Brainwashed And Crazy / Literature

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• A double subversion in A Clockwork Orange, where Villain Protagonist Alex is already The Sociopath and an incredibly dangerous human being, and is brainwashed into harmlessness by a Pavlovian reflex that makes him cripplingly ill when he thinks of violence. Unfortunately, this just makes him crazier and angrier, and though he can no longer harm others...
• Stevie of The Fallen becomes like this, poor kid.
• Dean Koontz used this in False Memory, in which the victims had two sets of code words to prevent accidental triggering: a particular haiku (specific to each person), and the name of a character - sometimes a very obscure character — from The Manchurian Candidate.
  • Also used in Night Chills and in a way in Mr. Murder where the assassin Alfie is controlled by a special phrase.
• Harahpin has both Eyrco and Euron start acting uncharacteristically aggressive not long after arriving on Untoria's surface. They snip at each other more frequently and become easily irritated by Saphillin. It eventually gets to a breaking point when Saphillin's innocent question causes Euron to react in fury, which in turn causes Eyrco to get sucked into the conflict and try to bite out his throat. Only the shine of Euron's feather was enough to break them out of the spell.
• The Imperius Curse in Harry Potter, one of the three Unforgivable Curses and essentially the magical equivalent of your average mind control device. Bartimus Crouch, Jr. (alias Professor Moody) was quite fond of it.
• Peeta in The Hunger Games, using a toxin that causes any memories invoked while under its influence to be associated with intense feelings of fear, and therefore making anyone included in those memories (in this case, Katniss) seem like a threat to be destroyed. He gets better. Mostly.
• Knights of the Borrowed Dark has Grey enthralled by the Clockwork Three and forced to betray the Order. The process is described as hideous, ongoing Mind Rape, and while he has a little leeway if an order is vague enough, the one time he manages to hold off carrying one out for a few seconds, it causes him terrible pain. Killing the Clockwork Three breaks the control, but the experience leaves him a hollow, broken shell.
  • The third book reveals one of the Three survived and was still influencing his actions.
• Everyone under the control of the Ix in The Last Dragon Chronicles.
• Early in The Legacy, Wulfgar is convinced that his fiancée, Catti-Brie, has been cheating on him with Drizzt, so he goes and tries to kill Drizzt. Later in the book, it's revealed that he was hypnotized into thinking this and into feeling homicidally angry about it.
• In Legacy of the Force, Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus brainwashes Tahiri Veila into being his equivalent of the Emperor’s Hand and killing people for him. She recovers later though still struggling with what happened.
  • Tahiri was also targeted by Yuzhaan Vong shapers in a similar way earlier during New Jedi Order. The girl couldn’t catch a break.
• Clip from Malazan Book of the Fallen spends most of his time in the books annoying people and getting himself into entirely avoidable trouble. Then he gets posessed by the Dying God and starts murdering Nimander's group one by one and trying the same with Mother Dark upon her return. For a character who was at best a minor nuisance up to that point, it takes considerable resources to stop him.
• One early example is Richard Condon's book (twice adapted to film), The Manchurian Candidate, wherein a group of soldiers captured by the Chinese in the Korean War are brainwashed. (The term brainwashing is, in fact, believed to have originated during the Korean War, in reference to the coercion that the Chinese would use on prisoners.) One of them becomes a Manchurian Agent for the Chinese, against his will and without his knowledge.
• Ruin's favorite trick in the second and third Mistborn books is to implant key figures with Hemalurgic spikes, which opens them up to his influence. One spike alone lets Ruin communicate with their victims under any guise (including loved ones) and influence their emotions; while effective, the victim retains free will. Three or more spikes puts the victim under complete control, slaughtering and destroying while liking it, as Marsh can attest.
• The Mortal Instruments:
  • In City of Fallen Angels, after his rebirth, Jace is left vulnerable to demonic possession; his death erased the protective effects of a magic ritual all newborn Shadowhunters are given to protect them from demonic possession. Lilith takes advantage of his new Achilles' heel, sending him nightmares and forcing him to do her bidding. Even after she's defeated, Jace is then forced into a corrupted form of the parabatai bond, wherein Sebastian imposes his will and beliefs onto Jace.
  • Amatis Herondale in City of Lost Souls, after Sebastian captures her and forces her to drink from the Infernal Cup, turning her into a Dark Shadowhunter.
• Happens to George in a Nancy Drew book, though she doesn't harm anyone, just spends the book bed-ridden and terrified and constantly begging Nancy to drop the case, lest harm come to her.
• Humans who succumb to Leveling High in An Outcast in Another World fall into this. Their bloodlust and desire for Levels becomes insatiable, and they lose any semblance of sanity they may have once had. The progression of the effect can be resisted through sheer force of will, but the stronger Leveling High becomes, the harder it gets to ignore its whispers in the back of your mind.
• The Mirrorworld Series: Will, who nearly kills his own brother after smashing through a wall while unable to recognize him.
• An example in Daniel Handler's A Series of Unfortunate Events, with Klaus in Book the Fourth; he even appears to have Mind-Control Eyes on the cover.
• Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Was Not: In "Curtain Call", Dr. Faustus hypnotises a man into believing that he murdered Dr. Mabuse, and then later into actually murdering Professor Moriarty.
• In the Star Trek Shatnerverse novel The Return, Kirk is brainwashed by Romulans to become a masked agent.
• This is what happens to the listeners in The Stormlight Archive when they evolve into stormform or one of their other Voidbringer forms, since those forms can only be entered by bonding with a fragment of the Cosmic Principle Of Hatred.
• In the The Thrawn Trilogy, Emperor Palpatine, as he's falling down the reactor shaft to his death, puts a compulsion into the head of Emperor's Hand Mara Jade to kill Luke Skywalker. She can fight it, but it makes working together the next few times they meet a bit dangerous. Eventually, Luke helps her get the compulsion purged from her mind. Mara makes light of it after they fall in love, saying it isn't exactly the best way to start a relationship.
• In the Time Scout series, this is one of the effects and causes of Jack the Ripper.
• Villains Don't Date Heroes!: Rex and CORVAC brainwash Fialux into trying to sex Night Terror to death. She snaps out of it once Night Terror cuts the power to the mind control device.
• Appears several times in literature set in the Warhammer 40,000 'verse. Unusually and unfortunately, killing the controller does not cure his victims; they either die immediately afterwards or continue doing the dead villain's bidding.
  • In Dan Abnett's Sabbat Martyr, Pater Sin's child psykers have the ability to turn soldiers of the Imperium against their comrades. Only a single individual manages to throw it off through an oddly straight version of the Power of Friendship, as his friends and comrades care too much about him to allow him to be swayed. In an interesting variety, the bad guys realize this and decide to just skip over that guy completely.
  • And in Sandy Mitchell's Cain's Last Stand, Warmaster Varan has the psychic ability to corrupt anyone he speaks with into his service. Even Adeptus Sororitas, a loyal and likable governor, and a Commissar-in-training, all of whom were portrayed as innocent victims but remembered forever in history as foul traitors. On the other hand, the commissar-in-training, broken free by Jurgen's blank ability, managed kill himself before he succumbed again, and Cain fulfills his last request.
  • It's also used liberally in the background by both the powers of chaos (dominating psy powers) and the Imperium's Ecclesiarchy — the latter using a combination of mind control, lobotomy, combat drugs and cybernetic implants to turn heretics into arco-flagellants, Ax-Crazy combat monsters sent into battle against other enemies.
• Warrior Cats: In The Place of No Stars, the villain Ashfur has found a way to mind-control his fellow spirits and force them to attack their friends.
• There are a couple ways of accomplishing this in The Wheel of Time.
  • Compulsion is a magical technique that in its most basic form causes the victim to adore and desire to serve the user and can be further adapted for more subtle, complex commands; many of the Forsaken are fond of it, particularly Graendal, who in the last book actually creates a small, mobile army from Compelled good guys. Compulsion can be reversed by a skilled healer, though if it was strong enough it can leave permanent psychological damage.
  • Turning is even nastier. A circle of thirteen dreadlords working in concert with thirteen Myrddraal can force any channeler into the Dark One's service. This process turns the victim into a twisted reflection of themselves and is apparently irreversible, though those who knew the victim well can usually tell that there is something very, very wrong with them. This technique is talked up heavily throughout the series but never shown until the last book, when it turns out Mazrim Taim has been using it heavily to recruit for the Shadow.
  • Finally, Padan Fain can induce this effect in people he interacts with, thanks to being a walking Hate Plague. However, while his influence can drive people mad with hate and paranoia, it doesn't actually let him control them directly; he has to fall back on being a Manipulative Bastard for that.
• The Xeelee Sequence, holy shit the Xeelee! The Interim Coalition of Governance basically turned brainwash and crazy into a state-backed policy. The Coalition's primary population demographics are children, as very few would grow old enough to be adults since the majority of them are conscripted to die as cannon fodder for 20,000 years of non-stop war, bloodshed and mass xenocides on a galactic scale. Some of these children are orphans ripped straight out from the arms of their parents to be further processed, broken down, beaten and 'reshaped' into 'machines'. Physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse is considered state-sanctioned and approved. Commissaries are required and encouraged to install fear to kids younger than six. As such, it is common for Commissaries to publicly beat the shit out of 'recruits' that failed to even wash their clothes properly. Some of the children die from the abuse. But that is acceptable as human life in the Xeelee are disposable. The children are then encouraged to beat each other up in 'duels' to further erase any and all forms of empathy; sometimes they are encouraged to shoot at rival political dissidents for target practice. Children are then indoctrinated by the ideology of Hama Druz down to a systemic level to the point where even the thought of doing anything 'non-doctrinal' meant that the children would instinctively commit suicide. The result is a endless mass of children, mentally broken and utterly brainwash; finding only solace in dying together for the Coalition in a meaningless war. If this sounds too extreme, take note that the Coalition's practices is ripped straight out of the real life Khmer Rouge's S-21.
• The Yellow Bag: According to Alfonso, the reason why Terrível is so obsessed with fighting is because his owners sewed his thoughts with string so that he can only think about fighting. Raquel decides to treat this fact as real when writing the story of Terrível's life in chapter 8.

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