Emotion Bomb

"The Tyrant's Blade no blood hath spilled,

But doth the spirit carve.

Soulcutter hath no body killed,

But many left to starve."

—The First Book of Swords

Among the ways Psychic Powers can be used in combat is to manipulate the minds of others, stopping them from fighting you or making them fightforyou. But not every psychic is strong enough for outright Mind Control. Inducing a particular feeling with the Emotion Bomb leaves one's victims able to choose how they react, but is often incapacitating just the same.

The effect, which is often More Than Mind Control, can also be accomplished in more "realistic" settings, with a drug that produces or intensifies the emotion in question.

A subtrope of Emotion Control. Compare Mind Rape. Contrast Care Bear Stare, which is this but with niceness, to be used against a villain. Not to be confused with Angst Nuke, where a character blows up from emotion.

Common Types of Emotion Bombs:

  • Despair: Sapping the enemy's will to fight is always a good idea; the Emotion Bomb can make it quick and easy (barring any inconvenient Heroic Willpower, of course). Victims of despair begin to think of themselves as worthless, of the enemy's victory as inevitable, and of any attempt at resistance as utterly pointless.
  • Fear: Hugely popular with the Obviously Evil set, an aura of terror can have similar effects to that of despair, but usually more immediate and obvious. It tends to cause less passive slumping and more panicked fleeing. Or panicked A-Team Firing. Or panicked freezing-like-a-deer-in-the-headlights. Just as long as they're panicking.
  • Love/Lust: Definitely more a distracting tactic than an incapacitating one. When Love Is in the Air, no one's mind is on their job. If it's possible to direct the emotion at yourself, you can even use it as the lead-in to More Than Mind Control, or just make sure people are reluctant to attack you.
  • Anger: Despite being one of the least subtle emotions, anger requires perhaps the most finesse to weaponize effectively. Afflicting someone you're already fighting with Unstoppable Rage is... unwise. (Though it can be used to your advantage if you remove their ability to think straight—some video game foes can cause absolute devastation by inflicting the Berserk status (while others can have their ability to inflict damage or defend themselves completely nullified). But if you can deploy it from a safe distance before or between fights, especially if their alliance against you is already a case of Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, it's amazing how much trouble can be caused.

These are far from the only types possible; other emotions may be weaponized as well.

Examples of Emotion Bomb include:

Despair

  • The aptly-named character Despair in The Faerie Queene. Three guesses as to what he does...
  • The elves in Discworld's Lords and Ladies seem to include this in their general aura of "glamour". How could something as clunky and utterly inadequate and human as you ever hope to defeat an elf? You don't even deserve to exist next to, much less rebel against, something so perfect as an elf. The Auditors also fight like this when incorporeal, making people think that fighting them is pointless because there's nothing really there to fight.
  • Morag uses one of these to turn Aribeth to the dark side in the original Neverwinter Nights campaign
  • It's implied that a slow-acting version of this mixed with mundane counterintelligence got to Denethor of Lord of the Rings (book only), finally driving him to an attempted murder-suicide. This is why you shouldn't engage in direct psychic contact with the immensely powerful Big Bad (Denethor has one of the palantíri, or Seeing Stones, like the one that Pippin took from Gandalf and looked in).
    • However in both the books and films, the Nazgul have this power, mixed with fear.
  • Ciaphas Cain gets a nasty hit of this in Duty Calls, complete with Religious Horror. Heroic Willpower keeps him sane until Jurgen arrives to break the spell, but he was still out of the fight for a bit.
  • Harry Potter's world has Dementors, who guard the prison of Azkaban. Dementors sense and feed on the positive emotions, happiness and good memories of human beings, forcing them to relive their worst memories. It is notable that Dumbledore is against the use of Dementors, considering them cruel and unusual punishment (as well as a natural fifth column for Dark wizards.)
  • Averted in The Bones Of Haven. Initially, the Brimstone Boys' very presence seems to have this effect on the Special Wizardry And Tactics team's sorcerer. It turns out he was faking, so as to catch the Boys off-guard.
  • Perona's Negative Hollow attack in One Piece sends a ghost through the opponent that leaves them crippled with despair and depression, though only lasting a few seconds. Usopp, who already lacks self-confidence and spends a lot of time in a funk anyway, is immune to it.
  • The Lord Ruler of Mistborn uses his powers of Soothing to deaden the emotions of anyone within about a mile radius of him, sapping them of the will to resist him (though a skilled Mistborn can counteract the effects to a degree by Rioting the emotions of those in his or her immediate vicinity). Later on, Vin learns to do a similar trick, though because she's much weaker than the Lord Ruler she can only effect a few people at a time.
  • In Saberhagen's Books of Swords series this is what the Tyrant's Blade (AKA Soulcutter) does. When it is drawn from its sheath everyone in a 250m radius including the wielder is struck with such crippling despair that most will be unable to summon the will to do anything, even eat when food is provided.
  • Arael's weapon of choice in Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's the Trope Namer of Mind Rape for a reason.
  • This is The Mule's favorite weapon. Used broadly, it makes enemy armies surrender. Used narrowly, it is the most horrible death possible. He can produce other emotions too, such as loyalty and confidence for his own servants.
  • The aptly named Despair Squid of Red Dwarf causes hallucinations in its victims that are so terrible that the victim commits suicide.
  • In the second installment of Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People, this is how Strong Sad's fights go in the Maps & Minions portion of the game. He is able to defeat any of your units except Homsar.
  • In the second Ranma ½ movie, one henchman uses this on Ryoga. Bad idea. The henchman didn't know that Ryoga's most powerful move is powered by depression. *cue One Hit KO*
  • The Dungoens And Dragons spell crushing despair does not disable its targets completely, but is one more avenue (along with spells like cause fear) to whittle away at an opponent's combat effectiveness until he can't hurt anyone, defend himself, or even run away.

Fear

  • The Ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings are constantly surrounded by a combination of this and Despair. Hardened soldiers break and run in their presence, and it's strongly implied that Eowyn is only able to stand up to the Witch-King because she's been living in constant despair for years. She's used to it.
  • Fear effects are a common game mechanic in World of Warcraft and other MMORPGS, with afflicted players and monsters running randomly around the place. Many a player has cursed this when feared right into the next bunch of monsters, and it used to be that you could be scared right off a cliff!
  • In the X-Men Legends series, Emma Frost can do this to every enemy in her range, making all of them bolt. Of course, this only makes it so that you have to run after them to take care of them before the effect wears off.
  • In Sonic the Comic, Chaos did this. It was, however, resistable, as two characters were able to get close to it this way (Sonic achieved it by concentrating on rage).
  • The Fear Point in Immortal Defense may count. It slows down enemy targets, but represents the player character's own anxieties and its effect is probably just caused by its environment's metaphor tangibility. If fully upgraded, it "panics" and fires blindly.
  • All dragons in some Dungeons & Dragons editions are constantly surrounded by an aura of fear that sends pretty much any low-level character into panic. They can, however, turn it off for a brief time. A few other monsters also have fear auras, such as liches.
    • In 3.5 and Pathfinder, it's not a magical or psionic effect: dragons are just plain scary. Mechanically, if a dragon with greater hit dice than you does anything threatening, you have to roll your save.
  • This is how Scarecrow, and Ra'as Al Ghul, who is directing him, plans to destroy Gotham in Batman Begins. His cronies dump the fear drug into the water supply and vaporize it to drive a large chunk of the city insane.
  • One of these was used in the Doctor Who serial The Sun Makers by the evil tax-gathering government to control the human populace. The Doctor inverts the technology to make people angry instead.
  • Charmed gives us Barbas, the Demon of Fear, who is able to read the worst fear of his targets, and make them believe they are living it through illusions. He's even able to kill his victims his way.
    • His flipped-universe counterpart is a hippie who lives in a beautiful garden and inspires the emotion of hope.
  • Turahk from Bionicle has this power. It is so powerful that Jaller actually died from a Fear blast. He got better, though.
  • In the animated web series Broken Saints, this is the form angry Shandala's empathic powers take towards any hostiles.
  • A very popular ability in Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 is the ability to inflict fear (or, worse yet, terror) on the enemy.
  • Zofis, the Big Bad of an entire story arc of Gash Bell, is able to manipulate the demons of a thousand years ago into fighting for them by making them believe that, after being freed of their stone curse, that Zofis can return them to stone at will. After spending 1000 years utterly immobile, that fear is enough to get them to do anything for him.
  • The myrddraal of The Wheel of Time emanate an aura of fear, especially along their line-of-sight.
  • Gachnar, the Fear Demon from the fourth season Halloween episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • The Fury Twins Phobos and Deimos of the Whateley Universe. Each has a fear aura. When they merge into a single creature, the fear aura gets so bad they warp reality in the vicinity. Unlike most characters in this category, they're not evil, and in fact they are receptive empaths so they have to feel the fear of everyone around them, which they don't like.
  • A side effect of the drug used to commit the murders in Sherlock Holmes in the Adventure of the Devil's Foot was that caused a paralyzingly intense sense of fear.
  • Causing paralytic fear is a common effect of very powerful ki-aura in many manga and anime. In some series, it can get so bad that the weaker person actually suffers a hallucination of taking a killing blow for a split second... assuming that they don't actually die from the pressure of the aura.
  • This is one of Bloody Mary's powers in Flipside.
  • In a rare heroic example, this appears to be what Dhienalia of Heroic Age does to Phaeto when she psychically attacks him. His mind is flooded with images of terrified humans, he retreats very quickly, and for the rest of the series has a crippling fear of humanity that causes him to act irrationally. (Unfortunately for Dhienalia, serving as the conduit for all that fear is not healthy for a person's psyche either.)
  • The Daunt skill in the Fire Emblem series causes fear, which manifests by lowering the hit% and critical hit% of all opposing units by 5. When it was introduced in Path of Radiance, it was exclusive to a pair of bosses, but in Radiant Dawn it can be equipped to one of your units--even ones that wouldn't make much sense to have this ability, like the Actual Pacifist herons or the fragile bishops, who probably benefit from it more than anyone.
  • A Pokémon using the ability "Intimidate" scares the opponent so badly it lowers its Attack just by showing up. Naturally Gyarados has this ability.
    • There's another ability called "Unnerve", which prevents enemies from using their held Berry, and can be used by Pokemon like Mewtwo, Tyranitar, and Joltik.
    • A weaponized version is used in the attack Dark Pulse, an attack in which an aura filled with horrible thoughts and emotions is fired, which may cause the target to flinch and not attack for a turn.
    • In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, there's an IQ skill called Intimidator(not to be confused with the above Intimidate), which can scare enemies so badly that they won't attack for their turn. High-end bosses and certain enemies in later dungeons use this, which can be frustrating for the player. But if the player picks the right Pokemon and is patient enough to raise its own IQ level, you can also use it, in a rare heroic version. However, this skill doesn't work if the enemy uses a long-range attack, even if they're right next to the the user.
  • Kamen Rider Double's Big Bad, Ryuube Sonozaki AKA the Terror Dopant, is able to generate a field that causes anyone caught within it to suffer from intense fear (as in, curled up in the fetal position and screaming like a madman). He can also turn his Nice Headdress into a Kaijuu dubbed the Terror Dragon. Even without transforming, Ryuube himself can instill a degree of degree of terror in those around him.
  • In Naruto when confronted by Orochimaru in The Forest of Death during the Chuunin Exams, Sasuke and Sakura are paralyzed by fear from just one of his Evil Glares. Sasuke had to stab himself in the leg with a kunai in order to "wake up", grab Sakura, and escape before Orochimaru's kunai could finish them off (right in the forehead!) .
  • In "Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Journal" Jaroda and Lady Christine have access to an Aura technique called Fear Aura, which Jaroda uses to force Heath to take a job for him.

Love/Lust

  • General: If there are any Horny Devils who can't do this, they're very much in the minority.
  • A Valentine's Day seasonal event in World of Warcraft has someone do this worldwide so that everyone will be moonstruck and distracted for some attack that's never followed through on. He has help from some naive individuals who really just want to "help ease the awkward rituals of courtship".
  • The Pokémon move "Attract" gives a chance that Pokemon of the opposite gender will become too smitten to attack.
  • Villains and Vigilantes adventure Devil's Domain. The Devil has the power to affect the minds of all creatures within a certain radius and make them love him.
  • Ember in Danny Phantom made Danny fall in love with Sam to distract him from fighting her.
  • In a strange Real Life example, during a "no criticism allowed" brainstorming session the US Army speculated on chemicals to provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops. Found here with other lovely ideas that never got past the brainstorming point. Nevertheless, it has found its way into pop culture:
    • Referenced on 30 Rock, when Jack Donaghy uses it on the Joint Chiefs of Staff in order to get fired and return to GE.
    • In Axis Powers Hetalia, where America invents a "love gun" which he believes would make enemies shot with it fall in love with each other and leave them unwilling to fight.
    • The SCP Foundation has SCP-252, a literal "Gay Bomb", that does exactly as described above, with a cloud of pink smoke.
  • This is usually the emotion stoked by your average Charm spell.
  • Salamander, a low-level villain in the first issue of Fairy Tail had such a spell, which he used to entrance young women and attempt to sell them into slavery.
  • The finished product in Perfume causes such powerful feelings of love and desire that it triggers an instant mass orgy at the scene of its maker's intended execution. In the end, an overdose of the perfume causes a mob to gather around and devour the protagonist.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!! played with this by having Mai Valentine (Mai Kujaku) use the "Shadow of Eyes" spell to entrance monsters to attack, having their power drastically reduced by her "Mirror Wall" trap and be destroyed in the process. Yami Yugi cleverly (and in defiance of all game rules) subverts this by summoning "Mystical Elf", a female monster, in defense position.
    • GX also plays with this trope by having Rei Saotome (Blair Flannigan) initially run a deck focused on dropping Maiden Counters on her opponent's monsters and having them serve her. While the way Judai (Jaden) trumps this is within the boundaries of the rules, it still focuses on Burstinatrix being female, which is overall irrelevant to the duel at hand.
  • In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series, the female aliens go into heat when exposed to ginger (and their pheromones drive nearby males into a mating frenzy). So the clever earthlings use ginger bombs.
  • In Saberhagen's Books of Swords series, the Mindsword, when drawn from its sheath, causes all within 250m including gods to become fanatically devoted to serving the wielder.
  • A less-publicized race on Star Trek TOS was the Deltans, a species that looked like hairless humans (they had eyebrows and eyelashes, but male and female were both completely bald). They naturally produce universally-recognized pheremones, and when in Starfleet have to take pheremone-production-inhibitors to keep everyone (of either gender, apparently) from trying to have sex with them.
  • The main power of Venus from Agents of Atlas. It gets them out of a lot of fights, as suddenly everyone is either gaping at her or thinking of their own love.
  • Vampires in the Ringworld books are non-sentient hominids that give out a pheromone that can totally override any non-sex-related thoughts in the victim while the vampire feeds.
  • When Eric and Linda Strauss were Dr. Fate, they fought Darkseid, and were, of course, losing badly. Then they cast one last spell on him, and he gets this look of utter confusion and despair on his face. He turns to them and plaintively asks "What have you done to me?" to which they reply that they've shared their love for one another with him. Feeling love so discombobulates him that he surrenders. Then one of his footsoldiers kills Eric with a spear.
  • Whateley Universe examples: Fey has a glamour that does this even when she doesn't want it to. Carmilla can evoke a lust aura that's overwhelming. And Cytherea likes to use her lust aura to get her way, since she's really the avatar (or something) of Aphrodite.
  • Baroque has Lust as a status ailment. It makes all enemies and treasure chests look like women (and the women all look the same).
  • In the first episode of Torchwood, Owen is shown using some sort of alien breath spray that causes anyone who gets a whiff of it to want to jump him right there and then.
  • Warhammer 40,000's resident God(dess) of Perverse Sexual Lust, Slaanesh, has this effect on anyone short of fellow God-level beings. (Translation: Non-gods will look upon Slaanesh and happily sell their souls, Heroic Willpower be damned.) To a lesser extent, His/Her stronger followers get this power as a primary perk, along with the inverse of Power Perversion Potential.

Anger

  • This is its own subtrope, Hate Plague, so examples go there.

Other/Multiple

  • The "blamethrower", from Mystery Men, produces not so much Anger as petty bickering.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • There are a bunch of emotion-affecting spells, including the one actually named Emotion. (That spell includes Despair, Fear, Love and Rage)
    • Sympathy and Antipathy are two other good ones. Cast on a place, they make you very strongly want to stay there, or get the hell out as soon as possible. Cast on an object, they make you either covet it and obsess over possessing it, or want absolutely nothing to do with it. Furthermore, they only affect specific beings determined when you cast the spell, leaving all other beings unaffected.
    • And of course, Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter. It not only incapacitates the target, but also weakens their muscles for a while after they calm down.
    • In 1st Edition the psionic ability "Telempathic Projection" could send an emotion to a target creature.
  • The Ilivais units in Ilivais X (especially the Phonos Weapons) tend to utilize emotion as a control scheme, at the very least. The Phonos Weapons and their pilots have ridiculously strong Drive Cores, and all of them except for Iriana have been reduced to near Soulless Shells that only live to feel their set emotion. Iriana has a wierd thing that's caused due to X's Drive Core being essentially a really powerful version of the standard, and uses this because she's trying to become an Emotionless Girl instead of a Love Freak. This at leasts partially explains why she isn't as good at piloting it as Mille.
  • In World of Warcraft, the warlock class used to have a spell called Curse of Recklessness. It would drive the target into overconfidence, making them immune to fear effects (and ordinary fleeing, if an NPC) and hit harder but causing them to drop their defence (reducing their armour stat). The spell was recently removed and the armour reduction effect combined with another curse.
  • Flinx, main protagonist of Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth universe, has empathic powers that were originally sense-only, but received an upgrade in Flinx in Flux that allowed him to fully access his latent projective powers. He has used this ability to induce catatonic fear and/or despair in his enemies, at one point immobilizing a youth gang simply by exposing them to a glimpse of the Ultimate Evil he's destined to fight. In Reunion, he uses his powers to seduce an employee of the Terran Shell complex in order to gain access to restricted data, and even manages to manipulate the computer itself.
  • The Gubru in The Uplift War have spheres which broadcast signals which produce certain emotional responses in anyone who gets too near. Fibbin, one of the main characters, encounters one set which broadcasts fear, and one which broadcasts self-consciousness. Fortunately, neither set is a match for a determined neo-chimp "with delusions of adequacy".
  • This was the basis for Dr. Steve's control over Oasis in Sluggy Freelance
  • The Psycho-Man, a villain from Marvel Comics, has three settings on his emotio-caster: Fear, Hate, and Doubt (the last of which has similar effects to Despair, but is less likely to produce suicides). Usually he is a serious villain who uses the 'caster to Mind Rape his foes, but on one occasion he attempted to get the rather stupid "hero" Drax the Destroyer to do his bidding and was brought to lament that he needed some new settings on the thing,--hate made Drax lash out at everything including him, while fear and doubt made him cower.
  • The Habbalah from In Nomine are able to impose anger, hatred, depression, love/attraction, fear, or nearly any other emotion upon others, they can also impose "emptiness" which is essentially a state of total emotionless apathy. However if the target successfully resists the emotions will sometimes backlash upon the demon, who can either accept them, and be affected by their own power, or absorb them and eat dissonance. If the demon is subjected to his own emptiness, though, there is a small chance that he may instantly realise he is a demon... since Habbalah by default are deluded into thinking they are angels.
  • A form of magic in Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy induces despair and fear.
  • Wonder Woman has an aura of truth, such that it's nearly impossible to lie to her face even when she's not using the magic lasso on you, and weaker minds are liable to just start spilling their guts from sheer proximity. Some writers extend this into a sort of aura of trust, making people calmer and more amenable in her presence to a supernatural degree even beyond what you'd expect from a hero of her stature. Genocide, a recent new foe of Wonder Woman's, being an evil frankenstein version of herself, has traded in the aura of truth and trust for the more standard villainous aura of despair and loathing.
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie has a "Point of View" gun, which forces the person hit to suddenly understand the wielder's point of view. Generally just distracting, but utterly incapacitating when Marvin uses it, as you can imagine.
  • Occurs in Metal Gear Solid 4. When Liquid shuts off SOP the first and second time, the soldiers affected immediately experience all the emotion the system had prevented them from feeling. This involves such graphic displays as soldiers unable to stop laughing as they beat the shit out of their comrades, and other soldiers simply killing themselves as fear and sadness overwhelms them.
  • The Psychic Powers sourcebook for GURPS includes a literal emotion bomb—when it goes off, everyone in range experiences the emotion preset into it. The Mind Control skill can be taken with an "Emotions Only" limitation, and the Terror advantage, of course, produces fear or "awe".
  • The "Emotion Control" power in Mutants and Masterminds, which can also be used to instill calm or hope.
  • In Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Hinamizawa Syndrome is at least as much a Fear/Paranoia Plague as a Hate Plague. Although the characters start attacking each other, rather than being motivated by outright anger, frequently, it's a poorly-conceived self-preservation method. Keiichi in Onikakushi-hen in particular comes to mind.
  • The Shamer Chronicles by Leene Kaaberboel has at its center two women who are Shamers. They can make people feel buried shame by looking them in the eyes. Conventionally in their society, it is used to find out if an accused is guilty or not, and to make criminals repent on their behaviour. The books also shows it backfiring in several ways.
  • The Kim Possible episode "Emotion Sickness" has both Kim and Shego accidentally implanted with emotion-altering computer chips, run off a remote-control device which then gets mistaken for a video game...
  • Two of the Rahkshi from Bionicle have this power; Turahk triggers fear and Kurahk triggers anger. Makuta Vamprah also wears a Mask of Hunger, allowing him to feed off emotions and other metaphysical things (like energy or a person's goodness).
  • Magus of El Goonish Shive can't cause or change emotions, but he can strongly amplify existing ones, causing people to act on what they are feeling at the moment. It doesn't always work; he was first seen[1] trying to amplify Ellen's impulse to zap Elliot with her Gender Bender beam, but she resisted it and zapped Tedd instead before passing out from the effort of resisting the impulse.
  • In the Firefly fanfic Forward, all of the above and more are used as weapons by the Inducer-type psychics, which are psychics who can manipulate human emotions. Lust, fear, and despair are used alternately on River when she confronts one of the Inducers, and Hate Plague is used on a bystander to make him shoot and critically injure Mal.
  • Paranoia Tabletop RPG. 2nd Edition changed the Empathy mutant ability so that the user could project his own emotions onto an opponent.
  • Firecrafters in the Codex Alera series can inflame the emotions of others. Senators and Lords of the realm that can firecraft generally use this ability during their speeches to influence the listeners. Also, Earthcrafters can create lust.
    • While politicians use firecrafting subtly, it goes Up to Eleven. In the first book Count Gram creates a fear strong enough to drive back a barbarian horde, and Gauis Sextus can knock entire legions of veteran soldiers unconscious through sheer mind-breaking terror.
  • Sweet Sorrow, an emotion manipulator from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, concentrates on the darker emotions. She once made a successful escape by making a crowd of innocent bystanders both terrified of and furious with the superheroes trying to capture her.
  • This is the schtick of the White Court vampires in The Dresden Files. The most common emotional affinity is lust, especially among House Raith, which is why they're often called succubi and incubi. Other branches specialize in fear or despair. (Though, interestingly, real, pure emotion can actively injure them; True Love burns lust-feeders, for example) In addition there's, Vittorio Malvora: because he decided to do some finagling outside of the traditional Planet of Hats line, he has the ability to use despair, plus lust, plus fear, all at the same time. It takes the Heroic Sacrifice of a freakin' fallen angel to keep it off Harry.
  • The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers episode "One Million Emotions" had the team seeking to recover a stolen "sensation doll" created as a piece of art by an extinct alien culture. Anyone who made direct contact with the doll would be deluged with "one million emotions" ALL AT ONCE (or as Goose called it, "the emotional electric chair"). One of the thieves who touched the doll was reduced to an insane wreck.[2]
  • Freya's "vybe" power in the webcomic Magellan falls into this category. In a more benign application, she can make a large group of people collapse into helpless laughter, a good way to break up a fight. In more desperate circumstances, though, she can do a "full-spectrum vybe" which apparently makes someone experience every possible emotion simultaneously at full force, enough to render them catatonic for hours or days.
  • An episode of the Aladdin TV series, "The Flawed Couple", had a Villain Team-Up between Abis Mal and Mecanicles involving magical stones that could alter people's moods. Aladdin managed to break the fear one by focusing on the fact that Jasmine was in danger.
  • The Eureka episode "Alienated", has several characters unknowingly hit by an experimental beam that causes extreme paranoia, while watching a movie about an Alien Invasion. They kidnap a visiting senator, who they're sure is being controlled by an alien.
  • Changeling: The Lost offers several Emotion Bombs to the members of the Great Courts. Each Court (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) has a Fleeting [Season] Contract list centered around manipulation of the Court's ruling emotion (desire, wrath, fear, sorrow). In addition, high-powered changelings have the ability to inflict bedlam, which hits everyone in the immediate area with an intense dose of an emotion.
  • Geist: the Sin-Eaters likewise has various ways to make this work through the Passion Key. The Passion Boneyard allows a Sin-Eater to enter a trance and assume control over an area, where he can manipulate the emotions of everyone therein (and gain benefits when they act towards a certain emotional resonance). The Passion Curse, on the other hand, hits a target with an uncontrollable burst of the Sin-Eater's choice of emotion... and higher levels make it spread to everyone the target touches.
  • The Seven Deadly Sins from The DCU are demons who can make people fall under the influence of their respective sins. One villain Sabbac briefly merged with all seven demons and gained their powers. The first thing he did was to use Lust to make an entire prison complex have a massive orgy just for kicks.
  • Wayward Sons: Frodaity can do this to anyone. She's used it to make people pass out from lust (directed at her), and caused sadness in a couple of enemies so they couldn't fight back (though that was a staged fight).
  • The Force power known as Battle Meditation works by bolstering the confidence, courage, and such of the practitioner's allies while at the same time sapping the enemy's will to fight and causing despair and a huge morale drop. It's a very difficult and complicated power, and is very rare; users include Oppo Rancisis and Bastila Shan.
  • At least four Touhou characters are known to directly manipulate emotions. The Prismriver Sisters do so through Magic Music: Lunasa induces depression, Merlin induces manic delight, and Lyrica neutralizes feelings altogether. Meanwhile, in former Hell, there lives a Green-Eyed Monster who can inflict her jealousy on others (and frequently does, since she can't travel freely and is mad with envy for those who can, driving her to attack them).
  1. ↑ The main cast can't see him, only the reader and a few others
  2. ↑ He got better in later episodes, though.
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