History Main / LeakingCanOFEvil

[[folder:Fanworks]]

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''Film/TimeBandits'', [[BigBad Evil]] has been locked away in the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness by The Supreme Being. He plots on acquiring the McGuffin map that would allow him to escape and wreak havoc upon all creation. Albeit he's locked away, he can still MindControl the weak-willed bandits across time and space to lead the group into his lair with the coveted map.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammere40000'': In the prologue to the ''Literature/SpaceWolf'' novel ''Ragnar's Claw'', set about a century after the rest of the book, a Chaos cultist tells Ragnar that "Botchulaz sends his regards." In the book proper the Inquisition and Ragnar's squad of Space Wolves end up having to [[spoiler:repair the seals on an Eldar construct keeping a Great Unclean One confined]].

* In prologue to the ''Literature/SpaceWolf'' novel ''Ragnar's Claw'', set about a century after the rest of the book, a Chaos cultist tells Ragnar that "Botchulaz sends his regards." In the book proper the Inquisition and Ragnar's squad of Space Wolves end up having to [[spoiler:repair the seals on an eldar construct keeping a Great Unclean One confined]].

* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', the Dark One is sealed outside of reality. In the Age of Legends, a bore was made into its prison, and it wreaked havoc across the world until a seal was made. Throughout the series, the seal is weakening, and the crux of the plot is finding a way to restore it before the Dark One can escape and unravel the world. Ultimately, it is decided that the only way to stop the leaking is to [[spoiler:break the seals altogether and essentially unmake the Bore from scratch]].
* This is a major staple of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos, most famously appearing in the short story ''Literature/CallOfCthulhu''. Despite being dead and trapped within the sunken city of R'lyeh, the eponymous Old One is still capable of influencing certain humans through their dreams, guiding them to release him [[WhenThePlanetsAlign when the stars are right]].
* In ''Literature/TheElenium'', the [[EldritchAbomination Elder God]] [[BigBad Azash]] was imprisoned by the rebelling Younger Gods inside a tiny clay idol of himself. However, even though he can't move around or use most of his powers directly anymore, Azash can still ''talk'' to people physically near his idol, vector magical power to his minions, and send his spirit into any copy of the idol that has been properly prepared.
* Frequently seen in ''Literature/TheOldKingdom.'' Kerrigor's sarcophagus, when unearthed, is so riddled with Free Magic that it makes most people who approach it feel nauseated and weak. And the evil that is buried at the Red Lake has an ability to resist the Clayr's scrying, even when they focus their wills there. [[spoiler: When unearthed, the hemispheres not only induce sickness, but they call down lightning -- constant lightning.]]
* In Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy, the OmnicidalManiac BigBad Ruin was sealed away millennia ago by its opposite number, but it still has a limited ability to influence various characters.
* In ''Literature/{{Pact}}'', the [[EldritchAbomination abstract demon]], Ur, is bound inside of an old factory. As Ur is a creature of entropy distilled, however, its influence causes the land around it to decay-and with it, the binding that holds Ur back from destroying nearby Toronto.
* Even though the EldritchAbomination Wyrm was sealed underneath the surface of the Earth by God Himself in ''Literature/TheBookOfTheDunCow'', he is still able to use his DreamWeaver powers to corrupt and influence the animals on the surface.

** Harry Dresden suspects, but doesn't know for exact certainty, [[ThirtyPiecesOfSilver the Coin of the Blackened Denarius]] have a small leakage from the FallenAngel each coin contains. While trapped in the ancient silver, Harry fears there could be some "bad luck" aura about them to make people notice them and pick them up, or bounce away from a dead host in such a way it would hit another human and get their attention.

* In ''Literature/TheBalancedSword'', the region called Moonshade Hollow was once prosperous, but is now dark and twisted and home to many strange monsters. When the protagonists explore it, they learn that this is due to having one of the Great Wyrms, dark counterparts of the Dragon Gods, imprisoned beneath it.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' uses this one from time to time. In ''The Satan Pit'', the devil himself is imprisoned inside a planet, trying to free himself by possessing members of a space station on the surface, and their friendly, if creepy alien servants.
** In ''Pyramids of Mars'' despite being paralyzed in an Egyptian Tomb, [[OmnicidalManiac Sutekh]] is able to control the archaeologist Marcus Scarman who entered the Tomb and Mummies even when they are working in England. Finally he focuses his power through Marcus to destroy the Eye of Horus keeping him imprisoned even though Marcus has to travel to Mars to achieve this.
** Fenric in ''The Curse of Fenric'' despite being sealed in a Flask has been manipulating events for the past two seasons to free himself and destroy Earth, even transporting people through time.
* ''Series/OnceUponATime:'' The evil force known as the Darkness is this. Long ago, [[Disney/{{Fantasia}} the Sorcerer]] fought the Darkness and sealed it inside a willing human being and used a magical dagger created from a shard of the sword Excalibur to control them. This being became the first in a long line of beings known as "The Dark One" and appeared as a dark mage of unfathomable power [[TheCorruption and a green scaly appearance]] only a mother could love. So long as the dagger was held by the forces of good, they could control the Dark One and keep him/her from ravaging the land. Unfortunately [[Characters/OnceUponATimeMainVillains one of the latest Dark Ones]] held onto the dagger and was instead tempered from laying waste to the world by his remaining humanity embodied by his love for his son and desire to reunite with him.
* ''Series/MahouSentaiMagiranger'' / ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' - N. Ma / TheMaster spends most of the series imprisoned, but still conscious enough to give orders to his subordinates. The whole bunch of them, in turn, were sealed in the Underworld by the previous generation but a powerful enough magic user can send a few to the human world at a time - just enough for your average monster-of-the-week plot, but not enough for a total overrunning of the world.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder: Web Original]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MightyMax'':
** Skullmaster spends the first season sealed up inside the Earth's core, but still manages to command his various minions on the surface.
** In the episode "Souls of Talon" the titular Talon, a [[YourSoulIsMine soul-devouring]] monster from the astral plane, throws itself against the gateway to the physical world in an attempt to escape. Unbeknownst to Talon, its attack causes natural disasters in the human world, which draws the attention of Max, Norman, and Virgil.

* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV'' reveals that the solar system it takes place in is actually an enormous seal on a can that holds a dreadful BiggerBad called The Profound Darkness. The seal is not intact and every millennium it leaks Dark Force, the BigBad of the previous three games. And because Dark Force manages to destroy one of the planets in ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarII'', the leak has become even bigger...

* The [[GodOfEvil Kishin]] [[TheBigBad Asura]] from ''Manga/SoulEater'' was sealed in a bag made of his own skin. Even after this, his [[TheCorruption madness]] is strong enough to warp the statue of a god holding his container and make everyone who tries to approach it [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness see horrible hallucinations]]. However, it is only when Asura is freed that his madness is able to spread all over the world.

* ''Series/MahouSentaiMagiranger'' / ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' - N. Ma / TheMaster spends most of the series imprisoned, but still conscious enough to give orders to his subordinates.

* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu''. In his tomb on the sunken isle of R'lyeh dead Cthulhu lies dreaming. True to [[CthulhuMythos the source material]] Cthulhu is capable of communicating with his followers through their dreams. In the ''Cthulhu Now'' supplement adventure "Dreams Dark and Deadly", Cthulhu was able to contact the minds of dreaming people and tried to use their magic points to create an avatar of himself that didn't need [[WhenThePlanetsAlign the stars to be right]] to exist.

* Even though the EldritchAbomination Wyrm was sealed underneath the surface of the Earth by God himself in ''Literature/TheBookOfTheDunCow'', he is still able to use his DreamWeaver powers to corrupt and influence the animals on the surface.

* In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' season 1, BigBad TheMaster is trapped underground inside the Hellmouth but he has minions who work to free him, Darla being the one with the most character development. He almost gets out a couple of times, and during one episode where people's nightmares come true he's seen free and walking around Sunnydale in Buffy's nightmare.

** In ''Pyramids of Mars'' despite being paralyzed in an Egyptian Tomb [[OmnicidalManiac Sutekh]] is able to control the archaeologist Marcus Scarman who entered the Tomb and Mummies even when they are working in England. Finally he focuses his power through Marcus to destroy the Eye of Horus keeping him imprisoned even though Marcus has to travel to Mars to achieve this.

* A specialty of daemonically-possessed weapons in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Using them gradually brings you under the daemon's control (or just makes you go insane, which is often the same thing). The ''40k'' video game ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar II: Chaos Rising'' has an entire game mechanic based on this, to determine which member of your squad becomes the traitor.

* The creator of Phyrexia, Yawgmoth, was the BigBad of the storyline of ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' until the Invasion block, where it was defeated by Jerrard Capashen and his crew with the activation of the Legacy Weapon. In the Time Spiral block we learn that Urborg, the land where Yawgmoth was defeated is still tainted by the blood, oil and pieces of phyrexian corpses more than three hundred years later. (Urborg was an [[SwampsAreEvil evil swamp]] to begin with, but it turned out even worse.) When [[spoiler: Lord Windgrace sacrificed himself to close the rift over Urborg he infused part of his essence in the land to keep it in check and prevent an ulterior spreading of the phyrexian infection.]] Unfortunately, this still failed to prevent the spread of Phyrexian corruption [[spoiler:since Karn the Silver Golem's heartstone was Phyrexian in origin and leaked Phyrexian oil. The end result was "New Phyrexia".]]

** The page image is Calamity Ganon from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', which was locked up in Hyrule Castle for one hundred years. By the time the game proper begins, Ganon has reclaimed enough power to manifest itself as a mass of fog-like corruption surrounding the castle and resurrect monsters during a [[BadMoonRising Blood Moon]]. Worse yet, there's a very real possibility that Ganon will soon break out of its can and destroy what's left of Hyrule unless Link can put it down for good.

* In ''VideoGame/DantesInferno'' {{Satan}} was able to send his essence out from Hell and corrupt others to do as he wishes. He escapes his secondary prison (a giant EldritchAbomination body) to fight Dante, but in the end, [[spoiler: Dante uses the souls he absolved in Hell to defeat Lucifer and seal him back in the 9th Pit of Hell (with a stronger seal this time). However, he somehow manages to escape as the ending reveals he transforms into a snake.]]
* Corypheus, the ancient sentient Darkspawn in the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' series, has been sealed away by the Grey Wardens since the First Blight, but is still able to telepathically enthrall individuals in the general vicinity of his prison, who then devote their lives to finding a way to break him out (which involves trying to kill the PlayerCharacter and his/her sibling in the ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' DLC ''Legacy''). Corypheus is only doing so subconsciously; upon being freed, he seems totally unaware of his darkspawn nature or even the fact he has been locked away for centuries.

* In ''VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon'', the [[RealityWarper exceptionally powerful]] and [[UnstoppableRage profoundly enraged]] psychic Alma was having a measurable effect upon the outside world long before her vault was opened, causing general malaise among the people of Fairport - especially the ones who lived nearby. Some of Armacham's less-informed staff members thought it might be some sort of chemical contamination and tested the water for it, of course finding nothing. There was also the matter of the Synchronicity Events, when she managed to touch the mind of Paxton Fettel and he went on a murderous psychically-powered rampage. First time, he was a young boy, so several people died, but he didn't get beyond getting the Origin facility shut down. The second time, he was, as aptly described in a voicemail message you can find, "a highly trained military commander with a telepathic link to hundreds of soldiers that don't think for themselves". The total calamity that this causes kickstarts the first game.

* ''WebVideo/BedtimeStoriesYoutubeChannel'' has the Celle Neues Rathaus, a town hall whose basement section was allegedly used by members the SS [[{{Ghostapo}} in experimenting with the occult]]. Just before the Allies occupied the town, they had said basement flooded with water. After an incident involving 2 US Navy divers going missing and one [[GoMadFromTheRevelation suffering PTSD]] from being stalked [[HumanoidAbomination whatever was lurking down there]], the British Army decided to have the accesses to the basement sealed with concrete. But despite this, paranormal activity continued for decades afterward, with both British and German soldiers stationed in the area reporting strange and unexplained phenomena.

-->-- '''Lord Windgrace''', {{flavor text}} of [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=131005 "Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth"]], ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''

* In ''Anime/YuGiOh'', the power of the Millenium Items is supposedly confined to the items themselves until invoked (willingly or not) by a user. However, for the Millenium Puzzle and the Millenium Ring in particular, the spirits within appear able to used their shadow powers to limited degree anyway, even without a host.

[[quoteright:350: [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_legend_of_zelda_calamity_ganon.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:How much time do we have left?]]

** From what is known about ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', a beast known as the Calamity Ganon, which may very well ''be'' the aforementioned, was locked up in Hyrule Castle over the past hundred years. But the black-and-purple fog that its corruption manifests as is leaking from the castle as of late with no end in sight. It's Link's job to do something about that.

* In Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy, the OmnicidalManiac BigBad Ruin was sealed away millennia ago by it's opposite number, but it still has a limited ability to influence various characters.
* In ''Literature/{{Pact}}'', the [[EldritchAbomination abstract demon]], Ur, is bound inside of an old factory. As Ur is a creature of entropy distilled, however, it's influence causes the land around it to decay-and with it, the binding that holds Ur back from destroying nearby Toronto.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_legend_of_zelda_calamity_ganon.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:How much time do we have left?]]

Long, long ago, there existed a terrible evil. The people of the time managed to [[CapturedSuperEntity defeat the evil and seal it away]] never to return. There's just one problem: they may have sealed away the being itself, but they didn't manage to completely seal away its power.

* In ''WebComic/MeatShield'' the ancient half-dragon demon Disparoxus is imprisoned in a magic seal inside a cave, but if somebody actually comes into the cave and finds the seal he can talk to them, and he gives one guy a medallion the lets him talk and cast spells through it (although he only uses the latter when his dupe [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlives his usefulness]]).

* ''ComicBook/{{Shadowpact}}'' reveals that the slumbering, highly powerful and ''very'' evil sorcerer Dr. Gotham has been sleeping beneath (wait for it) [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Gotham City]] for centuries. He inadvertently influenced the city into becoming a crime ridden cesspool with a penchant for attracting costumed lunatics.

* ''Series/OnceUponATime:'' The evil force known as the Darkness is this. Long ago, Merlin the Sorcerer fought the Darkness and sealed it inside a willing human being and used a magical dagger created from a shard of the sword Excalibur to control them. This being became the first in a long line of beings known as "The Dark One" and appeared as a dark mage of unfathomable power [[TheCorruption and a green scaly appearance]] only a mother could love. So long as the dagger was held by the forces of good, they could control the Dark One and keep him/her from ravaging the land. Unfortunately [[Characters/OnceUponATimeMainVillains one of the latest Dark Ones]] held onto the dagger and was instead tempered from laying waste to the world by his remaining humanity embodied by his love for his son and desire to reunite with him.

* ''Series/OnceUponATime:'' [[spoiler:The darkness is this. Long ago, Merlin fought the darkness and sealed it inside a willing human being and used a magical dagger created from a shard of the sword Excalibur to control them. This being became the first in a long line of beings known as "The Dark One" and appeared as a dark mage of unfathomable power [[TheCorruption and a green scaly appearance]] only a mother could love. So long as the dagger was held by the forces of good, they could control the Dark One and keep him/her from ravaging the land. Unfortunately [[Characters/OnceUponATimeRumplestiltskin one of the latest Dark Ones]] held onto the dagger and was instead tempered from laying waste to the world by his remaining humanity embodied by his love for his son and desire to reunite with him.]]

* Ganon was sealed away into the Dark World by the seven sages in the backstory of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', but used his evil influence to recruit Agahnim. The mage infiltrates Hyrule Castle and sets into motion Ganon's plans to capture the seven maidens and break the seal made by the seven sages.
** He manages to pull a similar stunt in ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriors''. After having his souls broken into four pieces and sealed away in the depths of space and time, he still had enough power to corrupt the sorceress Cia to recover the pieces, allowing for his resurrection.

* ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''. The demon Bat'Zul, which was sealed under Cap Au Diable in the Rogue Isles. He was sealed properly, until a MadScientist realize he could drain electrical energy from the demon to provide cheap and efficient power to the city... with the small side effect of lightning demons occasionally jumping out of the power lines.

* Likewise, in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'', [[spoiler:Zemus' can does not prevent him from mind-controlling certain people, like Golbez and possibly Kain. Unlike Exdeath, Zemus never actually leaves his can at all; the heroes raid it in the end.]]