Basic Trope: A person who brags that they can't be hypnotized winds up being highly hypnotizeable.
- Straight: Alice brags that she can't be hypnotized, but Bob quickly puts her in a trance. Afterwards, she doesn't remember being hypnotized, and still claims she can't be hypnotized
- Exaggerated: Alice starts to brag that she can't be hypnotized, and Bob hypnotizes her mid-sentence. Afterwards, she still claims that she can't be hypnotized, despite very blatantly acting out post-hypnotic suggestions that she'd never do otherwise.
- Downplayed: Alice brags that she can't be hypnotized. Bob puts her into a trance, but not easily, and afterward she admits that it is possible for her to be hypnotized.
- Justified:
- Alice wants to be hypnotized deep down, but claims she can't be hypnotized because she doesn't want others to think she's Weak-Willed.
- Alice is intelligent but very suggestible. She falsely believes that it's impossible for highly intelligent people to be hypnotized.
- Alice isn't suceptible to regular hypnosis, but Bob has a Mind-Control Device which has more potent effects than ordinary, run-of-the-mill hypnosis.
- Inverted: Alice claims to be highly hypnotizeable, but the hypnotist fails at hypnotizing her.
- Subverted: Alice claims that she couldn't be hypnotized, but Bob quickly seems to put her in a trance...but it's revealed that she was faking the trance.
- Double Subverted:
- ...she only thinks she was faking it. She doesn't remember the real trance.
- Alice claims she can't be hypnotized, and isn't, but it turns out that's because Bob isn't a real hypnotist. A real hypnotist comes along and puts them both in a trance.
- Parodied: Alice brags that she can't be hypnotized, then abruptly falls unconscious without Bob even doing anything. When she wakes up, she follows Bob's every command to a T, while still claiming hypnosis has no effect on her.
- Zig Zagged: Alice claims that she can't be hypnotized. Bob fails to hypnotize her, so Charlie volunteers to be Bob's subject, saying that he's a great subject for hypnosis. But then Bob fails to hypnotize Charlie, so Alice tries again. This time, Bob succeeds in hypnotizing her.
- Averted: Alice is not hypnotized.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: After hypnotizing Alice, Bob says "the really suggestible ones always claim they can't be hypnotized."
- Invoked: Someone tells Alice that only Weak-Willed people can be hypnotized, so she'll think her hypnotizeability is embarrassing.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: "There's no shame in admitting I can be hypnotized when I want to be. It doesn't mean I'm Weak-Willed."
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Same as Justified: Alice believes myths about hypnosis, such as that it equates to total control of a person or means that a person is Weak-Willed. As a consequence, she is anxious about being hypnotized, which makes it harder to hypnotize her. Once she abandons her anxieties and false preconceptions, she is easily hypnotized, because deep down, she wants to be.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice needs to see a hypnotherapist to break a bad habit, but no one has ever been able to hypnotize her before. The plot revolves around whether this therapist will be able to hypnotize her in order to break her habit.
- Alice and Bob are a couple. Bob has a fetish for erotic hypnosis. Alice claims that she can't be hypnotized, because she thinks his fetish is creepy. Then, when it's shown that Alice can be hypnotized, Bob feels hurt at being lied to.
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