History Main / EnthrallingSiren

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' includes Sirens in DW's retelling of ''The Odyssey''. Unlike in the original story, they look like beautiful women who lack the attributes of birds, and they try to lure the sailors by playing DW's favorite song-the EarWorm "Crazy Bus."

* A number of insect-predators make use of EnthrallingSiren tactics (Batesian-Wallacian mimicry) to lure prey. Examples include female ''Photuris'' fireflies imitating the light-flash patterns of other firefly species' mating displays, and ''Mastophora'' spiders' release of pheromones that mimic the sexual attractants of moths. The katydid ''Chlorobalius leucoviridis'' even uses a CompellingVoice for this purpose, by generating the clicking sounds of courting cicadas in order to attract its lunch.

* ''Series/SoWeird''L One episode deals with a siren who looks like Creator/JewelStaite and sings in a nightclub. Any man who hears her falls under her spell, while women think her voice is pleasant but can't understand the fuss all the men are making over her.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'': Sirens are an uncommon creature races, primarily Blue and occasionally Black, resembling winged and feathered humans with hypnotic voices and run the gamut from [[CuteMonsterGirl beautiful]] to hideous.

* Three sirens pop up in "The Scotsman Saves Jack", an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack''. The Scotsman doesn't demonstrate any particular willpower, he just doesn't like the music, and he drowns their singing out with [[EverythingsLouderWithBagpipes his preferred tunes]]. They aren't bird-women or fish-people, they're fully human-looking...[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toAWvBd7FXY except for]] [[PowerGlows the glow]]. And then we find out that they're a ScaledUp three-headed...[[SequentialBoss thing]]. Still called sirens, though. [[spoiler:Apparently hydras and sirens decided to mingle over the years...]]

* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/TheGodzillaPowerHour Hanna Barbera Godzilla]]'', the ''Calico'' washes up on the shore of a cursed island ruled by a siren named Morphea and her two sisters. In addition to MindControl powers, they also have a pet giant Chimera for Godzilla to fight.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong'' features a mind-controlling siren as a villain, but she doesn't spend any time in or near the ocean. It also subverts expectations because the siren [[spoiler:is a dowdy, geeky girl, not one of the hot cheerleaders that the characters had suspected]].

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/MartinMystery'' had the gang encounter a siren who attacks a nearby town out of anger after a relationship with a sailor turns sour. Unlike the myths, the siren could change between a beautiful lady and a bird monster at will.
* The BadPowersBadPeople trope is surprisingly averted by the Siren in ''WesternAnimation/ExtremeGhostbusters'' as she's one of the very few ghosts that actually care about the mortals she seduces with her singing voice. Her sister [[OurBansheesAreLouder Banshee]] forces her into stealing the youth of her listeners to sustain her strength. She finally develops a backbone and rejects her sister when she coerces her to steal the remaining life force of her agefied audience (including Roland, who fell under her spell) and willingly allows herself and her sister to be captured and put into containment by the team.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/LloydInSpace'' there was an exchange student from the centre of the universe named Sirenia who was able to hypnotise all the boys, though with her [[HypnoticEyes eyes]] instead of her voice. The only way to break the spell was to [[spoiler: get a boy from the same place to hypnotise her]].

They are at least humanoid, though the lower half is flexible. In Myth/ClassicalMythology, sirens were women-faced birds, not split up in a manner remotely similar to a [[OurCentaursAreDifferent centaur]]. In most modern depictions of sirens the bird characteristics will be dropped and they'll be just beautiful women with beautiful voices, if they aren't [[SirensAreMermaids mermaids]], as bird-women nowadays are usually [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies harpies]].

* Myuute Luna Sires, a minor character from ''Literature/{{Gate}}'', is a siren and a mage that looks mostly human with feathers growing out of her.
* Cure Honey from ''Anime/HappinessChargePrettyCure'' technically counts as the first Siren-like Cure since she can all lure Choiarks to their doom or strengthen Cure Lovely and Cure Princess as in Episode 9.
* The friendly fish lovers Arius and Iris from ''LightNovel/IsekaiShokudou'', hilariously, the anime portrays their entusiastic singing as quite poor but still enthralling.

* ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' have a villain called Siren who is a [[SirensAreMermaids mermaid]] with a hypnotic song and is capable of turning her tail into legs.
** ComicBook/BrightestDay introduced a new Siren as a foe for Comicbook/{{Aquaman}} [[spoiler: who's his sister-in-law]].
* In ''ComicBook/LeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'', Sirens are actually a man-eating descendant of the Phorusrhacos that use mimicry to fool drunken sailors into getting close enough to eat. [[PollyWantsAMicrophone Like many birds, they can imitate human voices]] and they have markings on their beaks that look like human faces, plumage like flowing, blonde hair and ornamentation on their chests resembling a woman's breasts.
* [[TheChick Venus]] from ''ComicBook/AgentsOfAtlas'' is an rare heroic example of this trope, being retconned into being a siren instead of the actual Goddess of Love as initially believed, and using her CharmPerson powers for good. Even then, it's revealed that she used to be very ''nasty'' as a soulless monster that lured sailors from their ships to devour them and racked up an large bodycount before being given a soul by a mystic and becoming the AllLovingHeroine she is today.
* Franchise/WonderWoman has faced off against sirens and those acting under their sway on multiple occasions. Probably the first time was with Mona Menise, who was trouble on her own before she picked up a wooden bangle containing a vengeful siren [[{{Transflormation}} that had been turned into a tree]] by Aphrodite in antiquity.

* The story "Report" from the fourth ''Fanfic/HalloweenUnspectacular'' has a slightly different take on sirens. Rather than luring sailors to crash their ships, they're instead presented as creating illusions to lure people ashore and then killing them when they're on land.

* Sirens even appear in ''WesternAnimation/IceAge4ContinentalDrift'', as giant prehistoric lungfish with MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily. They're also [[MasterOfIllusion Masters of Illusion]], appearing as the object of the beholder's desire... which causes the funniest moment in the film when Scrat goes up to one of them and promptly starts stomping its head into the ground, because he sees it as his acorn.
* One of ''WesternAnimation/TheTwelveTasksOfAsterix'' is simply cross a particular lake. Halfway across the lake, our heroes are lured to the Isle of Pleasure by the sirens' song, rowing so fast they smash their boat on the shore and dig themselves into the ground. Asterix and Obelix succumb to their charms, until Obelix discovers there's no [[TrademarkFavoriteFood wild boar]] on the island and [[BigEater leaves in indignation]], dragging Asterix with him.
* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks'', the villains, The Dazzlings. They were originally [[SirensAreMermaids merhorse]] (hippocampi) versions of sirens in Equestria before being banished to the human world by Star Swirl the Bearded. They managed to retain some of their magic in the human world, though, final battle aside, they are more-or-less human most of the time. [[HumanoidAbomination More or less]].

** Funnily enough, the sirens' one weakness in the film, a battle of the bands, actually does have basis in the original Greek myths; Orpheus managed to save Jason's crew by playing music better than theirs...

* The three young women doing wash in ''Film/OBrotherWhereArtThou'' function as sirens. No surprise, given it's a retelling of ''Literature/TheOdyssey''.

* In the Soviet film ''Film/MoscowCassiopeia'', the evil robots invented The Call, a hypnotizing series of sounds that cause the aliens to lose control and dumbly follow it to their death, or “happiness” as the robots call it. The Call doesn't actually work on humans, though the robots have no way of knowing that.
* A case of MaybeMagicMaybeMundane occurs in ''Film/TheWickerMan1973''. Willow dances naked in the room next to Howie's, slapping the wall between them and singing to him. The staunchly Christian Howie is literally trembling with desire, but doesn't succumb.
* In the made-for-TV film ''Mermaids'', one of the sisters Venus is [[SirensAreMermaids also a Siren]]. She's able to hypnotise men with her eyes rather than her voice though if they know she is a Siren, she has no power over them.
* In EroticFilm ''Film/{{Sirens}}'', Sheela and Pru act as these to Estella and Giddy with regards to their sexuality. Giddy references the Sirens themselves and tells Anthony and Estella about them.

* In ''SiREN'', the full-length feature film adaptation of the "Amateur Night" segment of ''{{Film/VHS}}'', Lily's otherworldly singing has this effect. The human BigBad Mr. Nyx exploits this to grant paying customers erotic experiences. When Jonah hears it, he hallucinates intense sexual encounters, most of which star his fiancee Eva. Later, Lily sings to Jonah again to make him complacent [[spoiler:while she rapes him -- though she stops singing in the middle of it, much to his horror.]] In the climax, she demonstrates another use of this power [[spoiler:by forcing Mr. Nyx (who had lost his protective earplugs in a struggle) to kneel helplessly as she skewers his head with her tail.]] At the end of the movie which takes place about a year later, [[spoiler:Lily uses her song to make Jonah think he's making love to his wife Eva instead of her. He only realizes what happened when he goes downstairs for a drink and notices Eva sleeping on the couch.]]

* The ballad "Literature/TheLoreley" by Heinrich Heine tells of Loreley, a beautiful fairy woman supposedly sits on the Loreley rock overlooking the Rhine, and, by singing and combing her hair, lures skippers on the river to their deaths in the dangerous waters below the rock.
* The ''Literature/{{Percy Jackson| And The Olympians}}'' series portrays sirens in a tweaked version of their Myth/GreekMythology incarnation, as horrible giant condor-like creatures with long necks and the heads of women, faces dripping with the remains of their victims.
* The title character of John Everson's ''Siren'' is a monster who is mostly similar to the original Greek myth. Her true form is that of a monster with both avian and piscine traits, but her song projects a glamour that makes her look like a beautiful woman in addition to entrancing humans, and she prefers to [[DeathBySex seduce]] the human men she preys on before eating them. She also answers to the name of Ligeia, and implies that she is one of the original Greek sirens.
* The Syren in ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'' uses her call to lure and strand Nicko and the ''Cerys'' onto Syren island.
* In Cat Adams's ''Blood Singer'' series the sirens are human-looking semi-immortal women with telepathic abilities that let them control heterosexual men and also have a strong affinity for the ocean and aquatic creatures. It is stated that when calling out to males, some sirens focus their summons through music, but most use telepathy.
* Creator/PiersAnthony's novel ''[[Literature/{{Xanth}} The Source of Magic]]''. The Siren is the sister of the Gorgon and has a half-human body. While playing her dulcimer, she can sing an entrancing song that causes males to travel to her location.
* The mermaid Áine from J. Conway Jameson's ''Dream Girl'' seduces rapists, abusers, and murderers by sneaking into their rooms at night and singing to them (basically hypnotizing them), then "accidentally" bumping into them on the street and causing them to fall in love with her and her "[[ManicPixieDreamGirl quirky]]" ways. Then she kills them and drinks their blood.
* Creator/CatherynneMValente harkens to old school sirens in ''Literature/TheOrphansTales'' with bird-women with beautiful voices -- that is, they are birds from the waist up and human from the waist down. They live alone on their craggy island, and have no idea the effect their singing has on sailors -- which is, the sailors hear the voices of the women that they love best, and almost always jump overboard to be with "her." When the sirens do learn what their songs have wrought, they vow to be silent forever.

* The character Seawrack in Creator/GeneWolfe's novel "On Blue's Waters" is referred to as a Siren by Krait. This being a Gene Wolfe novel, and Krait being an in-universe unreliable narrator, it is never clear how well defined this attribution is. However, her singing interferes with normal rational mediation of desire and action and carries sub-audibly over vast distances. As well she is capable of living on and under water indefinitely, so siren seems a fair designation.

* Sirens in ''Literature/MyVampireOlderSisterAndZombieLittleSister'' are physically identical to humans, save for their long hair which wraps around their arms to give the impression of wings. Although classified as marine, they are more associated with the sky due to their bird nature and can drown in water.
* The sirens in ''Literature/OurBloodyPearl'' are a perfect example of this trope.
* In the ''Literature/DreamscapeVoyagerTrilogy'' Sirens are a class of creature that include harpies and [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent rivermaids]]. Their singing has a hypnotic effect, the strength of which is based on the victim's attraction to women.

* The Psirens from ''Series/RedDwarf'' were basically a retelling of the sirens story [[AC:InSpace]]. They lure passing spacecraft onto their asteroids by using telepathy to read the minds of the crew and create enticing illusions. While the victim is thus distracted, the Psiren shoves a straw in their ear and [[BrainFood sucks out their brain]].
* On the 1960s ''Series/Batman1966'' series, Joan Collins played the Supervillainess Lorelei Circe, [-AKA-] The Siren, who was able to put any man under her spell by singing a note of three octaves above high C; she used her ability to entrance Commissioner Gordon into sneaking into the Batcave, to cause Chief O'Hara to jump into a lake, and to induce Bruce Wayne into signing his fortune over to her.
* One episode of ''Series/SoWeird'' dealt with a siren who looked like Creator/JewelStaite and sang in a nightclub. Any man who heard her fell under her spell, while women thought her voice was pleasant but couldn't understand the fuss all the men were making over her.
* The episode "Sirens" of ''Series/TheLegendOfDickAndDom'' has the sirens as beautiful women with songs that draw in and possibly mind-control men- who promptly start trying to impress them with lies about being rich and fit- but sound like screeching to women. They imprison men and feed them up before eating them. The sirens also seem to have glamour; when they turn it off, they are still beautiful but have fangs and claws.
* The ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' episode "Siren Song" features a Siren as the Demon of the Week. According to the Book of Shadows she was a mortal woman who seduced a married man but was burned alive by the townspeople. Now she hypnotises married men with her song, which lures the wives to the scene of the crime where she burns them both alive.

* Hale from ''Series/LostGirl'' as a very rare male example. His abilities range from knocking someone out and mind control down to [[MundaneUtility fixing a hangover headache]].

-> ''Baaaanks.''
-> ''You're not faaaat.''
-> ''You're thiiiin.''

* From Slavic mythology, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkonost Alkonost]], named after Queen Alcyone from Greek lore, and her counterpart, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirin Sirin]], are both woman-headed birds whose beautiful songs give humans LaserGuidedAmnesia. In the sirin's case, her songs foretold great fortune to saints but caused mortals under her spell to fruitlessly follow her and die. However, sirins eventually took on a more positive connotation, being portrayed as symbols of harmony, eternal joy and happiness. The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamayun Gamayun]] was a symbol of wisdom and knowledge. All of these beings were based on legends of [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies harpies]] and sirens from Greek stories.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' has Sirens as a monster race of [[AncientGrome Theros]]. Blue primary, black tertiary, bird wings, [[NonMammalMammaries breasts]], and legs, hypnotic voices, run the gamut from [[CuteMonsterGirl beautiful]] to hideous, collect everything from jewels to bones, and feed only on sapient species. Shipwrecked humans are their primary prey.
** Ixalan also has avian sirens, which also happen to be pirates. Notably, some are male, and there is a full inversion of SirensAreMermaids by [[http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoiler/entrancing-melody/ showing one seducing a merfolk]].

* In the stage version of ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'', Eric's shipmates warn him at the end of the song "Fathoms Below" that the song of the [[SirensAreMermaids mermaid]] he is pursuing will lead them to ruin.

* Played for laughs in the first ''VideoGame/Grandia1'' game. During a voyage across the sea, Justin is suckered into making a stop at an island inhabited by identical looking mermaids. The girls are actually a lure used by a giant angler fish to eat unwary seamen.

* Siren sometimes appears in the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series, usually as a summon which causes a status ailment.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'', Mystia Lorelei isn't explicitly a siren but she's a bird-person who lures unsuspecting travelers to their deaths with a magic singing voice, so she's pretty obviously a siren. Although nowadays she's more likely to sell them food instead of eating them.
** Uniquely, her song also causes night blindness. Anyone who hears it has no choice but to follow the sound of Mystia's voice or else wander in complete darkness. Mystia tells the unfortunate one that the night blindness can be cured by the food she sells, but in reality she just lifts the curse while the 'customer' eats. Mystia scams people like this very frequently.
* [[spoiler:The Demon of Song]] in ''Videogame/DarkSoulsII'' mimics the song of the Milfanito to lure in unsuspecting prey.

* The Call of the Old Gods in ''Franchise/DragonAge'' draws the Darkspawn to them, at which point the Taint infects the Old God and turns it into an Archdemon, leading to a Blight. The Song is supposedly the most beautiful music one could ever know, so beautiful that one Warden whose Taint had progressed far enough to hear the Song in clear detail couldn't stop gushing about how wonderful it was, despite knowing what being able to hear it meant. In a similar vein, Red Lyrium also "sings" to people, driving them mad. [[spoiler:Since Red Lyrium is Tainted lyrium, Red Lyrium's music and the Call of the Old Gods may be one and the same.]] Normal lyrium also has a song (spirits can hear it and dwarf miners can learn to), but it lacks these properties beyond being very pretty.

* In ''VideoGame/GemsOfWar'', the Siren unit — here depicted as a winged, purple-ish humanoid — has Lure as its special ability, damaging a selected target.

* Although he doesn't look like ''any'' conventional siren, ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' champion Tahm Kench is a river devil with a charismatic CompellingVoice who even sings to draw the desperate to him to [[DealWithTheDevil strike a bargain]]. His character trailer, "The River King", even calls him a "monstrous siren".

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', did a spoof of The Odyssey where Odysseus(Jason Sudekis) has his men put beeswax in their ears and tie him to the mast to resist the Sirens(Christina Applegate, Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong) whose singing enchants sailors to crash against the rocks of their island. However they sing songs by female artists from TheNineties like Lisa Loeb, Paula Cole, Music/ShaniaTwain, Sheryl Crowe and TLC which Odysseus can't help but love and sing along to:

** In ''The Argonautica'', the Argonauts also run into the Sirens. They survive thanks to [[SpoonyBard Orpheus]] who sang an even more beautiful song that drowned out their call. Some versions of this one say that the Sirens were so heartbroken at being defeated that they cried out in anguish and [[DrivenToSuicide threw themselves off of their island]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Disenchantment}}'' uses SirensAreMermaids while also [[InvertedTrope Inverting]] it--they're half-fish and called "mermaids," but otherwise are treated exactly like sirens, even using ''Literature/TheOdyssey'''s "wax or tied up" method to avoid them. Also worth noting is that their song works on women.

* On the 1960s ''Series/{{Batman}}'' series, Joan Collins played the Supervillainess Lorelei Circe, [-AKA-] The Siren, who was able to put any man under her spell by singing a note of three octaves above high C; she used her ability to entrance Commissioner Gordon into sneaking into the Batcave, to cause Chief O'Hara to jump into a lake, and to induce Bruce Wayne into signing his fortune over to her.

** In ''The Argonautica'' and it's film adaptation Film/JasonAndTheArgonauts, the Argonauts also run into the Sirens. They survive thanks to [[SpoonyBard Orpheus]] who sang an even more beautiful song that drowned out their call. Some versions of this one say that the Sirens were so heartbroken at being defeated that they cried out in anguish and [[DrivenToSuicide threw themselves off of their island]].

* In ''Videogame/GodOfWar'', sirens are floating women monsters that use sound attacks.

** The harpy is the Myth/GreekMythology [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpy version]]; a bird/woman hybrid with an alluring voice that draws victims to its location.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' portrays sirens as [[WingedHumanoid Winged Humanoids]] who lure sailors to their deaths with their hypnotic music. Once dead, sirens raise their victims as undead servants. Sirens are also now an EndangeredSpecies since the pirate lord Mistbeard lead a purge against the dangerous creatures five years back.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SinbadLegendOfTheSevenSeas'' the sirens are [[ElementalEntity water elementals]]. The crew only survives because the siren's song doesn't work on women or dogs.

* The ''Series/{{Charmed}}'' episode "Siren Song" features a Siren as the Demon of the Week. According to the Book of Shadows she was a mortal woman who seduced a married man but was burned alive by the townspeople. Now she hypnotises married men with her song, which lures the wives to the scene of the crime where she burns them both alive.

* The ballad "[[Myth/{{Lorelei}} Loreley]]" by Heinrich Heine tells of Loreley, a beautiful fairy woman who used to sit on the Loreley rock overlooking the Rhine, and, by singing and combing her hair, would lure skippers on the river to their deaths in the dangerous waters below the rock.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Disenchantment}}'' uses SirensAreMermaids while also [[InvertedTrope Inverting]] it--they're half-fish and called "mermaids," but otherwise are treated exactly like sirens, even using ''Literature/TheOdyssey'''s "wax or tied up" method to avoid them.

* The Psirens from ''Series/RedDwarf'' were basically a retelling of the sirens story [[AC:InSpace]]. They lure passing spacecraft onto their asteroids by using telepathy to read the minds of the crew and create enticing illusions. Then the Psirens [[BrainFood eat their brains]].

* The Psirens from ''Series/RedDwarf'' were basically a retelling of the sirens story [[AC:InSpace]]. They lure spacecraft onto their asteroids by using their telepathy to read the minds of the crew and create an illusion to lure them in so the Psirens [[BrainFood can eat their brains]]).