Hypnotism Reversal

You watch the pretty coin of gold.

There's a hypnotist on the loose. They've got Hypnotic Eyes, or they're wielding a Hypno Pendulum, or they have something else you really shouldn't look at if you value your free will. How could anyone ever defeat such a fiendish foe?

With an ordinary mirror.

It turns out that many hypnotists in fiction aren't immune to their own methods, whatever they may be. Just make them look at their own hypnotic trigger, and boom: they're Hoist by Their Own Petard. Bonus points if this renders the hypnotist vulnerable to suggestion from the person they were trying to hypnotize.

Compare Bungled Hypnotism.

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Examples:

Advertising

• The commercial for Dulce de Leche Caramel M&M's shows Red and Yellow using this trick on a hypnotist who wants to eat them alive.
  Red: Repeat after me - if the M&M's talk, I cannot eat them.
  Hypnotist: The M&M's talk, I cannot eat them.

Anime & Manga

• City Hunter: A hypnotist, who had first tricked Ryo into believing he had a large penis than Ryo and then made Ryo unable to have erection earlier via hypnotism, decides to hypnotize him into permanent impotence as payback for Ryo upstaging him in a contest. Unfortunately for him, Ryo has a mirror with him this time, which he raises in front of him while looking away from the hypnotist as he applies the hypnotic technique, ensuring that the hypnotist only succeeds in making himself permanently impotent instead.
  Ryo: Idiot. Did you think you'd be able to use the same trick again and again?
• Code Geass: Lelouch deliberately uses his geass on himself using a mirror to bypass the abilities of a mind reader. He geass'd himself to forget about the trap he set so his mind reader opponent couldn't find out about it by reading his mind.
• Doraemon has a gadget called the "Hypnosis Bank", a money box that hypnotizes anyone that attempts to steal from it making them pass out. Nobita managed to bypass the gadget using a mirror, causing the bank to knock itself unconscious instead.
• One Piece: Jango the Hypnotist has a habit of hypnotizing himself along with those he is trying to hypnotize.
• Pokémon: The Original Series:
  • Attempted by James in "Hypno's Naptime". Team Rocket's plan to capture Hypno in this episode was to trick it into hypnotizing itself by making it hypnotize its own reflection. The plan is foiled by Ash shattering the mirror with a potted plant.
  • "Snack Attack" has James put himself to sleep trying to hypnotize a Snorlax. Misty then tries to lull Snorlax to sleep with the Counting Sheep method, and gets the exact same result.
  • Also used in "Fowl Play" when one of Dr. Wiseman's traps to catch a wily Noctowl is a mirror to make it hypnotize itself.
• Powerpuff Girls Z: Invoked in "Gigi the Great". The villain Gigi uses his Hypnotic Eyes while looking at himself in a mirror, causing an overflow of energy that makes him grow to tremendous size.
• Saint Seiya: During an earlier episode, Hyoga manages to deflect Ikki's Phoenix Phantom Punch by conjuring an ice mirror in front of a broken part of his armor. This reflects the punch's hypnosis effect on Ikki because he's looking at the reflection of himself.

Comic Books

• Douwe Dabbert: in "Bombasto met het boze oog" (Bombasto with the evil eye), Douwe defeats evil hypontist Bombasto by quickly pulling a handheld mirror from his magic knapsack as Bombasto tries to hypnotise him, resulting in Bombasto hypnotising himself. Douwe then has the hypnotized Bombasto put through a Humiliation Conga that ends with the exposure of his crimes in front of a gathered crowd.
• Plants Vs Zombies: In Battle Extravagonzo, one of the match-ups is Mr. Stubbins versus a Hypno-shroom. Mr. Stubbins ends up using a mirror to reflect the mushroom's hypnosis against it, winning the fight.
• Superman: In an early issue of Action Comics, Superman faced a hypnotist named Medini and defeated him this way, after learning his techniques.

Comic Strips

• Mother Goose and Grimm: One arc has Grimm sent to an obedience school that uses hypnotism, which backfires badly.
  Trainer: Repeat after me: "I will do as you say".
  Grimm: You will do as I say.
  Trainer: I will do as you say...
  Grimm: You will do as I say.

Films — Animation

• The Twelve Tasks of Asterix has Asterix tasked with gazing into the dreaded eyes of Iris, an Egyptian magician, who tries to hypnotize him into believing he's a wild boar. Asterix irritates and confuses Iris so much with questions about his light-up Hypnotic Eyes that he messes up his mantra and all it takes is a quick Duck Season, Rabbit Season to make the magician think he's a wild boar.
  Iris: Repeat after me, "I am a wild boar, a wild boar!"
  Asterix: You are a wild boar, you are a wild boar.
  Iris: That's right! [eyes short out as he cackles madly] I am a wild boar! [snort, snort] A wild boar!

Films — Live-Action

• Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man: An accidental example, overlapping with Bungled Hypnotism. The police department psychiatrist tries using a pocket watch to hypnotize Lou as part of an attempt to treat him, after Lou’s considered crazy for saying Tommy vanished into thin air. Lou snaps of it a little too early, grabs the watch, and accidentally hypnotizes the psychiatrist, putting him to sleep… and then a police officer who comes in to check on them. By the time Bud and the chief inspector come in, Lou’s accidentally put about a half-dozen more people to sleep while trying to explain the situation to them!

Literature

• Artemis Fowl agrees to a mind-wipe by the fairies after calling on their help. He doesn't know how to counter the mindwipe, but he does know that they're going to use their mesmer powers on him beforehand to make sure he isn't hiding anything. So he arranges for his team to wear mirrored contact lenses that allow him to resist the mesmer, faking being mesmered and telling the fairies about all but one of his backup plans to restore his memory, which turns out to be critical for the following book.
• Mother of Learning: Red Robe captures Zorian, then attempts to use mind magic to read his memories and find out who else is aware of the time loop. However, while Red Robe has put considerable effort into training his unstructured mind magic skills, he doesn't have the bloodline gift that would make it truly effective. Zorian does, and even with his more limited training, he's able to seize on the mental connection Red Robe has created and use it to counterattack, scrambling Red Robe's thoughts and interfering with his muscle control for long enough to escape.
• The Wheel of Time: In the final book, Graendal's signature mind-control power rebounds on her in a Magic Misfire. She's reduced to the same state of mindless, obedient adoration that she was trying to inflict on Aviendha.

Live-Action TV

• The Electric Company (2009): Annie Scrambler and her Aunt get to compete with two of the members of the Electric Company on a game show, "Friends or Aunts." They attempt to hypnotize the two members of the Electric Company, but they use mirrors, thus hypnotizing themselves. This causes Annie and her Aunt not to remember the answers for the game show.

Music

• The Frank Zappa song "Cosmic Debris" is about a Mystery Man who tries to sell the singer some snake oil before trying to hypnotize him. The singer turns it around and hypnotizes the Mystery Man before taking all his money and valuables and telling him he should get a legit job instead.

Video Games

• The video game version of Blazing Dragons has the court jester Trivet learning hypnosis right at a time when Princess Flame has been kidnapped from the castle; Flicker needs to reflect the hypnosis back at Trivet to hypnotize him into acting as Flame so that Flicker is free to go after her.
• In the Pokémon games, this is possible when using Hypnosis, a Status Infliction Attack that puts the target to sleep, against a Pokemon with the Magic Bounce ability or one that used the move Magic Coat in the same turn, as these reflect Hypnosis back to its user.
• Toonstruck: The game's final act allows you to meet Count Nefarious's right hand, Ms. Fortune, who is a fortune-telling cat with Hypnotic Eyes. A pair of reflective sunglasses are enough to turn the tables on her, while somehow protecting the wearer as well.

Western Animation

• The Bunnicula episode, "Bunn on a Plane" had a pair of criminals running an illegal airline with their plane actually being the giant Feathered Serpent Quetzalcoatl with an airplane body strapped to her back. Quetzalcoatl and her kind have hypnosis powers, but the criminals attached a pair of goggles with a looping video of her using her powers so she hypnotizes herself and becomes controllable; also all the passengers are watching a fake inflight movie of the same footage so they can't see past the illusion of the plane not being real. Bunniucla of course puts a stop to this.
• Craig of the Creek: In "Silver Fist Returns", when Eliza (as Lady T) tries using her Hypno Pendulum on the cat burglar, JP (as Silver Fist) pushes him out of the way and holds out his fist of gold, which reflects the hypnosis onto Eliza. JP has her return her stolen goods and apologize.
• Inspector Gadget: In the episode "Snakin' All Over", the MAD Agent of the episode, Professor Venom, has a variety of snakes that do his bidding. One of them is a cobra that hypnotizes people into a helpless, stupefied state wherein they don't move. In the climax of the episode, Penny defeats the cobra by showing it a mirror, causing it to hypnotize itself.
• Invader Zim: When Zim gets a pimple that is capable of hypnotizing anybody that looks at it, he looks into a mirror and briefly gets entranced by it as well. Downplayed as he is quick to shake it off.
• Justice League: Gorilla Grodd gains telekinetic and hypnotic abilities after The Flash sabotages his mind-control helmet in an earlier episode. During a schism late in the series' run between two halves of the Secret Society, Grodd attempts to mind control Lex Luthor, who uses a device to turn Grodd's mind control against him, turning Grodd into his slave for the next few seconds, until he has Grodd Thrown Out the Airlock.
• Looney Tunes:
  • Wile E. Coyote plans to hypnotize the Road Runner into walking off a cliff and successfully tests the process on a fly. But when he tries it on the Road Runner, the latter holds up a mirror, causing Wile E. to hypnotize himself into walking off a cliff.
  • In "The Mouse-Merized Cat", after Babbit continuously hypnotizes Catstello and a cat does the same to him, Catstello holds up a pair of hand mirrors, reflecting their hypnotizing Eye Beams which causes them to hypnotize themselves.
• The New Adventures of Lucky Luke: One episode had Luke going up against Otto Luck, a talented but extremely unlucky hypnotist turned criminal. Eventually, Otto gets the idea to use his hypnosis on himself to give himself good luck. It only partly works, as he does become Born Lucky but his Mind-Control Eyes prevent him from using hypnosis on anyone else at the same time.
• Ninjago: Played for Horror and Laughs simultaneously when Lloyd Garmadon accidentally hypnotizes the leader of the Hypnobrai tribe via ducking when he was standing in front of a reflective surface, gaining him total control over the Hypnobrai. He then forced them to steal candy from the nearby town.
• Popeye:
  • At one point in the short "The Hyp-Nut-Tist", Bluto tries to hypnotize Popeye into thinking he's a monkey with hypnotic Eye Beams, which Popeye reflects back at him with the help of a handy mirror, causing Bluto to think he's a monkey.
  • In "The Fistic Mystic", Bluto plays a stage swami who, in a desire to be rid of Popeye once and for all, tries to hypnotize him into thinking he's a canary. Popeye reflects it in a much more Popeye-ish manner and punches his Eye Beams back at him.
• Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: An auditory version occurs in "The Clothes Don't Make The Turtle", when the villainous Hypno-Potamus uses a 1980s-esque song to trap the Turtles in a hallucinatory movie makeover montage. After they escape, Donatello traps Hypno by playing him a copy of his own hypnotic song. Why does Donnie have that recording? As it turns out, Donnie records everything.
• Rupert: In "Rupert and the Great Mephisto", Rupert defeats the eponymous magician by using a mirror to turn his Hypnotic Eyes back on himself and make him act like a chicken.
• Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!: The monster in the episode "Bedlam in the Big Top" is a Ghost Clown who wreaks havoc by hypnotizing people with a coin on a string. Scooby and Shaggy defeat him by baiting him into trying to hypnotize them, then looking away while holding up little mirrors.
• Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue!: In "Chefs Of Steel", Scooby reflects the hypnotic wavelengths emitted by a Japanese chef's hibachi (invented by Dr. Phineas Phibes) by using Supersonic Scooby Snacks. At the end of the episode, the hypnotized chef obeys Shaggy's suggestions to give a loopy farewell message and blow a raspberry at Dr. Phibes on live TV.
• South Park: In the episode "Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods", a Planetarium owner uses the star projector to hypnotize people into wanting to work for it. However, when he tries brainwashing Stan, Kyle, Mr. Mackey, and Nurse Gollum, Cartman — who had snuck out of the planetarium earlier to film a cheesy poofs commercial — arrives, outraged that they never saw his commercial, and in a blind rage, kicks over and destroys the project, freeing everyone and causing a full blast of the machine to get sent to the owner's brain, which renders him a mindless shell.
• What's with Andy?: Discussed as a Noodle Incident in "Mr E.G. Goes to Moosehoof"; when Andy gets into a war with a rival prankster, Suzy, she decides to call in the help of a hypnotist who still has a bone to pick with Andy because Andy once pranked him with mirror contact lenses, resulting in the guy hypnotizing himself.

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