alt title(s): Mind Reading
—Ok, how do I write this entry? I can't think of anything clever, so I guess I'll just write it matter-of-factly.
Telepathy, aka
Mind Reading, is a
psychic power that allows a character to read another person's thoughts. At its most basic level, it functions as a short range radio, allowing the character to pick up the thoughts of those around him. Sometimes, it has limitations such as touch or proximity, or only being able to 'hear' rather than 'see' thoughts. A common hurdle comes from being unable to probe deeper into the minds of those around them, as well as being something of a
Fainting Seer whenever an especially strong willed or horrifying character is around. Psychic overload is also common in crowds, represented by a
Psychic Nosebleed. Being a passive receptor and
not being able to shut other people's thoughts out can easily drive a psychic insane, making this potentially
Blessed With Suck.
More advanced uses of telepathy involve receiving and
transmitting thoughts and memories, and probing beneath surface thoughts into memories, or outright going into a
Journey To The Center Of The Mind or dream travel.
At its strongest, a Telepath will be able to
Mind Control others, sometimes even to the point of
possessing their bodies, create
Fake Memories after applying
Laser Guided Amnesia, create a
Split Personality and let it
take over, or in general be a terrifying god who can
Mind Rape his opponents.
It's worth noting that for the above reasons Telepathy is one of the most potentially
squicky powers, since it's basically an invasion of privacy of the worst kind. The Telepath is the sighted man in the kingdom of the blind, and provided he's discreet he can know everyone down to their most intimate detail. This is why in settings with un-
masqueraded Telepaths, they are often persecuted, policed, and
registered. That is, when they aren't used as weapons or
killed.
Heroic Telepaths are thus in a difficult position both inside and outside a story proving
Bad Powers Bad People is not true. An author wants them to be heroes, but has to somehow assuage the reader the character isn't a mental voyeur (or if he is, he's got a
chivalrous side) and the character will also have to put their colleagues at ease that they aren't likely to turn into a
Mind Probing Hive Queen. To solve this, they often practice what they preach with
Mind Over Manners.
Telepathy comes in a lot of flavors:
Examples:
Anime
- Mahou Sensei Negima has a number of examples; Negi displays very limited mind reading ability in the first chapter (he puts his hand on the target's head and gets maybe 2 words out of it). Later on, the Pactio cards are introduced, which allows Negi and his partners to communicate telepathically. In addition, Nodoka gets a book that allows her to read people's thoughts as her artifact; after an upgrade she can essentially listen to the thoughts of anyone whose name she knows.
- Mao of Code Geass has the ability to hear the thoughts of anyone within 500 meters, even on a subconscious level if he concentrates, making him a formidable opponent to the highly thought-oriented Lelouch. It does, however, have the drawback of being unable to turn off, meaning he always hears everyone's thoughts within five hundred meters.
Comic Books
- From the Marvel Universe:
- Professor Charles Xavier of the X-Men has formidable psychic powers and is probably the foremost telepath in comics. A number of others have followed in his wake; the X-Books have more telepaths than any other comics subgroup.
- From The DCU:
- This is one of the Martian Manhunter's many, many powers, usually used in a benevolent manner to communicate with allies or to help heal damaged psyches. When in the Justice League Of America, he often acts as a sort of psychic hub through which the team can communicate mind-to-mind.
- Gorilla Grodd, one of the Flash's nemeses, is an evil gorilla with telepathic powers; his good counterpart, the late King Solovar of Gorilla City, had similar powers. Grodd usually uses his powers for Mind Control or more subtle manipulation, though he can also fall back on his natural strength.
- Grodd has a grandson (or brother, depending on who's telling the story) dubbed Sam Simeon, one half the comedic crime-fighting duo Angel and the Ape, with a watered-down version of Grodd's powers that just lets him cloud the minds of people around him so they see him as a normal human.
Literature
- The Demolished Man.
- Alan Dean Foster has a thing for telepathy; it's heavily featured in many of his Space Opera novels. Of particular note are the (extinct) Tar-Aiym and the Ulru-Ujurrians in his Humanx Commonwealth series and the Solarian Combine in Design for Great-Day, who have developed telepathy into what is effectively a multi-species, intergalactic Hive Mind. In the latter case, this is treated as the natural and penultimate evolutionary stage of all species.
- The telepaths in John Brunner's Telepathist covers the heroic range of this trope (split into "receptive" (able to listen) and "projective" (two-way),but most of all it's seen as a benefit to mankind. Actually having the ability to feel and see what someone is thinking is shown to be invaluable in,say,clinical psychology or conflict negotiation. However,when a really powerful telepath succumbs to the temptation to construct a dream land like their patients',they can construct a grand hallucination that another telepath has to pull them out of.
- In The Inheritance Cycle, it seems that all magic users have the potential to become telepaths. Anyone with sufficient training can attempt resist an attack upon their mind.
- John Wyndham's classic The Chrysalids, in which the core characters can share what they dub 'thought-shapes', implied to be an intermediate stage on the way to full telepathy. In the midst of its larger points re: resistance to change and growth, the novel also acts as probably the most famous serious exploration of the fear and horror telepathy might inspire in the wider 'normal' community.
- In Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series, the noble caste (referred to as "Comyn"), have telepathy as one of their defining features, along with red hair. With a society where most of the people (at least those who appear in the books) have telepathy has led to interesting social rules like 'Do not enter another's mind without permission' and if one accidentally 'hears' something they weren't meant too, it is considered polite not to mention it. Also, if one is suffering from mental anguish, one tries to keep their thoughts to themselves so as not to burden others with their emotions. These do not apply to the mind-blind peasant class, who treats the Comyn as descended from Gods. Interesting world, Darkover.
- Maximum Ride has Angel. She's six years old and can make you buy her a teddy bear - or make a flying enemy fall by telling them to. So Yeah.
Live Action TV
- Babylon 5 had one of the most fleshed out portrayals of telepaths in fiction, even showing how different cultures treated their telepaths.
- Matt Parkman of Heroes is unusual as being a telepath who isn't inordinately brainy.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- In the S3 episode "Earshot," Buffy is exposed to some Applied Phlebotinum and gains the power of passive telepathy, which becomes progressively more powerful during the episode. Eventually, the power becomes so advanced that she is overwhelmed by the incessant stream of thoughts and needs some more Applied Phlebotinum to get better.
- Throughout Season 6, Willow shows the ability to communicate telepathically with the people around her at will. She can give messages to others, who "hear" her voice in their heads. She can also read people's "surface thoughts," though most of the Scoobies prefer to speak aloud when communicating with her telepathically.
- The plot of the TV series The Listener is about a telepathic paramedic.
- Star Trek has several telepathic species, including Vulcans, Betazoids and Ocampa.
Video Games
- Net Hack has this as one of many obtainable abilities: when blinded in any manner, you can see the exact location of any monster on the current floor that can think.
- In The Legend Of Zelda, Link often receives telepathic messages from the quest mentor or the princess.
- Appears as a technique in Golden Sun.
- In Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy'' this is the only psychic power psychic prodigy Nick does not have. His Voice With an
Internet Psychic Connection Sara does however.
- Similar to Psi Ops, Second Sight has this as one of the few powers John doesn't unlock- the other being Deflector Shields. Oddly, the only psychic in the entire game that uses direct telepathy at any point is the remarkably ambiguous Jayne Wilde.
- Super Mario RPG: Hitting the Action Command when using Mallow's "Psychopath" spell reveals a sentence of the affected enemy's thoughts.
- The first power that Neku discovers in The World Ends With You is the ability to read others' minds.
- While it's never exactly established as such, Mitsuru and later Fuuka must use some form of telepathy in Persona 3 to communicate with the protagonist and his party while in Tartarus, considering the fact that electronic devices don't work during the Dark Hour. More confusion is caused by the fact that such communications are displayed as electronic communications, complete with static, even though it's been stated that that's impossible.
- The actual scouting seems to be telepathic, but the rest is just specially adapted technology. Unless her motorcycle works by telepathy too.
- Kotori Shirakawa in the Da Capo Dating Sim / anime. It stems from a childhood wish to be able to understand the people around her after her sudden adoption. She is devastated when depowered near the end and retreats back into the Stepford Smiler mask she wore before she got her powers.
- Psycho Mantis is such a powerful telepath, he can read your memory card. Oh, and he can also do mind control and read your controller.
- Pokemon has a move, Mind reader, that allows the user to make sure that the next hit does not miss.
- Used more amusingly in the Let'sPlay of Pokemon Firered*Link on page*
WebComics
- In Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures, the 'cubi have thought hearing as an innate ability, which starts to manifest in their twenties, along with empathy, etc. Actual mind reading and dream entering are advanced techniques which have to be learned.
- In Sluggy Freelance all the Lysinda circle vampires have this ability, though Sam rarely seems to use it.
Tabletop Games
- In Dark Heresy, psykers can have a range of these powers, from simple telepathy, through mind control, to full blown mind rape.
—
Okay, that should do it. Hmm, why do I have that feeling that I'm Being Watched?
