{Abusive Parent|s}} Judge ''while in utero'', [[TykeBomb so he could weaponize them]]. Their mother, Sora, took a gene modification-reversing drug to save her sons, but for some reason, the drug only worked on [[spoiler:the fourth Vinsmoke brother, Sanji]]. The other three have just a tiny shred of humanity left, which throughout the Whole Cake Island arc only shows once: when the three guys [[EvenEvilHasStandards freaked out]] over [[spoiler:[[EvilMatriarch Big Mom]]'s [[AndIMustScream "living library"]].]]
* This forcefully happens to Satoru Suzuki in ''Literature/Overlord2012'' when he becomes Momonga, his [[OurLichesAreDifferent lich]] video game character, as the undead cannot feel emotions. This is both a good and a bad thing. While he does not feel emotions like fear, disgust or rage which could cloud his mind, he also [[LackOfEmpathy loses his empathy]] and becomes completely inhuman.
* In ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' the emotional suppression technique "Soul of Ice" is needed in order to generate a cold BattleAura, which is a vital component in the "Hiryu Shoten Ha" CounterAttack technique.

* ''Literature/SkeletonKnightInAnotherWorld'':
** The titular character, Arc, wakes up in the form of his game character, an elf that has been customized to look like a skeleton knight, and finds that he doesn't feel emotions as intensely as he used to when he was human. [[spoiler: When he bathes in the water of the Holy Crown, he temporarily regains the elf form his character originally had, and the return of a month's worth of emotions causes him to pass out for a while.]]
** Similarly, [[spoiler: [[BigBad the pontiff of the Holy Hilk Kingdom]] is revealed to have been a skeleton for several years, similar to Arc, and the return of his emotions caused by Arc dousing him with water from the Holy Crown causes him to [[RapidAging age rapidly]] and then crumble into dust.]]

* In the ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'' event, the focal characters use this to avoid the Black Lanterns, who pursue characters with strong emotions (before triggering them and ripping out their hearts).
* ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'': The Guardians of the Universe, when preparing plans for their new InternalAffairs officers, decided to include protocols to this effect as part of the cyborg conversion, represented by a permanent link to the Book of Oa, intended to make them perfect, impartial and logic-driven, since by then they'd begun to fear all emotions except willpower, and they felt restricting them would only improve the officers they envisioned. To no one's surprise, the conversion wound up creating idiotic martinets without any emotions to back up their willpower, with the added downside of making them extremely vulnerable to DemonicPossession and even common ''hacking''.
* One arc of the "threeboot" ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' saw several of the Legionnaires trying to lead a RagtagBunchOfMisfits against a well-organized team of supervillains. In an effort to boost their chances, Saturn Girl used her powers to suppress the misfits' ability to feel fear.

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In some continuities this is how Kryptonian culture is depicted. They've OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions but also everything else not related to cold rational science, sometimes to the point of replacing sex with [[UterineReplicator artificial reproduction]]. Jor-El for his part is a [[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch cultural rebel]] and one of the motivations for sending his son to Earth is that humans are like what Kryptonians used to be instead of what they are now.

* [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13226631/1/Shigeko-Kageyama-AKA-Mob Shigeko Kageyama AKA Mob]] Reigen, after he develops empathy powers as a consequence of borrowing Mob's powers during the 7th Division arc, has to control his emotions of he'll write them to other people. Instead of learning emotional control his actually regresses as it's easier to hide in Mob's aura. This comes back to bite him in the separation arc as without having Mob to hide within he then drinks to suppress his emotions.

* The Soviet film ''Film/TeensInTheUniverse'' features a planet where robots driven by [[AIIsACrapshoot crapshoot AI]] decide to make all people "happy" by removing most of their emotions. People are forced to undergo this operation with a form of MassHypnosis. It did not end well: the entire race almost died out because of no desire to love and procreate.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', Mei initially tries to suppress her emotions in order to suppress her red panda transformations. [[spoiler: Her mother, Ming, has also been doing this ever since she was a teenager. By the time, her animal spirit is released, the emotions she kept within her after all these years has turned it into an angry, rampaging giant.]]

* The ability to suppress or control one's emotions is a common ability in the ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' series, often as a result of training and meditation. The most famous example is the Litany Against Fear, a SurvivalMantra whose associated mental exercises are used by the Bene Gesserit order to suppress fear.

* In Patrick Rothfuss's ''Literature/TheKingkillerChronicle'', Kvothe learns a mental exercise called "Heart of Stone" which places the practitioner in a state of dispassionate calm where all other emotions are temporarily shunted aside. [[ForgottenPhlebotinum Which he then doesn't use for the three years he needed it.]]
* In Max Barry's ''Literature/MachineMan'', Dr. Charles Neumann is not very emotional to begin with. However, after [[spoiler: mapping his emotional responses with an MRI, he suppresses any traces of guilt or regret. Chemically.]]
* "Soothing" in ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'' is a power that allows the user to dampen other peoples emotions. In the original Trilogy this is mostly just used as [[EmotionControl a way to manipulate people]], but in the SequelSeries, we see "Soothing Parlors", where patrons can go to have their fears and worries suppressed as a form of relaxation. This is a legal and regulated industry, but at least some character seem to view people who regularly visit such establishments as somewhat akin to drug addicts.
* A spell in the ''Literature/NightWatchSeries'' 'verse has a temporary effect like this. Known as the Bureaucratic Rat, the spell creates a construct that seeks out the target (like a real rodent) and bites it. The bite temporarily disconnects the person from all emotions. Since the Others' magic is tied directly to their emotions, the bitten is unable to use magic for about an hour, until the effect wears off. As a side effect, the person also tends to indulge in SpockSpeak, hence the "bureaucratic" part of the name.
* Philip Jose Farmer's ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Log_of_Phileas_Fogg The Other Log of Phileas Fogg]]''. In this retelling of ''Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'', Phileas Fogg is actually an agent of an alien race. His habitual reserve is due to a mental ability to shunt aside negative emotions so he can act normally.

* In the ''Creator/TamoraPierce'' series ''Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall'', Kel keeps her emotions under tight control at all times, reciting mantras in her mind to keep her face blank even in the face of the harshest bullying. She learned this from the Japan-like Yamani culture in which she was raised, and though the boys training for knighthood alongside her nickname her "the Yamani Lump" for it, it constantly works to her advantage, as she keeps a cool, practical head in battle and never lets her enemies or other detractors see any vulnerability to use against her.

* In one of the early ''Literature/{{Shadowrun}}'' novels, the protagonist seeks help from a criminal she'd been involved with a few years before. He reveals he's been taking an Emotion Suppression drug non-stop ever since she dumped him; as he's been on it so long, he doesn't dare stop taking it because several years' suppressed feelings all at once would be too painful to catch up on.
* The society of the Grey Men from the ''Literature/TheStainlessSteelRat'' series by Creator/HarryHarrison includes indoctrinating their youth into being totally emotionless. In ''The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You!'', the hero finds the home planet of the Grey Men; he describes an eerily quiet classroom full of schoolchildren (no smiling, no laughter, no gum-chewing), with two posters on the wall reading "DO NOT SMILE" and "DO NOT FROWN".

** [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dengar Dengar]], a man TheEmpire [[WeCanRebuildHim rebuilt as an assassin]], had his emotions surgically cut away, all but anger, despair, and hope, as those would be useful to an assassin. Hope is the driving force, the hope that if he does well enough they will restore him to his old self. They also accidentally left him the ability to feel loneliness. Interestingly, when they ordered him to assassinate children, he left Imperial service -- he wasn't able to ''feel'' why it was wrong, but he could still logically recognize that it was [[WouldntHurtAChild not something he wanted to do]]. He did get what he wanted, sort of, in the end; a woman who used cybernetic implants to share sensation and emotion fell in love with him and was able to partially restore him after they were married. Everyone but her still found him rather cold, though.
** In ''Rebel Force'' there's an Imperial who's developed brainwashing techniques to similarly create assassins, though without surgery, and it's repeatedly said that these assassins are without any emotion at all, though they can convincingly [[CrocodileTears fake any]] while infiltrating on the way to a target. The best of them, X-7, finds while tracking Luke Skywalker that anger is returning to him.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', the Vinsmoke brothers Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji had their ability to feel and understand empathy surgically removed by their AbusiveParent Judge ''while in utero'', [[TykeBomb so he could weaponize them]]. Their mother, Sora, took a gene modification-reversing drug to save her sons, but for some reason, the drug only worked on [[spoiler:the fourth Vinsmoke brother, Sanji]]. The other three have just a tiny shred of humanity left, which throughout the Whole Cake Island arc only shows once: when the three guys [[EvenEvilHasStandards freaked out]] over [[spoiler:[[EvilMatriarch Big Mom]]'s [[AndIMustScream "living library"]].]]

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddParents'', Timmy wishes to have emotions removed and stored in a box. This effectively makes him completely fearless and popular, until he realizes that it's not so great if you don't have any emotions to enjoy it with.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'': Raven has to constantly suppress her emotions lest she lose control of her powers completely. Hence the meditation.