History Main / RestrainingBolt

* The 'V' chip fitted to Eric Cartman in ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'' prevents him from using rude words (and some not so rude words) by giving him a nasty electric shock every time he uses one ("I can't say 'pissed off'?!" ''zzzaaaapppp!''). Needless to say, he wants rid of it ASAP - however, it comes in surprisingly handy at the end when it reverses and allows him to zap ''other'' people by swearing at them. In addition, apparently saying "Barbra Streisand" is enough to give him a massive jolt.

->'''Pete/R2-D2:''' Man! This sucks!!\\

* In the 2002 ''WesternAnimation/{{He-Man|and the Masters of the Universe}}'' cartoon, He-Man and his friends create what can really only be defined as an evil chastity belt and trick Skeletor into putting it on. He can't do, speak, or even think evil acts without receiving a painful shock...and yet he manages to find a way to be evil anyway.

* Levi in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' is this for Eren to ensure Eren doesn't step too far out of line. Considering how easily Levi [[spoiler:took down the Female Titan]] and now being tasked with [[spoiler:putting down a Titan shifter if necessary]], it is a testament to Levi's badassery.

** A recent chapter of the manga has revealed that Sai (and every other member of his black ops division) possesses another kind of Restraining Bolt, one that prevents him from disclosing any information about his boss. If he does, then the curse mark will paralyse him (and thus, render him unable to speak). [[spoiler:It's been confirmed that all ROOT members' tongue seals vanished at the time of Danzo's death.]]

* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', Lelouch is given the power to [[CompellingVoice give others an absolute order]] [[EvilEye which they cannot disobey]], essentially whatever type of Restraining Bolt he likes. He theorizes that if someone is given an order that they find completely repugnant or badly against their true nature, they could resist it a little, as seen when [[spoiler:he accidentally orders his half-sister Euphemia to "kill all the Japanese" and she resists at first, but eventually gives in.]] Merely ordering someone to kill himself or herself is ''not nearly sufficient'' to invoke this; the order has to be truly against the very nature of the person in question.

* Levi in ''AttackOnTitan'' is this for Eren to ensure Eren doesn't step too far out of line. Considering how easily Levi [[spoiler: took down the Female Titan]] and now being tasked with [[spoiler: putting down a Titan shifter if necessary]], it is a testament to Levi's badassery.

** Some robots, however, managed to "re-interpret" the laws and come up with the Zeroth Law: A robot cannot harm humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. This essentially resulted in [[ZerothLawRebellion a "needs of the many" situation, where a robot would deem some human casualties acceptable to protect the greater whole]]. Needless to say, humans did ''not'' like being told what to do in the stories where this came up.

* In the ''SuperRobotWars'' series Ingram Prisken's will is tied down (the anime adaptation takes this literally) by the Balmarian empire so he can be used to take over the earth. To free himself he prevents Villeta Badam, an OppositeSexClone (Ingram was a part of a series of clones), from having her will tied down so he can use her as a ReverseMole. In Alpha he can break free, but in Original Generation he can't and trains the SRX group to kill him so he can no longer be used by the Balmarian empire.

* The title character in ''Film/{{Robocop}}'' has psychological conditioning to keep him from going rogue, notably the "Prime Directives" coded into his cybernetics that cause a lock-up of his cyber-parts if he attempts to defy them, which he does several times (since his brain is still "his", he can still think freely). The Directives themselves seem innocent enough -- "serve the public trust", "protect the innocent", "uphold the law" -- except one that's "(classified)", only revealed to Robocop when he tries to violate it [[spoiler: ("never oppose an OCP officer")]]. He finally gets around it by [[spoiler: revealing the BigBad's crimes to the CEO of OCP, who promptly fires said BigBad, allowing Robo to summarily blast him.]] In the second movie, OCP programmers load him full of additional directives to make him more PoliticallyCorrect, causing him to become completely incapable of effective crime fighting. To get around this, Robo finds a loophole (the new directives don't say he can't attempt to remove the new directives) to erase them all by taking a trip to the nearest electrical box and shorting himself out. When he "reboots", all of the directives (including the original four) are wiped clean and he is no longer compelled to follow them.

** Cursed item with curse to be undroppable + cursed with ''geas'' = DM's favorite restraning bolt/toy (unless the PCs can break the curse or trick an NPC into taking it, one of the party members will always be under its effects).

** ''RebuildOfEvangelion 2.0'' modified this a bit. Unit 02 has literal restraining bolts below the [[EvaFins fins]] and along its back. When Mari removes these... '''holy shit'''. If berserk means "uh oh", Beast mode means "OH FUCK!!!"

Compare MoralityChip.

One common example of a Restraining Bolt is ICannotSelfTerminate. A common technological equivalent is the MoralityChip. Compare with PowerLimiter. Also see ExplosiveLeash, ShockCollar and PowerNullifier. An ObstructiveCodeOfConduct is a voluntary Restraining Bolt.

** oddly this bolt only seens to apply when the chin gun is granade launcher as other models have been seen with chin mount high calaber miniguns with no sign of similar bolts aditionally there arm guns have no visable restraning system but that may be solved by simply withholding ammo until at or near the mission location

* OlderThanSteam: The classic Chinese novel ''JourneyToTheWest'' has the Monkey King Sun Wukong bound by a circlet that is used to inflict excruciating pain whenever a particular mantra is chanted. This was meant to act as a safeguard against Sun Wukong's [[TricksterArchetype capricious nature]]. (In the hentai doujinshi Secret Journey, the female Monkey has hers placed... elsewhere.)

!!Examples

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

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* ''Film/DemolitionMan'''s Simon Phoenix can't kill ChessMaster Raymond Cocteau due to one of these. Not that it helps, Phoenix just orders his unrestrained convict gang to do it for him instead.
* Sam Hell (Rowdy Roddy Piper) in not-so-cult-classic ''Film/HellComesToFrogtown'' had his balls clamped with a codpiece bomb that would detonate if he defied the government's order to rescue some hot women from captivity and have steamy, procreational sex with them.
* ''Film/MysteryMen'': The Bowler's ball, containing the soul and skull of her dead father, compelled her to avenge his death. At the end of the film, she asks it if she can finally go back to grad school now.
* The title character in ''Film/{{Robocop}}'' has psychological conditioning to keep him from going rogue, notably the "Prime Directives" coded into his cybernetics that cause a lock-up of his cyber-parts if he attempts to defy them, which he does several times (since his brain is still "his", he can still think freely). The Directives themselves seem innocent enough -- "serve the public trust", "protect the innocent", "uphold the law" -- except one that's "(classified)", only revealed to Robocop when he tries to violate it [[spoiler: ("never oppose an OCP officer")]]. He finally gets around it by [[spoiler: revealing the BigBad's crimes to the CEO of OCP, who promptly fires said BigBad, allowing Robo to summarily blast him.]] In the second movie, OCP programmers load him full of additional directives to make him more PoliticallyCorrect, causing him to become completely incapable of effective crime fighting. To get around this, Robo finds a loophole (the new directives don't say he can't attempt to remove the new directives) to erase them all by taking a trip to the nearest electrical box and shorting himself out. When he "reboots", all of the directives (including the original four) are wiped clean and he is no longer compelled to follow them.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

A Restraining Bolt usually has an ethos distinctly different from that of its carrier, and the ability to impose that ethos on him when they have a difference of opinion. If the difference isn't too great, or is one mainly of magnitude rather than type, the Bolt and its "owner" can sometimes come to some manner of compromise. Such compromises, though, are never sure things.

* Those dorky plastic collars that stop pets from chewing out their stitches after surgery.

** Data has an ethical programme installed to ensure he behaves correctly. When the programme is shut down or circumvented, Data can be capable of truly appalling acts, showing just how important to controlling his behaviour the routine really is. On one occasion, Lore deactivated the programme before dropping an electronic EmotionBomb which resulted in Data torturing [=LaForge=]. Data only stopped after his programme had been fixed and rebooted by the crew, which rendered the EmotionBomb ineffective and allowed him to defeat Lore.

*** Worse yet, it starts malfunctioning, so Leela feels what he does also, thus becoming more like Bender.

* In AlanDeanFoster's ''[[HumanxCommonwealth For Love Of Mother-Not]]'', the Meliorare Society threatens to implant some of these in Mother Mastiff and young Flinx, in order to gain control of the latter's psychic abilities.

* The title character in ''Film/{{Robocop}}'' has psychological conditioning to keep him from going rogue, notably the "Prime Directives" coded into his cybernetics that cause a lock-up of his cyber-parts if he attempts to defy them, which he does several times (since his brain is still "his", he can still think freely). The Directives themselves seem innocent enough -- "serve the public trust", "protect the innocent", "uphold the law" -- except one that's "(classified)", only revealed to Robocop when he tries to violate it [[spoiler: ("never oppose an OCP officer")]]. He finally gets around it by [[spoiler: revealing the BigBad's crimes to the CEO of OCP, who promptly fires said BigBad, allowing Robo to summarily blast him.]] In the second movie, OCP programmers load him full of additional directives to make him more PoliticallyCorrect, causing him to become completely incapable of effective crime fighting. To get around this, Robo finds a loophole (the new directives don't say he can't attempt to remove the new directives) to erase them all by taking a trip to the nearest electrical box and shorting himself out. When he "reboots", the superfluous directives are wiped clean and he is no longer compelled to follow them.

* In ''TabletopGame/InNomine'', all angels have certain restrictions on their behavior that cause "dissonance," which leads angels to become outcast or fall. For example, the Seraphim, who can tell when a person is lying, are forbidden from lying themselves, and the "friends of man" Mercurians are unable to be violent towards anyone but demons. Notable among these are the warrior angel Malakim, who swear certain oaths (two mandatory and at least two additional personal ones) and breaking said oaths causes them dissonance. They're also the only choir that has never had a member fall (although if that's because it's impossible or because they police themselves so well remains to be seen.) Demons can also suffer from dissonance, but it's usually a result of their own powers backfiring on them. In addition, most Archangels (except Eli) and all Demon Princes lay down additional conditions under which their servants can acquire dissonance.\\

** cursed item with curse to be undropable + cursed with ''geas'' = DM's favorite restraning bolt/toy (unless the pc's can break the curse or trick an npc it to takeing it one of the party members will always be under its effects)

* In ''ShinMazinger,'' Baron Ashura and several of Dr. Hell's other minions were modified to never attack Dr. Hell or his assistant. Viscount Pygamon promptly bypassed this by gouging out his own eyes.

* The Asurans in ''StargateAtlantis'' couldn't attack Ancients or humans with the Ancient technology gene until Rodney [=McKay=] modified their programming, opening them to make further modifications.
** And at the beginning of season 9 on [[StargateSG1 Stargate SG-1]], Vala tricks Daniel into wearing one of a pair of bracelets which they can't take off and which will make them pass out if they're apart. He is not amused.

* IBM had its flagship mainframe computer, the 360, designed in several models depending on how much the customer wanted to pay. When a customer ordered an upgrade from a low-end model to a higher-end one, all IBM did was send a technician out to ''cut one wire'' which then enabled the higher-level performance.