The Hypnotists is a Middle Grade Literature trilogy by Gordon Korman, following Jax Opus, a boy who discovers he has mind control powers. There are many other people like him, but Jax has unusually potent powers due to both of his parents having hypnotist ancestors. Scientist and hypnotist Dr. Mako recruits Jax to join a program to learn more about his powers, which he does while reassessing his life at school and dealing with unusual peers in the hypnotist community. Then he learns that Mako is seeking to use hypnotism to influence a presidential election, and Jax ends up fighting to do the right thing as his loved ones are threatened. He spends the next 2 1/2 books constantly uprooting his life and going through traumatizing losses and ordeals. There are three books: The Hypnotists, Memory Maze, and The Dragonfly Effect, published from 2013-2015.
Tropes in this trilogy include:
- Everyone Has Standards: In The Dragonfly Effect, the military has some shady goals for the hypnotists but shelve a plan to hypnotize everyone in enemy cities through TV screens and the Internet into standing still after realizing it would kill hundreds of civilians and cause billions in property damage per city in the best case scenario due to traffic collisions, unfought fires, and such.
- Historical Rap Sheet: Dozens of famous historical events, both good and bad, have been caused by hypnotists (often Jax's ancestors) doing things like making Christopher Columbus make a wrong turn so he'd reach America or mesmerizing Napoleon into losing the Battle of Waterloo.
- Invented Individual: Jax spends part of Memory Maze looking for his long-lost brother Liam, only to learn there is no Liam and he was hypnotized into thinking otherwise so Liam would be bait for a trap.
- Monsters Anonymous: The Sandman's Guild is made up of people with mind control powers who have sworn off using their psychic abilities for selfish gain and offer each other understanding and support in that regard.
- My Greatest Failure: Avery Quackenbush, a dying billionaire who hires Jax to help his medical team in Memory Maze, has a lot of deep-seated trauma that traces back to being unable to save his brother from drowning during a boating accident, a memory which he's worked hard to repress by imagining his brother participating in all of his successes.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Sandman's Guild of hypnotists have an AA-like group and seek to avoid using their powers for personal gain. They include people like a homely woman who hypnotized beauty competition judges, a panhandler, a bank teller, and a ninety-pound arm wrestler. Jax's parents compare them to the cantina denizens from A New Hope.
- Shoo the Dog: Each of the first two books ends with Jax hypnotizing his best friend in his current school into forgetting about most of their friendship and shared secrets due to being involved with dangerous forces, although Tommy from the first book comes Back for the Finale.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Dr. Mako wants to use hypnotism to take over the world, but due to his hypnotic talents, the whole country thinks he is a selfless, trustworthy guy.
