Follow TV Tropes

Following

Hypnotize the Captive
aka: Hypnotize The Princess

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wonder_woman_slave1.png
"30. I will refuse all gifts from the Evil Overlord. They probably contain mind control devices that would make me giddily happy to marry him. It's demeaning enough to be head-over-heels for the Hero, let alone a creep like the EO."

The Damsel in Distress or Distressed Dude is in the clutches of the villain, but the villain decides that chains, cages, cells, and other ways of containment are too unreliable. The hardest chain for The Hero to break while freeing this prisoner is in the damsel's own mind. Thus the villain hypnotizes the damsel.

The motives can be varied, but the two most common are (1) the villain wants the captive for a lover (this is easier than coercion), and (2) to make the captive betray the hero once "rescued". When done well, it has the bonus side effect of extremely demoralizing the hero, if the beloved princess he came all this way to save now wants to kick him out the window, or worse, doesn't know him at all. How the damsel is controlled, for either motive, can be done by straight-up hypnosis, possession, or a Love Potion.

This rarely works save for cynical-enough stories. The Evil Overlord List would likely recommend this be done just to get her to cooperate in that quiet civil ceremony so you can marry her with as little fuss if possible. Anything else is just asking for trouble.

Such brainwashing can sometimes be taken as fanservice, if not outright subject to Rule 34.

A Sub-Trope of Brainwashed.

Compare Hypno Fool, More than Mind Control, I Have You Now, My Pretty, Hypno Trinket, and Hypnotic Creature.

This item is... no longer being sold on the Trope Co. catalogue.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • An interesting take on it happens at the start of Code Geass R2. From the perspective of the Black Knights, this is what happened to Zero, the Emperor making Lelouch think he's an Ordinary High-School Student and has no connection to the Black Knights through Laser-Guided Amnesia. Their first act upon their return is thus to restore his memories so he can return to command them. Most of them don't know he actually is royalty… or that he's meant to be like this to lure out C.C. for the sake of the Emperor's plans.
    • The Geass of a young woman is revealed to be the inversion of this trope, allowing the "princess" to be adored by all who looked upon her while the Geass is active. It's what C.C. had when she was mortal and her experiences with it, particularly once it became permanent, is a major reason why she sees Geass as a cursed power and her own aloof yet also immature personality.
  • Gender inversion in Fushigi Yuugi. Tamahome is kept at the Palace of Kutou and given a Love Potion in combination with a signal from Nakago's earring, so that he will ignore and mistreat Miaka and love Yui (who was also in love with Tamahome)...and not remember that he's on Team Suzaku instead of Team Seiryuu. He overcomes it through the Power of Love.
  • The Last: Naruto the Movie has Hinata on the receiving end of this, courtesy of Toneri who is trying to force her to marry him. Bonus points because during the movie she is called by the title " Byakugan Princess".
  • The Lupin III film, The Castle of Cagliostro, has the Count drug Clarisse to put her in a trance-like state. With her mind suggestible, he has her participate in a marriage ceremony, using her as a means to an end to unlock the treasure hidden beneath the castle. Cue Lupin to crash the wedding, save her from his clutches and expose his misdeeds.
  • In the final battle of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Quattro uses her illusion skills to perform this on the kidnapped clone of the last Sankt Kaiser, with intent to sic her on her foster mother, Nanoha, who was coming to rescue her.
  • An early example of the trope appears in Toei Doga's Majokko Meg-chan (1974). Recurring pervert Chou-san designs a magic clock rigged to hypnotize teenaged girls into removing all their clothing. Falling under its spell, Megu gets down as far as her her bra and panties before Non nukes the device. It is worth noting that Megu is a potential heir to the throne of the Witch Kingdom, making her a literal hypnotized princess in this case.
  • Gender flipped in MÄR anime where the Big Bad Phantom in a last ditch effort to get back at Team MAR after defeating him officially in his tournament, he kidnaps Alviss. However, Alviss lets him get captured so he can finish him off once and for all...but Phantom predicted this and easily beats him before hypnotizing him thus does the Rescue Arc begin...
    • Played more straight with Snow towards the very end of the anime. She was brainwashed to try and erase Babbo's memory by her stepmother. She was also apparently brainwashed to forget all the visions of Tokyo she had when she was younger.
  • Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch: Lady Bat's Kiss of the Vampire, anyone?
  • It seemed that was attempted in Negima! Magister Negi Magi with Princess Asuna, as Fate attempted to control her by undoing her Laser-Guided Amnesia and reverting her to a more pliable state. It worked briefly, but she ultimately pulled through.
  • Mewtwo did this to Nurse Joy in Pokémon: The First Movie.
    • Entei does this to Ash's mother in Pokémon 3. She breaks out of it herself when she sees Ash is in danger, though.
  • In Pokémon Adventures, Anabelle gets hypnotized by Guile Hideout into activating the Battle Tower to prevent the heroes from reaching them at the top, then beats the crap out of Emerald when he does. Unfortunately, her body is unable to handle to stress of being hypnotized and she blacks out, quickly turning the situation into a hostage one when Guile demands the Jirachi report for her life.
  • Used more than once in Ranma ½, on different characters. Most memorably, Shampoo once wipes Akane's memories of Ranma to get him to fight her, and later uses a literal Red String of Fate to brainwash him into marrying her.
    • In the PC Engine game, Toraware no Hanayome, Ranma herself is subjected to hypnosis and dressed in royal regalia in order for her to marry the Bear Prince. Akane and the others have to race to rescue her before she imbibes a drop from a flower that would permanently and irrevocably make her fall in love with this prince.
  • In Reborn! (2004) this happens to Chrome Dokuro at the hands of Daemon Spade after a failed attempt at getting her to Face–Heel Turn.
  • This is a common trope in Sailor Moon.
    • Tuxedo Mask is the number one victim throughout the series. Queen Beryl brainwashes and corrupts him in every adaptation of the storyline, with his rescue being a pivotal element of the climax of that story arc. He's a victim again in the Black Moon arc of the manga (this time by his corrupted future daughter Black Lady), and yet again in the Sailor Stars arc of the manga (by Galaxia). He's also brainwashed in the Nehellenia arc of the anime.
    • Prince Diamond tries to do this to Sailor Moon to make her "love" him, but really to put her completely under his power.
    • Chibi-Usa famously becomes Black Lady when taken by the Black Moon Clan in both the manga and the anime. In the anime, Prince Diamond attempts this on Sailor Moon, but fails.
    • This is attempted in the Dead Moon Circus arc of the manga on Makoto, Ami, and Rei. Each time fails.
    • And in the Sailor Stars arc of the manga, after Galaxia succeeds in eventually killing all of the Sailor Team and Mamoru, she revives all of them as members of Shadow Galactica and forces them to fight Usagi.
    • Sailor Mercury is turned into Dark Mercury in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and serves the Dark Kingdom. In the anime, a filler episode showed a Monster of the Week attempting this, but as it was a filler episode, the attempt eventually fails.
  • Used in Sensual Phrase, when Aine is brainwashed by Tomoyuki into believing that she's his dead sister Yumi and forgetting about her boyfriend Sakuya. He manages to defuse the brainwashing, but almost dies while trying.
  • Done to Ayeka in the Tenchi Muyo! manga. And almost done to her in the OAV, but it didn't work.
    • And to Ryoko, in the original OAV.
  • Nia in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann becomes subject to this after the Time Skip.

    Comic Books 
  • The Avengers: In issue #200, it happened to Ms. Marvel at the hands of Marcus, who actually got her pregnant, and made her give birth to... himself.
  • Jean Grey has been the victim of mind control many times, most famously in The Dark Phoenix Saga (in both the comics and some of the adaptations).
  • A rare example of a protagonist doing this is found in Harbinger. Telepath Peter Stanchek uses his powers to make his childhood crush Kris fall in love with him. The ugliness of this, and Kris' subsequent psychological trauma and feelings of violation, are not glossed over.
  • In one issue of the Nintendo Comics System, Peach is mind zapped by a Pidgit. This notably ends up being a hindrance to Bowser - while in her hypnotized state, Peach wrecks this blimp that he's driving.
  • Superman:
  • In Nintendo Power's Super Mario Adventures comic, Bowser has Magikoopa do this to Peach so she would marry him — though in this case, it was a last resort after he tried everything else and the willful Peach was too much.
  • Thorgal: "Three Old Men of Aran" did this to Aaricia.
  • West Coast Avengers: The Mockingbird/Phantom Rider storyline. When Mockingbird found out what he'd done (and that he'd raped her), she let him fall to his death.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Sensation Comics: Paula von Gunther developed a series of mental altering devices and a routine to turn scores of prisoners into her loyal slaves, most of whom she then sent out into the world as Nazi spies but some of whom were to act as spies and saboteurs after being "rescued".
    • Volume 1: Hypnota uses their hypnotic blue rays to turn captives into submissive slaves.
    • Osira—an extraterrestrial self proclaimed goddess who landed in ancient Egypt—saw that Steve Trevor looked like her dead husband Hefnakhti and hypnotized Steve into believing that he was Hefnakhti.

    Comic Strips 
  • In the Spider-Man comic strip, he was helping heiress Muffy Ainsworth with what she thought was a vampire. She gets kidnapped and then hypnotized so that she would agree to be one of his brides. It was staged. The vampire was really a washed-up actor trying a really weird plan for a comeback. Only the trope is still played straight, as Muffy really was hypnotized.
  • Sanjak does this to April Kane in Terry and the Pirates.

    Fan Works 
  • In Bleach F, this is Karyu Ginsoras solution to his relationship with Rangiku Matsumoto. Then he undergoes a Heel Realisation in Chapter 7.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Invaders from Space, Tatanga brainwashes Rosalina into becoming his right-hand woman. The brainwashing not only changes her eye color, but also her clothes, crown jewels, brooch, and earrings. In addition, it also grants her a new power in force lightning. Tatanga did this because Rosalina was too protective of her Lumas, which are used as fuel to power his ships.
  • The Princess and the Knight: Noxymis tries to use his magic gem to get Jadelyn to fall in love with him. This doesn't work, as Jade is in love with Victoria, who still lives, so instead, he decides to simply kill Victoria to be able to complete the task.

    Film — Animation 
  • Jafar attempts to do this to Jasmine in Aladdin, but when the Genie tries to explain he can't, she fakes it to distract Jafar. He's been doing it to her father the entire time with snake staff, but had never actually attempted that method on her. Possibly because the sultan was weak-willed and he knew she wasn't.
  • In Anastasia, the Big Bad Rasputin uses magic to make Anya sleepwalk off the side of the ship she's on in a storm. Dimitri, fortunately, stops her and wakes her up before she can jump.
  • Lydia, the villain of Barbie & The Diamond Castle, uses a mind control spell to manipulate one of the heroines and later uses her to get the other heroine to hand over the only thing standing between her and world domination.
  • Not exactly hypnotize, but in Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, Lady Tremaine casts a spell on the prince to change his memories so that he thinks Anastasia, not Cinderella, was the girl he danced with at the ball.
  • Screen Slaver in Incredibles 2 attempts to do this to Elastigirl with his hypnotic screens during their fights, but fails thanks to her quick reactions. Evelyn, the mastermind behind Screenslaver, is far more successful thanks to ambushing Helen and restraining her to put on her the mind-control goggles.
  • In Jack and the Beanstalk (1974), the evil witch puts Princess Margaret under a spell that makes her see the witch's hideous son as a handsome young man so that she'll marry him, allowing the witch to take over her kingdom.
  • In The Jungle Book 2, Shanti is brainwashed by Kaa and is nearly eaten by him before Ranjan arrives.
  • In The Little Mermaid, to imprison Ariel in her cave, Ursula comes up with the plan to use a pendant with Ariel's voice to place prince Eric in a trance, and marry him without his consent.
  • Sleeping Beauty: When the glowing green orb appears in Aurora's bedroom as she cries, the light makes her suddenly stiffen and look up. Her eyes are glazed, and she stands up very fluidly, following the orb single-mindedly. When the fairies call out to her to not touch anything, it momentarily breaks the spell, before Maleficent's voice lulls her back in, and she touches the spinning wheel's spindle.
  • Superman/Batman: Apocalypse: Darkseid does this to Supergirl after capturing her to make her his dragon, leading to a climatic battle between her and Superman in Darkseid's throne room. Of course, Evil Kara, instead of the normal street clothes she wore previously, is now clad as a hot dominatrix.
  • The villain in We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story uses his magical hypnotic eye on the Cecilia. Louie tries to prevent her trance but he gets caught in the crossfire and they both end up hypnotized.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T: Batholomew's mother is turned into Dr. Terwilliker's hypnotized assistant.
  • The Avengers (1998). Sir August tries to hypnotize Mrs. Peel into submitting to his lecherous desires. When it doesn't work, he resorts to hallucinogenic drugs.
  • The Brides Of Fu Manchu might be more accurately titled: Hypnotize the Princess: The Movie. Although Fu displays no apparent interest in the women as literal "brides"; they are kidnapped to force cooperation with their scientist fathers.
  • In The Climax, Dr. Hohner hypnotizes Angela to render her incapable of singing. Franz and the others devote considerable time and resources to attempting to cure this mysterious malady.
  • Happens to poor Dale Arden at least twice in the classic Flash Gordon movie serials: Ming the Merciless plans to marry her with the help of his hypnosis machine, and later she's drugged by a tribe of religious fanatics and literally backstabs Flash.
  • Also occurs to her in the 1980 Flash Gordon movie when Ming hypnotizes her with a ring, causing her to writhe sensuously.
    Ming: Did you ever see such response?
    Klytus: No, truly. She even rivals your daughter.
  • The 1962 version of Jack the Giant Killer featured the villain hypnotizing and turning the princess into a witch, thus ensuring that even if Jack managed to save her, it wouldn't be nearly as hard to get her back the second time.
  • The 1985 film Legend (1985) not only subverted this trope but subverted it twice in a row with the same character, keeping the audience guessing until the end whether or not it had actually worked.
  • Grima Wormtongue from The Lord of the Rings attempts to 'influence' Eowyn in the same way he does her uncle the King (it doesn't work, though).
  • Maleficent: Aurora, like in Sleeping Beauty. However, this film's interpretation is different: Just like the original film, Aurora is cursed as an infant, this time to fall into eternal sleep (as opposed to a death curse that is later softened). While being cursed, Maleficent's green magic fades into her infant body, where it remains as she grows; notably, Maleficent later regrets her curse and tries to revoke it while Aurora is in bed, only for the curse's magic to materialize out of Aurora's body and block Maleficent's good magic (a few disembodied voices also whisper to her how the curse will last forever). On the appointed day the curse must take effect (Aurora's sixteenth birthday), Aurora learns of her curse and, after confronting Maleficent and calling her out, runs home to her father. The curse then slowly takes over her (the novelization describes it as starting as Aurora having the sudden urge to prick her finger on something), and compels her to find a spinning wheel, which she then pricks.
  • A disturbing sequence in MirrorMask follows this very closely, except for the demonic puppets and goth clothing.
  • Monster High 2: In the climax, Draculaura is held hostage by Zamara who casts a spell which takes over her mind, causing her to repeatedly chant the Mortality Curse that will destroy all vampires at the stroke of midnight; the only way to snap her out of it is if someone physically touches her.
  • Our Man Flint. After Gilia fails three times to kill Derek Flint, the Galaxy leaders assume she's fallen for him and have her brainwashed to become a Pleasure Unit. They also kidnap Flint's harem and do the same. Fortunately Flint is so manly that just appearing and telling them "You are not a pleasure unit" is enough to break their conditioning.
  • A mild example in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, where Gideon Graves has implanted a mind control chip in Ramona's neck, making her go back to him and sit placidly beside his throne while he fights Scott. The film even gives a Shout-Out to the 1980 Flash Gordon mind control ring by using its sound effect when Gideon kisses Ramona's ringed hand during the Katayanagi Twins battle.
  • Spaceballs plays this for laughs, like every other trope at its disposal. Lord Helmet uses The Schwartz to trick Princess Vespa into thinking he's her father. He only keeps it up long enough to capture her.
    Lord Helmet: Fooooled you!
  • In That Man from Rio, Agnes's captors drug her so that she appears to follow them willingly, and she sleepily says she does not recognises her boyfriend Adrien when he catches up to them.
  • The Thief of Bagdad (1940): Jaffar does this to the princess, with the Blue Rose of Forgetfulness.
  • Lazar's "mothers" put a spell on Belladonna in Your Highness to make her "submit" to him so that he can impregnate her with a dragon. Hilariously, all the spell does is make her horny, which freaks Lazar out to the point where he has difficultly performing. Fortunately, this gives the heroes plenty of time to kill Lazar's minions.

    Literature 
  • In the Belgariad, this is what Torak has in mind for Polgara, and since they're both immortal, she would be stuck that way for eternity. Importantly, her resistance of the hypnosis makes the climax of the series; once she's refused him, his morale crumbles and his defeat is assured.
  • In the sixth Book of Lost Swords: The Mindsword's Story, Murat uses the Mindsword to compel Princess Kristin, among others, to love and adore him. When he loses the Mindsword and is killed, the effect wears off on all the other victims after a few days, but Kristin remains devoted to Murat indefinitely afterwards. Curing her of this drives the plot of the seventh book.
  • This happens to Eilonwy in The Castle of Llyr. Somewhat unusually for this trope, her captor is female and kidnapped her for entirely pragmatic reasons.
  • Was used by one of the good guys (technically an Anti-Hero, but still) in one of the Dragonlance novels. In order to unite a country against the forces of evil, he forced a witch to use her magic and make a princess fall in love with him. It works and the kingdom is saved, but the Anti-Hero is called on it later.
  • Inverted in Everworld, kind of — Senna starts the series looking like a Damsel in Distress, but it quickly becomes apparent that she's basically a sociopath herself. She has More than Mind Control which keeps one of the main characters, David, desperate to always save her, and she can use it on others for short bursts as well.
  • In Andre Norton's Ice Crown, Roane sees Princess Ludorica, previously defiant, being ushered about by her kidnapper without resistance.
  • Journey to Chaos: During the third book, Mana Mutation Menace, Lunas puts Kasile under his control in two steps: 1.) use his innate Charm Person ability along with More than Mind Control to convince her to remove her anti-mind control circlet and put on his mind control necklace. It's designed to persuade her against ever removing it and resist anyone attempting to remove it for her. In this way he can effectively rule Ataidar without marrying her (which he still plans to do as soon as possible). Eric has to use a series of Armor Piercing Questions to make her realize the truth and then she removes it herself.
  • Amusingly Inverted in Mistborn: The Original Trilogy, where the princess hypnotizes one of the heroes into falling in love with her!
  • The sixth book of Ranger's Apprentice sees Alys held captive by the traitor Sir Keren. He uses a combination of a drug (to put her into a suggestible state) and a jewel with hypnotic properties to pump her for information on her allies. Finding a way to help her resist the hypnotic effect before she's forced to give away Will's plans is an important plot point, and the climax comes when her resistance fails, she falls back under Keren's control, and is ordered to kill Will. Luckily, The Power of Love snaps her out of it in time.
  • In The Silver Chair, the Big Bad had hypnotized Prince Rillian into becoming a sort of Empty Shell without any memories of his past life as the Crown Prince of Narnia. The spell wears off temporarily every night, thus Rillian ends up tied to the eponymous Silver Chair when that happens so he won't escape. The Power Trio frees him, though.
  • In The Silver Crown, the black metal stuff is being used to brainwash just about everyone, but it only applies so long as you're near the stuff. The heroine's apparently immune. She breaks into the fortress to free her friend, and manages to get free with both her friend and a new girl who's also apparently immune. But when they get back to the place where they hid the silver crown, her friend turns traitor! Turns out he was wearing a belt made of the black metal, and calls in the enemies to capture them all.
  • In The Three Hostages, the villain is a master hypnotist, and hypnotizes each of the hostages so they forget who they really are and believe they belong in the place where they're being held.
  • In Edgar Rice Burroughs's Thuvia, Maid of Mars, Tario uses this on Thuvia, convincing her in moments that he is friendly, and that she is in love with him. However, it doesn't last long — either his smug expression reminds her, or she gets a more powerful counter-suggestion from Carthoris.
  • In The Wheel of Time, Rahvin does this to Queen Morgase.
    • Unconventional example, but Moghedien does this to Elayne. (And Nynaeve.)
    • Graendal does this as a rule — she likes her pets to be compliant.
    • To be fair to the princesses of The 'Verse, the Forsaken use Compulsion on just about everyone; the princesses listed here just happened to be the ones in their way at that point in time.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In The Avengers (1960s) episode "Return Of the Cybernauts", Beresford gives Mrs. Peel a wristwatch, which is actually a Mind-Control Device.
  • In the second season of Galavant, Wormwood's initial plan to grab power is to use an enchanted tiara to mind control Princess Isabella. She spends a couple of episodes in his power, being super-enthusiastic about everything he commands or suggests, but the spell is broken when the tiara is knocked off during Princess Jubilee's big song number.
  • The Legend of William Tell
    • Kreel does this to Vara at least three times. One of those times he isn't even anywhere near her, he's just projecting dreams into her mind.
    • In a subversion, Kalem does this to Will in the first episode, to make him run instead of facing Xax's men. Will's not very happy it, because it means leaving his parents behind.
  • Morgana does this to various characters in Merlin.
    • Uther wrongly interprets Arthur wanting to marry Gwen, a servant, as Gwen trying this. Morgana is all too happy to provide "proof" of this.
  • Lord Zedd tried this in an episode of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers when he decided he wanted to marry Kimberly. In a subversion, the spell was a bust and Kimberly simply pretended it had worked and acted like Rita Repulsa, until her friends showed up to rescue her.
  • Smallville
    • In a gender-flipped version, Maxima does this to Clark Kent in the episode "Instinct". They nearly have sex, but Lois Lane walks in, snapping him out of it.
    • Something very similar also happened in "Hypnotic", except that Lana walked in and is unable to break the control.
    • On the girl side, Mikhail once mind controls Chloe into kissing him in "Jinx". Seth did something like that with Lana in "Magnetic".
  • Wonder Woman: In "The Boy Who Knew Her Secret", the Shapeshifter succeeds in hypnotizing Princess Diana into forgetting that she is Wonder Woman. She breaks the spell with the help of the titular boy who knew her secret reminding her of who she is.

    Professional Wrestling 

    Tabletop Games 
  • A variant in the Expert Dungeons & Dragons module The Curse of Xanathon: an evil spellcaster can't take over the duchy by marrying the ruler (because they're both guys and it's not the 21st century), so he ensorcels the duke into making insane proclamations which will destabilize the kingdom and facilitate a more conventional Invade-the-Kingdom plot. The brainwashed duke doesn't actually fight the heroes, but some of his proclamations may get the guards to do it for him.

    Video Games 
  • Seen in the seventh Dark Parables installment, where a Hypno Trinket has been keeping Rapunzel under a spell for centuries. It's an unusual situation, however, because the antagonist wants something that isn't often seen. The antagonist in question is Rapunzel's little half-sister, Belladonna, who is a Clingy Jealous Girl. Bella believes (not without justification) that Rapunzel is the only person who really loves her, and she doesn't want her sister to go away and marry the prince to whom she's engaged. Exactly how the issue gets resolved is up to the player.
  • The NES version of Double Dragon III has the player face off Queen Noiram, a possessed Marion at the end. The game never really explains who kidnapped her and how she ended up being possessed (due to the fact that in the Japanese version, the final boss was actually Cleopatra, not Marion).
  • In Double Dragon Neon, the penultimate boss fight has Billy Lee facing off against Big Bad Skullmageddon assisted by Billy's kidnapped and brainwashed girlfriend Marion, who he creatively dubs "Evil Marion."
  • EXTRAPOWER: Giant Fist: Upon kidnapping Miku and bringing her back to her pyramid, Blackberry uses magic to make Miku believe that the two of them have been life-long best friends. This is partially because Blackberry isn't a people person and this simplifies the hostage-taking situation, but also to extract information on Miku's family history and aid Blackberry's research of the ancient bracelet. Of course, Miku retains her memories of her time brainwashed by Blackberry, and thinks the two of them really could have been friends without the brainwashing.
  • Final Fantasy IX: During the fight with the second Black Waltz (when the party attempts to leave the Village of Dali), the Waltz will not attack Garnet/Dagger. This might sound as though it makes the fight a Foregone Victory, but no. Should the other characters be defeated, the Black Waltz will use "Hypnotise" on Garnet, and the battle ends.
  • In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Archbishop Manfroy's evil plot was to brainwash Deirdre, the local Shaman and Sigurd's Hot Consort, into marrying her half-brother Arvis to produce a vessel for the dark god Loptous. And unlike most examples on this page, he succeeds without much of a hitch.
    • Also attempted with Princess Julia, Deirdre's Dark Magical Girl daughter and sister of said vessel, Prince Julius; Manfroy believed her power could be useful in defeating Seliphnote , despite Julius's wish to execute her outright. Killing Manfroy will snap her out of it, however, which would bring a major advantage for the heroes; Julia inherited Deirdre's Major Naga blood, which is instrumental to stopping the Loptous-possessed Julius.
    • In Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, Mareeta is a variation. She's actually not hypnotized, but forced to use an Evil Weapon that takes over her mind. She gets better, and ultimately said Evil Weapon becomes her personalised sword.
    • Don't forget Ninian in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, brainwashed and forced to open the Dragon's Gate and call upon the dragons by Nergal. Good thing her younger brother Nils showed up before it got very far and debrainwashed her! And later, Nils himself almost goes through the same thing, but fortunately Athos manages to hold Nergal back.
  • In the Elven campaign of Heroes of Might and Magic IV, the hero's girl has been kidnapped by his evil rival, who puts her under a mind control spell. The only way to free her from it (even killing the Big Bad won't do it), is to construct the Mirror of True Love. All she has to do is look into it to see her true love's face, and the spell will be broken. However, the Big Bad mentions in a not-so-subtle manner that they have already consummated their "relationship".
  • Hidden City: In the "Guest From The Past" case, Mr. Goodman takes Kira hostage by hypnotizing her to throw away all her weapons and obey his commands to force Rayden to give him a powerful artifact belonging to Rayden's grandmother, Clarissa.
  • In Lunar: The Silver Star, the Magic Emperor captures the hero's Childhood Sweetheart. The next time we see her, she's hanging on his arm with a doting expression and wearing considerably less. The only way to break the spell is to endure her magical lightning and play a certain ocarina tune.
  • A common hazard in Mass Effect, the villains being cyborg demigods capable of indoctrinating most younger beings. This is played most straight in The Arrival, where Shepard is sent to rescue an Alliance scientist from the Batarians at Admiral Hackett's behest. She was indoctrinated by the Reaper artifact she was studying before she was captured, and betrays Shepard soon after her rescue.
  • Queen Sindel from Mortal Kombat is brought back from the dead and brainwashed by Shao Kahn into being his queen. She pulls a Heel–Face Turn after her daughter Kitana gets to her. At least, in the old timeline. In the new timeline starting from Mortal Kombat (2011), she's Not Brainwashed and willingly serving Shao Kahn.
  • Same goes for Peach in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Well, it's less "hypnotize" than use as the new host of a Sealed Evil in a Can.
  • Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame begins with the vizier doing this, and taking it a step further by impersonating YOU!
  • In a Super Smash Bros. Melee Event Match, Mewtwo hypnotizes Princess Zelda to fight you until he shows up.
  • Zelda is possessed by Ganondorf and forced to fight you in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
    • And not only does something similar happen to her in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks as well, there's also the second-to-last boss battle, where Ghost Mice repeatedly possess Zelda, while she is possessing a Phantom.
  • In Tales of Vesperia, there is a part where Estelle is controlled by Alexei and forced to fight the party and then Yuri one-on-one, but Estelle still seems to be well enough to beg Yuri to kill her and to respond when Yuri actually chastizes her...
  • World of Warcraft subverts this. Princess Moira Bronzebeard, daughter of the dwarf king Magni Bronzebeard, marries the evil Dark Iron Dwarf emperor Thaurissan. Her father assumes that this trope is in play, and sends a team of adventurers to kill Thaurissan. However, after Thaurissan is killed, Moira reveals she is Not Brainwashed; she was truly in love with Thaurissan, who respected her and her opinions, compared to her father, who, while well-meaning, did not believe that a woman could rule and wanted a male heir.
  • In Xenogears, Miang uses a particularly dangerous mental conditioning on Elly to get her to sabotage the party. After Elly betrays her team, Citan reveals that he was aware of the brainwashing but let her carry out the orders... because to prevent her from doing so could kill her.

    Webcomics 
  • Late in Earthsong, Beluosus has one of his minions use mind control on Willow, who is Earthsong's Eve and currently at a ball in her honor, in order to complete the final steps of his plan.
  • The Big Bad of Exiern, Faden, loves doing this to people, even from captivity.
  • In Knights of Buena Vista, Adriana's Player Character is being crowned queen, but it turns out the bishop wasn't saying a benediction. He was chanting a mind control spell. This is so those planning on harming Elsa don't have to face a powerful ice sorceress.
  • Inverted by Carnation from "LsEmpire". She is an evil princess who has hypnotic powers.

    Web Original 
  • In Alice Isn't Dead, this is an Implied power of Humanoid Abomination the Thistle Man, triggered either by touch or a continuous grip on the neck. The victim's eyes go "vacant", and they seem semiconscious or asleep, but still capable of movement. The Thistle Man uses it to walk truck driver Earl out of a diner and into a parking lot unobtrusively, to further demonstrate his powers and nature to the series' Character Narrator.
  • In Goomzilla's movie Luigi's Quest, Bowser decides that this is the best way to make Peach loyal to him, realizing if he leaves her unattended, she will keep trying to rescue Mario with the power she obtained from him.

    Western Animation 
  • On Adventure Time, it once seemed like the Ice King had finally found a princess willing to marry him. Finn and Jake were all for this... until they realized the princess's engagement ring was really a Hypno Trinket.
  • The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius:
    • In "Nightmare in Retroville", Cindy is hypnotized by the vampire-turned-Carl into letting her bite him, which turns her into a vampire as well.
    • In "My Big Fat Spy Wedding", Beautiful Gorgeous has Jimmy locked in a cage where she uses his own Hypno Beam on him which erases his memory of her plan to use her wedding with Jet Fusion as a front to send him to jail for good.
  • Code Lyoko: It is a common tactic for XANA to mind control Aelita into doing his bidding. Once in Season 2 through a Mind-Control Device, several times in Season 3 (and once in Season 4) with the Scyphozoa. And sure, her nickname is "Princess".
  • An occasional occurrence in Codename: Kids Next Door:
    • In "Operation: L.I.Z.Z.I.E.", Lizzie does this to Numbuh One with a Mind-Control Device called the "Yes-Dear 5000", otherwise known as a "Boyfriend/Girlfriend Helmet", which fuses with the victim's brain if worn long enough and permanently brainwashes them. When Numbuh One falls victim to this, and as a result, turns against his teammates, it soon goes haywire and explodes upon receiving a Shockingly Expensive Bill, at which point he regains his normal senses and demands Lizzie never does anything like that again. In a later episode, "Operation: S.N.O.W.I.N.G.", President Jimmy reconfigures the helmet to make it work on Lizzie, but then, during the final battle, it goes haywire when the soup Lizzie gave Numbuh One spills on it, causing the helmet and the school to explode. It's made even weirder that it's sold as a toy.
    • In "Operation: D.A.T.E.", Numbuh One's suspicions are confirmed when a party he and his teammates were invited to by the Delightful Children from Down the Lane turned out to be a trap. The party guests, including the Sector V operatives, are brainwashed and delightfulized, and all it takes for Numbuh One to reverse this is a camera flash.
  • In one episode of Danny Phantom, a plant ghost takes possession of Sam and makes her his minion.
  • Descendants: Wicked World: In the first quarter of Season 2, Mal is mind-controlled into becoming a ruthless tyrant by her birthright jewel, which was cursed by Maleficent years ago. Zevon also uses it in the penultimate episode to get Mal to join him, but it is flung away by Evie.
  • In the Dinosaucers episode "Trick or Cheat", Quackpot wants to throw a magic show after seeing the Secret Scouts hold one, with Sarah as the Lovely Assistant. He captures all the heroes, rounding them up to make them watch his act, save for Sarah who's now his assistant, after using his "joy buzzer" as a Hypno Ray on her.
  • The Fairly OddParents!. Timmy Turner wished: "I wish Trixie Tang loved Timmy Turner." as his second Norm the Genie wish. Norm the Genie made lots of Timmy Turners appear, listed where they were from, what their exact name was and made Trixie Tang kiss them all. Strangely, he phrased the wish that way to be more specific to minimize Norm's meddling, but just saying "I wish she loved me." (while indicating Trixie) probably would have worked far better. Of course if one remembers that Norm is a Literal Genie, it is highly possible that had Timmy had worded his wish like that, Norm would've just made Trixie fall in love with a boy named "Me".
    • Another episode has Timmy gain dark powers and use them to force Trixie to love and kiss him.
  • In Goldie Gold and Action Jack, Goldie is kidnapped and hypnotized as part of a scheme to get a treasure.
  • I ♡ Arlo: In the Season 1 finale "The Uncondeming", the Bog Lady refuses to let Arlo leave the swamp he grew up in and hypnotizes him into not wanting to leave.
  • One episode of The Legend of Zelda (1989) has Ganon plotting to marry Zelda by hypnotizing her with a magic necklace.
  • Dr. Wily does this in the Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) cartoon: he gets another robot (Dr. Petto) to make Megaman doubt his humanity, then allow him to work on him. Wily places a chip in Mega, then toys with his mind for a while before outright taking control of him.
  • Happens a number of times in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. This trope is more-or-less inevitable since almost the entire cast is female. These incidents include but are not limited to:
    • The Return of Harmony - Part 1: Discord hypnotized the Mane 6, barring Twilight, into behaving the opposite of what element they represent (i.e. Applejack is a liar, Fluttershy is unkind, and Rarity is greedy) in order for the Elements of Harmony to be rendered useless against him. Thankfully, Twilight manages to undo this in the next episode.
    • Subverted with Twilight herself in Part 2. Although she falls under Discord's corruption after failing to defeat him the first time, it's through a Heroic BSoD instead of hypnosis.
    • Lesson Zero: Twilight casts the "Want It, Need It" spell on her Smarty Pants doll which causes the Cutie Mark Crusaders to fall for it and fight over it.
    • The Crystal Empire - Part 2: Twilight is hypnotized by a magical door made by the Villain of the Week into making her see her worst fear.
    • Inspiration Manifestation: Rarity casts a spell that corrupts her.
    • Every Little Thing She Does: Much like what Discord did, Starlight Glimmer hypnotizes the Mane 6 (again barring Twilight since she was away for the episode) in order to complete a bunch of tasks at once, but Hilarity Ensues and it backfires in her face. Unlike Discord though, she had no malicious intent.
    • The short Starlight the Hypnotist had a literal example where Starlight hypnotizes Twilight, a princess, into ridding her fear of ladybugs.
    • In Part 1 of the final season opener "The Beginning of the End", Twilight and her friends are hypnotized by Sombra's dark magic into making them see their worst fears. They break out of it in an instant thanks to the Elements of Harmony.
  • Ming the Merciless pulls this on Dale in The New Adventures of Flash Gordon, despite never having displayed mind control powers before or since. Then he actually "marries" her before Flash and company come to her rescue, although it doesn't have any lasting effects. (This was likely a deliberate homage to a similar sequence the first Flash Gordon movie serial.)
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Abracadaver", Blossom is hypnotized with a pocket watch by Abracadaver when he mistakes her for the girl who ruined his life. He doesn't really make her do anything, just to keep her mindless for revenge.
  • In Saban's Adventures of the Little Mermaid, Marina, Justin and their friends get this when a hypnotic flute puts them in a trance in "Song of the Sea Witch". Happens to Marina again in "Hold That Thought." Subverted in that she was just playing along in the latter.
  • In Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Scooby, Daphne and Shaggy are all hypnotized by a villainous ghostly clown with a golden coin and made to do certain circus acts: Scooby ends up doing the trapeze act, Daphne puts on a ballerina costume and rides a unicycle and Shaggy ends up doing the lion tamer's act. Finally, Scooby and Shaggy turn the ghost clown's hypnotic coin against him in order to capture him; likely the funniest way a villain was apprehended in the series.
  • In an episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, this happens to Firestar at the hands of Dracula.
  • This happens to Ahsoka by the Son in Star Wars: The Clone Wars to goad Anakin into joining him.
  • In Wakfu episode 6, Evangelyne is hypnotized before being captured by Vampyro, who plans to use her body as a host for the demon Ombrage.
  • X-Men:
    • X-Men: The Animated Series: In an early episode of the cartoon, Scott and Jean are kidnapped by the Morlocks. When the other X-Men come to rescue them, they run across a hypnotized Jean. In another episode, Sauron hypnotizes Storm.
    • X-Men: Evolution: Happens to Jean, thanks to Mesmero. She's not the only one, either: Kurt, Kitty and Evan were under the same treatment.

Alternative Title(s): Captive Under Trance, Hypnotize The Princess, Hypnotise The Captive, Hypnotise The Princess, Brainwash The Captive, Brainwashed Captive

Top

Hypnotising Sarah

Hieronymous hypnotises Sarah with instructions to kill the Doctor.

How well does it match the trope?

4.88 (8 votes)

Example of:

Main / HypnotizeTheCaptive

Media sources:

Report