Dolls and puppets are innocent toys that are great for media for kids! More sinisterly, though, they can also serve as a good motif for any series wanting to wander into the Uncanny Valley or to suggest that a character is somehow fake. Here is an index to keep track of these cheerful (or not) objects and tropes that use them as metaphors.
Compare Body and Host, for other characters who have a relationship not unlike that of a puppet and puppeteer.
Actual dolls and puppets
- Baby-Doll Baby: A crazy person treats a baby doll as if it was their actual child.
- Bare-Handed Puppetry: Puppets made mainly from the puppeteer's hands and other body parts.
- Consulting Mister Puppet: A crazy person treats a puppet as their best friend.
- Creepy Doll: A doll that looks creepy.
- Dead Guy Puppet: Someone uses a corpse as a puppet.
- Demonic Dummy
- Empathy Doll Shot: Showing a doll dropped on the ground to imply that children have died in the area.
- Hand Puppet
- Hand Puppet Mockery
- Inhibition-Destroying Puppet: Someone uses a puppet to say things they're too cowardly to say themselves.
- Killer Teddy Bear
- Lonely Doll Girl
- Marionette Master
- Motion-Capture Mecha
- Muppet: A character in TV or film is brought to life through puppetry and animatronics.
- Perverse Puppet: A living puppet or doll that is evil.
- Puppet Permutation: Transforming into a puppet.
- Puppet Shows
- Smuggling with Dolls
- Toy Transmutation: A character is transformed into a toy.
- Voodoo Doll: A doll made in a specific person's likeness that is enchanted so that whatever abuse is inflicted upon the doll will also cause the person the doll is modeled after to suffer.
Related to dolls and puppets
- Action Figure Justification: They're not dolls, they're "action figures."
- Creepy Dollhouse
- Evil Puppeteer: A villain who uses puppets.
- Wind-Up Key
Metaphorical dolls and puppets
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: When a character is shown naked, they lack visible nipples and/or genitalia. The name comes from how Barbie dolls tend to not be anatomically correct.
- Impossible Shadow Puppets: A character is somehow able to make shadow puppets that are impossible to do with just your hands.
- Kewpie Doll Surprise: Anime women flap their arms in a "Y" pose when shocked or excited.
- Living Doll Collector
- Marionette Motion: A character moves as if they were a marionette.
- Meat Puppet: Controlling a living being as if they were a puppet.
- People Puppets: A person is being controlled as if they were a puppet.
- Playing with Puppets
- Puppet Gun
- Puppet King: A ruler who has no real power and is being controlled by the real person in charge.
- Puppet State
- Puppeteer Parasite: A creature that latches onto people and controls their bodies.
- Rag Doll Physics
- Sock Puppet
- Virtual Paper Doll
