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Pinocchio Syndrome
aka: To Become Human
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The extreme of I Just Want to Be Normal. The character either isn't human to begin with, or has a curse that has taken away their humanity. Often involving an artificial being such as a robot wanting to be a flesh-and-blood creature — or at least closer to one in ways it feels are important, like becoming creative.
They are looking for a way to obtain it. Despite Applied Phlebotinum and magic being able to do everything else, it seems the power to turn someone into a mortal human being is incredibly rare. In those cases where someone does get the instant magical cure, they'll often throw it away, saying they want to earn it, or "it's the path, not the destination." Whatever that means. Of course, Failure Is the Only Option, at least until the Grand Finale.
This is often a goal of robots, vampires, werewolves, and so on. In these circumstances, sometimes a more Genre Savvy character will be taken in by this trope, but instead make some important logical deductions. Namely, that if you're a robot, you probably already act like a normal human, to the point of being able to pass the Turing test. If you're a vampire or werewolf, you're substantially stronger and hardier than a typical human. As a result, as cool as these "emotion" things may be, it may not be worth being Brought Down to Normal just to enjoy them. In these cases, the character in question can often be found looking for a third option that will allow for the best of both worlds.
Named, of course, for the puppet who wanted to Become a Real Boy, but much older than that. Likewise, the Shapeshifting Lover or the Talking Animal who is really a victim of a Baleful Polymorph Curse are figures of long standing in Oral Tradition.
Very often overlaps with What Measure Is a Non-Human?. Contrast Humanity Ensues. See also Humanity Is Infectious, where a human mindset is catchy.
Not related to Pinocchio Nose. For the sister trope Become a Real Boy, see The Adventures of Pinocchio.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
Comic Books
- Livewires subverted this trope — the protagonist, Stem Cell, was an Artificial Human built with all the emotions of a human, who needed to learn to alter those emotions in order to survive.
- Swamp Thing's origin changed him from a man into a living pile of vegetation, and his main goal was to return to normal. In a twist, when Alan Moore took over the book (in his first major writing gig for DC), he took away this motivation with a Retcon that didn't directly contradict any previous material. Swamp Thing discovered that he was not a man who became a plant monster; he was a mass of plants possessed by the memories and spirit of that man, who was, in fact, dead. Regaining his humanity was then no longer a goal, and he instead became an Anthropomorphic Personification of nature.
- Comet the Super-Horse from pre-Crisis DC. He was originally a centaur called Biron who wanted to be fully human, unfortunately Circe made a mistake and made him fully horse instead. The reason he has superpowers is because the spell couldn't be reversed, so Circe gave him superpowers to try and make up for it.
- Likewise, Scud The Disposable Assassin is fond of stating, "It's cool to be a robot." When a screenwriter tells him of a script similar to his life, Scud is disappointed at the ending, where the hero is rewarded with humanity. He hangs a lampshade on it by asking the writer to not pull a Pinocchio. "Make him proud of what he is, and you've got my $7.50."
- Mr Eff from JtHM was a Styrofoam pastry display. His master fed off Nny's imagination to make him more real when he needed. Unlike Psycho d-boy, who only wished to please his master and get Johnny to commit suicide, Mr Eff tried to keep Johnny alive and killing for as long as possible till he can become fully real. He failed. Johnny killed himself at the end of Issue #4, and issue #5 he was "Taken back into" his master, along with Psycho d-boy, saying "Fuck! I was so close!".
- Subverted in The Mighty Skull Boy Army, Unit 1, a cute, toy-like robot, once voices his hopes to never be a real boy...because he fears puberty, and all those snips and snails...
- X-51, aka Machine Man, aka Aaron Stack, of Marvel Comics has wanted to be/believed he really is human in most of his incarnations. In Earth X, Uatu the Watcher strips him of his human appearance. Late in the trilogy, an alternate universe version of himself appears who used his creator's DNA to create a human body for himself and tells his robot counterpart that his programming makes him human enough already.
- Played with in ElfQuest. After the defeat of Big Bad Winnowill, who spends some time in human form, Mender (who has the same fleshshaping/shapeshifting powers as Winnowill - though none of her experience) decides to try it out for a while too. He doesn't do very well.
- Fables. Many of the non-human characters want to become human simply so they can get out of 'The Farm' (or in the case of Reynard the Fox, seduce Snow White). The Farm is a grand place but a gilded cage is still a prison. Too bad the magical resources are expensive and limited. What there is tends to be turned towards survival. What's worse is that most of the non-humans are immortal. Hundreds of years have passed by the time the series starts and there is no end in sight. No wonder there was a civil war. Later on, it gets better. And complicated. New lands are accessible for all.
Fairy Tales
- Beast in Beauty and the Beast
- "The Frog Prince" and variations, such as "East of the Sun, West of the Moon".
- In "The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener"
 , a fox demands that the hero cut off his head at the end; this is needed to transform him back to a man, as he is the enchanted brother of the Greek Princess. Similarly, in "Lord Peter", the cat demands that her head be cut off, which proves to turn her back into a princess, and "The Seven Foals" demand the same, which turns them back into seven princes.
- In "The Seven Doves", "The Twelve Wild Ducks", "The Seven Ravens", and "The Six Swans", the sons turned to birds are rescued by their sister, turned back into human form.
- The hero of "East of the Sun and West of the Moon", "The Black Bull of Norroway", "The Brown Bear of Norway", "The Enchanted Pig", the dog in "The Daughter of the Skies", and "The White Wolf" each wish to marry the heroine because if she lives with him for a time, he will be freed of his curse. Unfortuantely, she invariably violates a prohibition, which puts him in the power of the person who transformed him, and she must find him again to free him.
- Subverted in many other fairy tales, especially if the main character is born or was an animal, but it is a "skin" that covers a human body. These characters are forced into permanent human bodies due to people, usually a fiancée, burning their animal skins. It gets so bad at times, you wonder if this is really a happy ending, even though it is supposed to be one, as in one story, a girl who gets her goat skin burned tries to jump in after it, having to be held back by the prince.
- The Chinese "Legend of the White Snake", which inspired the movie Green Snake below.
Fan Works
Film
- David (Haley Joel Osment) in Steven Spielberg's A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Anviliciously, complete with a Blue Fairy. Specifically noted as being so inspired, too.
- The entire plot of the Princess and the Frog revolves around this (featuring the song "When I'm Human").
- Number/Johnny Five in Short Circuit, who has gained self-awareness and understands himself to be alive; thus he must fight to prevent being "disassembled" (which for him would be "death") and convince others that he does have human emotions and thought processes. Though he is an extremely fast reader, in the second film, he intends to study the books Pinocchio by Collodi and Frankenstein by Shelley more closely, clearly identifying with the plights of both the puppet and the creature.
- Andrew in Bicentennial Man. He's a robot who was accidentally created with a quirk in his hardware that allowed him to feel emotions and learn unlike other robots of his kind. The major plot line involved him wanting to be officially recognized as being human, and involved his many decades of work on inventing artificial organs and other life-sustaining techniques, which he applies to himself in addition to marketing them for general use. In the end, he's finally recognized by the government as being human, as he dies on his 200th birthday. Having replaced his entire body with his self-invented artificial organs, he has become mortal, a prerequisite for humanity.
- The backstory of Edward Scissorhands reveals he almost was exactly like an ordinary human, but his Inventor died before he could furnish him with proper hands; thus he is virtually unable to touch others. It's suggested in the film that there's the possibility he could still be made "complete" in that way, but that never comes to pass. Perhaps more importantly, when he falls for Kim, he does whatever he can to make her aware of his love for her in hopes she will reciprocate it, despite what he is.
- The Robot boy Electronic from Russian film Electronic's Adventures also wishes to become human, which is especially funny given that his human double Syroezhkin envies him.
- Green Snake: The Green Snake and her sister White Snake are two female ophidian spirits who seek to become human in order to raise their status on the karmic scale and incidentally experience human love.
- Return to Oz has The Nome King desiring to become human By turning everyone who lived or knew of Oz into stone or an ornament. Needless to say he was he was not pleased when this was ruined by the luck of a little girl.
- Not present in the original book, by the way; in that one the Nome King just did it for shits, and also a few giggles.
- The android Sonny in I, Robot shows symptoms of this. He reveals what could be slight envy of Spooner for his boast of artistic talent. Sonny also shows gratitude just for being referred to "as someone, not something." Spooner's closing words to Sonny: "find your way just like the rest of us..." leans this way even more.
- Seth Brundle from The Fly loses his humanity through the course of the movie. His syndrome drives him to kidnapping his ex-girlfriend in an attempt to fuse with her, as she is pregnant with his unborn child, possibly the last of his humanity.
Literature
- Pinocchio, of course.
- Isaac Asimov's The Bicentennial Man is about a robot who, over the course of two hundred years, deliberately becomes more and more human.
- In the end in order to be recognised as human by the world's government body, he decides that the last most important remaining difference between himself and humanity is that his positronic brain could conceivable keep working for centuries. He then arranges an operation to cut that time down drastically. The World government declares him human shortly afterward.
- A fairly rare example of an animal with Pinocchio Syndrome and a rare example of someone who wants to be human for all the wrong reasons is King Iofur from Northern Lights/The Golden Compass (depending on which side of the pond you are from). It is also a quite rare example of where a character wants to be perceived of human by their actions but knows that there is never going to be a chance of physically becoming human.
- Several characters from Charles de Lint's Urban Fantasy novel Memory and Dream.
- The classic Little Mermaid story.
- Minerva in Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love. An administrative computer who learns to be human and falls in love. Eventually has a human body created so she can implant her personality into the body and experience love as a human, and not incidentally become the lover of the man she fell for in the first place.
- The Cat Who Wished To Be a Man by Lloyd Alexander is about a cat that wants to be a man.
- Arguably more of a subversion, since Humanity Ensues after the first five pages.
- Zora Zombie from Xanth would've been happier to be alive or all-the-way dead, but was content to muddle through until she got to Become a Real Boy. Well, real girl, but same idea.
- The children's book The Velveteen Rabbit is about a toy rabbit who wants to be real.
Live Action TV
Tabletop RPG
- The overriding goal of the player's characters in the role-playing game Promethean: the Created is to complete "the Great Work" — transforming from dismembered, animated corpses into human beings. This is actually possible (if very hard), making this one of the few examples of the trope where the goal can be achieved in the end. Sadly, achieving that goal almost invariably involves creating more of your kind, an endeavor in which success is immoral, and failure is... undesirable.
- Maligno, the "carrionette" darklord of Odiare in the Ravenloft D&D setting, thought he was the real son that Giuseppe created him to be, but the parents of the children he entertained destroyed his delusion. In revenge, Maligno murdered them with the help of other animated toys.
- The "Transformed Animal" archetype in Feng Shui are animals that managed to become humans (or their offspring, in later Junctures) because being human offers better opportunities. However they fear magic since it may cause them to revert to animal form, which spells the end for the character as far as playability goes. In other words, they've all become "real boys", and just want to avoid going back.
- In their current incarnation in Warhammer 40,000, there are several Necron who are looking for ways to become mortal again after having survived as robots for a very long time.
Video Games
- This is the goal for most of Organization XIII from Kingdom Hearts II, although they were humans before losing their hearts. The leader, Xemnas, instead would rather become a "great being", just like every other incarnation of Xehanort.
- Xenosaga inverts this with Ziggy, who used to be human, but is now mostly robot. He wants the rest of him to be robot too.
- Aigis of Persona 3. She gradually does become more human as the game goes on in terms of personality.
- Sora in Ever17, complete with its very own reference to the Pygmalion Plot. She's a little worse off than many of the characters here: She doesn't even have a body. No really, she doesn't.
- In World of Warcraft's new expansion, Cataclysm, the Worgen of Gilneas have developed a cure to allow them to retain their humanity while transformed into their Werewolf forms, but are still looking for a way to get rid of the curse completely.
- While part of Yomiel's deal with the blue people in Ghost Trick is for revenge, he also wants them to find some way to have an artificial life. His real dream is to grow old in a society that accepts him and die surrounded by loving family, rather than "living" forever as a ghost in isolation.
- The goal of Daniella in Haunting Ground is to become "complete". Understandable, given that she's a homunculus. But in order to do that, she's got to slice open the protagonist to get her Azoth first...
- The villain of Comix Zone has liberated himself from the comic book he was formerly a character in, but is still a 2-D drawing. In the Game Over sequence, the death of his creator embodies him in true flesh and blood, giving him the potential to Take Over the World.
- One possible ending of Dragon Age reveals that Shale the golem plans to seek a way to become a dwarf again, which she once was, despite her frequently expressed disdain for "soft, squishy" beings.
- In the first chapter of Dragon Quest IV, Healie the healslime wants to become a human. He reasons that since he wants to become human, if he hangs around humans, he'll become one so he joins Ragnar on his quest. It actually works and he leaves Ragnar to start his own life after Ragnar joins the hero/heroine in the fifth chapter.
Webcomics
- Humorously subverted in a letter to Ask Dr Eldritch: a robot writes in to ask why everyone around him thinks he secretly desires to be human, when he's actually quite satisfied with being a robot, something he considers to be far better than being human.
- Grace from El Goonish Shive went through this between the Painted Black and Birthday Party arcs by refusing to use her abilities to shapeshift from her full human form. She was still willing to use other means to transform i.e. via the Transformation Ray Gun and only used her abilities to transform back to human when she was told it was the only way to do so and even then she only used them reluctantly.
- The "Suicide Fairies" from Gunnerkrigg Court need to be killed by someone else in order to pass some manner of test in order to become human. This is apparently something that happens with reasonable frequency among the creatures of the Gillitie Wood, although why they want to become human is something the comic has yet to explore. There's also an inverse version; humans can take a test to become creatures of the wood, although in their case it apparently doesn't involve getting killed.
Web Original
- In the Paradise setting, humans are randomly, permanently transformed into Funny Animals. Pinocchio Syndrome affects most characters after the Change, especially the ones who changed gender at the same time. One particularly poignant case affects Christopher Mattiaz, a character from MatthiasRat's stories, who changed genders six days after getting married and hasn't been able to be intimate with his wife for the past two years at the time the story begins.
- Happens a few times in We Are Our Avatars, most notably to 3Dee but also to Bass and Mega Man, twice, but it was inverted with Sonia Belmont, who was happy to try her hand at being a robot.
- Repeated with Sunny via a wish and inverted with Brian by being resurrected as a puppet.
Western Animation
- Subverted by Futurama where Bender's transformation into a human in a comedic What If? episode was disastrous.
- Jenny in My Life as a Teenage Robot, despite the fact that without her powers Earth would have been enslaved and/or destroyed dozens of times. (But you can't expect her to think rationally, she's a teenager after all.)
- Spot/Scott in Teachers Pet.
- The version of Mega Man seen in Captain N: The Game Master.
- Brainiac 5 becomes a Real Boy (...somehow) in the finale of Legion of Super-Heroes season two, after he defeats the Brainiac 1 programming within him. The fact that he was already a Mechanical Lifeform was actually lampshaded: "I was emotional as a robot, can you imagine me as a human?"
- The four main characters of Street Sharks spend some of their time trying to figure out a way to get turned human again. Mostly they seem more concerned with finding their dad though. Also, when they did find a cure in one episode, they ultimately chose to turn back into sharks to continue to fight crime.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the first animated series) had an episode where the Turtles found tainted cookies that would've turned them human. Michelangelo swipes some because he was sick of being treated like a freak by the people of New York. Of course his brothers had to turn him back because the transformation would've eventually killed him.
- As he was Hamato Yoshi in this version, Splinter wishes to return to human form and does in "Splinter No More". After he mutates back into a rat and realizes Humans Are Bastards, he no longer has the desire.
- Big Guy And Rusty The Boy Robot, the main character Rusty is turned into a human boy by a villain in one episode. Unfortunately this means he has to deal with pain when trying to fight, when his normal catch phrase is "No pain receptors!" He's glad to be back to full robot at the end of the episode.
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