History Main / GrandTheftMe

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': [[Characters/AmphibiaTheCore The Core]] uploads itself into Marcy Wu to have a living host in order to progress its plans, though it was apparently created in the first place precisely to avoid its individual minds' natural death.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': [[Characters/AmphibiaTheCore The Core]] uploads itself into [[Characters/AmphibiaMarcyWu Marcy Wu]] to have a living host in order to progress its plans, though it was apparently created in the first place precisely to avoid its individual minds' natural death.

* An excellent story, "King's Crown", from the anthology ''Magazine/HeavyMetal'': in a certain land, [[AsskickingLeadsToLeadership a tournament is held every so often to choose the strongest man to be the new king]]. Entrants must be vital and free of diseases. Every winner becomes a cruel tyrant, but the hero of the story (called weak and frail all his life) wants to become ruler and end the reign of evil. He wins, and at his "coronation", he's drugged, bound, his skull is cut open by robot surgeons (after he wakes up), his brain is crudely removed over his screaming protests, and the brain of the previous king is transplanted from his freshly-dead, used up, obese corpse. In death, however, the hero is victorious. The stress of the surgery sets off his congenital heart defect, and the tyrant is slain.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In "Sock Opera", [[Characters/GravityFallsDipperPines Dipper Pines]] agrees to let Bill Cipher take a puppet, thinking that Bill meant one of the sock puppets nearby and that Bill would give Dipper the password for the laptop he'd found in a previous episode (or at the very least help him figure it out, since he'd promised "a hint"). This does not go particularly well - when Dipper agrees out of desperation, Bill reveals that ''Dipper'' [[ExactWords was the puppet in question]], and [[DemonicPossession promptly possesses him]]. On top of that, the "hint" wasn't even for the laptop's password.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In "Sock Opera", [[Characters/GravityFallsDipperPines Dipper Pines]] agrees to let [[Characters/GravityFallsBillCipher Bill Cipher]] take a puppet, thinking that Bill meant one of the sock puppets nearby and that Bill would give Dipper the password for the laptop he'd found in a previous episode (or at the very least help him figure it out, since he'd promised "a hint"). This does not go particularly well - when Dipper agrees out of desperation, Bill reveals that ''Dipper'' [[ExactWords was the puppet in question]], and [[DemonicPossession promptly possesses him]]. On top of that, the "hint" wasn't even for the laptop's password.

* In ''Franchise/ChildsPlay'', SerialKiller Charles Lee Ray transfers his soul into [[PerversePuppet a doll named Chucky]] and then spends much of the rest of the series trying to transfer into a human body... until he suddenly has the epiphany that he actually digs being a killer doll and that humanity is overrated.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In "Sock Opera", Dipper agrees to let Bill take a puppet, thinking that Bill meant one of the sock puppets nearby and that Bill would give Dipper the password for the laptop he'd found in a previous episode (or at the very least help him figure it out, since he'd promised "a hint"). This does not go particularly well - when Dipper agrees out of desperation, Bill reveals that ''Dipper'' [[ExactWords was the puppet in question]], and [[DemonicPossession promptly possesses him]]. On top of that, the "hint" wasn't even for the laptop's password.

* ''Film/{{Possessor}}'' is about a woman who is paid to use technology to possess the bodies of targets and commit murder/suicides so that the deaths cannot be traced back to their real source.

*** In ''ComicBook/NewXMen'', Xavier is revealed to have been born with an EldritchAbomination twin sister, who he tried to kill in the womb right before his birth. The fight in the womb led to Xavier's mom going into premature labor and his sister Cassandra (who was born with adult intelligence and communication skills à la Stewie from ''Family Guy'') being mortally wounded and declared still born. Xavier's parents then kept him from ever knowing about his sister until she came back into his life and swapped bodies with him decades later.

** This is the basis of the ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'' comic series. Which narrates the story of [[spoiler:Dr. Octopus after he had swapped bodies with Spider-Man, leaving the hero to die trapped in Ock's broken body and leaving the villain in a healthy, heroic body with no one realizing anything. A remnant of Peter remains in Otto's body and in the end, after realizing that he had failed to live up to Spider-Man's legacy, Ock erases his own memories and hands control back to Peter.]]

*** In one '80s story (''Uncanny X-Men'' #151-#152), the Hellfire Club attempts to take the X-Men down by having the White Queen switch bodies with Storm. Turns out that controlling the weather without causing a disaster is much, much harder than Storm makes it look.

*** A storyline where Xavier is revealed to have been born with an EldritchAbomination twin sister, who he tried to kill in the womb right before his birth. The fight in the womb led to Xavier's mom going into premature labor and his sister Cassandra (who was born with adult intelligence and communication skills à la Stewie from ''Family Guy'') being mortally wounded and declared still-born. Xavier's parents then kept him from ever knowing about his sister until she came back into his life and swapped bodies with him decades later.
*** Betsy Braddock, aka ComicBook/{{Psylocke}} was a British superheroine who - after a very convoluted series of events even by 90's X-Men storyline standards - thought she'd been changed to appear Asian, only to find out she'd actually had her mind swapped with a Japanese assassin named Kwannon (who happened to have identical powers to Betsy's ... and to have purple hair like Betsy). Eventually, Kwannon died while still in Betsy's original body, and Betsy stayed Asian (physically, at least) for 20 years before the swap was eventually undone.

* In ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'', Makuta Teridax [[spoiler: Steals Mata Nui's HumongousMecha body which contains the entire Matoran Universe.]] On a smaller scale, he also briefly possessed Matoro's body and an old robot, and Lewa once had his body stolen by an EldritchAbomination.

* In ''[[Fanfic/ATroublesomeCharge Ghost Roads]'', this is Xue Yang's spirit's M.O., going between victims so that he can stay around. [[spoiler: Horrifyingly, he gets to Lan Sizhui like this]].

* This is the big plan of [[spoiler:the Curious Cat]] in ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' Volume 9. [[spoiler: believing that he needs a body to be able to leave the Ever After and enter Remnant, the Curious Cat takes notice of and emotionally manipulates Ruby, who is suffering from the events of Volume 7 and 8, into crossing the DespairEventHorizon so he can possess her body. However, [[SpannerInTheWorks Neo's own plan against Ruby ruins that]] when she seemingly makes her DrivenToSuicide and she ends up Ascending. However, they end up taking over Neo's body as she ends up falling past that horizon once she realizes VengeanceFeelsEmpty]].

* ([[AntiHero Anti-]])heroic example in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' where Bender gets killed and haunts every machine Fry comes across eventually driving him to live on an Amish planet to cut himself off from all technology. When Fry is in danger of being crushed by a runaway spherical structure Bender jumps into the Robot Devil (the only living robot there) to push Fry out of the way. At the end he gets sent to Robot Heaven, where he jumps into Robot God and makes him beat himself up until he sends him back to Earth.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "Da Flippity Flop", Klaus is given the chance to get his human body back but Stan hesitates. When Stan finally takes Klaus to the CIA a week later they find his body decayed because it wasn't kept frozen, so Klaus angrily bludgeons Stan with a margarita pitcher and switches bodies with him while he's knocked out. Stan chases down Klaus in the latter's decaying old body while Klaus is trying to perform the titular skiing stunt and in the end they go back to normal, but now Stan has more respect for him.

** Flash and Lex Luthor in "The Great Brain Robbery."

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'', Mozenrath tries to swap bodies with Aladdin since he (Mozenrath) is dying, but due to interference, both are stuck in Aladdin's body.

* BigBad Lord John Whorfin of ''Film/TheAdventuresOfBuckarooBanzaiAcrossThe8thDimension'' crosses into our dimension by possessing the body of Dr. Emilio Lizardo. Since no hints are given that he's still in there somewhere and the possibility of saving him never comes up, we're left to assume the good doctor's consciousness was unfortunately wiped out in the process.

*** In one '80s story, the Hellfire Club attempts to take the X-Men down by having the White Queen switch bodies with Storm. Turns out that controlling the weather without causing a disaster is much, much harder than Storm makes it look.
*** On the other hand, when she inadvertently takes over Iceman's body after having spent a long time in a coma, she proceeded to use his powers in ways he never even imagined before, which gave him a some self-esteem problems for awhile.

A more modern version is the idea of raising [[CloningBlues a clone]] for the purpose of brain transplant (or, more realistically, replacement parts); whatever happens to the original body after the swap is irrelevant.

** In the episode "[[Recap/BatmanBeyondS3E4OutOfThePast Out of the Past]]", former RoguesGallery member ComicBook/RasAlGhul's [[MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter daughter]], ComicBook/TaliaAlGhul, offers old Bruce Wayne access to the Lazarus Pit, and a shot at eternal youth, saying her father wished to pass on his secrets. Of course, Talia is later revealed to ''be'' Ra's, and plans to swap again to the newly-youthified Bruce. Talia, apparently, gave up her life willingly for her father. The setup's very reminiscent of Creator/HPLovecraft's ''The Thing on the Doorstep'' (see).
** Another episode featured the digital copy of the mind of a now-dead computer industrialist being brought back on line and trying to do this to the grandson of his original body. In the process he pulls a variation on Batman himself, taking over the cybernetic suit and forcing Terry to beat him on his own, without the aid of the super-suit.

* In ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'', Fern's infant son comes down with a sickness severe enough to affect the stability of reality itself. [[spoiler: We eventually learn that the multiverse was originally a single living being until it died and broke into innumerable pieces. Later on, Fern befriends a sapient colony of maggots named Magdolene, who figures out that this being is trying to bring itself back into existence by replacing Fern's son's [[OurSoulsAreDifferent concept core]] with its own.]]

* In ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'', Fern's infant son comes down with a sickness severe enough to affect the stability of reality itself. [[spoiler: We eventually learn that the multiverse was originally a single living being until it died and broke into innumerable pieces. Later on, Fern befriends a sapient colony of maggots named Magdolene, who figures out that this being is trying to bring itself back into existence by replacing Fern's son's [[OurSoulsAreDifferent concept core]] with its own.]]]]