Cartesian Karma

Captain America: It wasn't him, Tony. HYDRA had control of his mind! It wasn't him! [...]
Iron Man: I don't care. He killed my mom.

— Captain America: Civil War

Cartesian Karma are consequences a character has to face for actions they technically committed despite not being in full control of their body or mind at the time.

So your characters were previously brainwashed, betrayed the heroes, went on their own sort of rampage and needed saving to return to their ideals. Luckily, the good guys manage to accomplish this through laborious amounts of screaming, fighting them, and friendship power. And now that character is back to normal, yay! Everything should be all strawberries and hotcakes, right? They've clearly come to their senses and are back on the right of things.

Well, unfortunately, not always. There are some possible problems with characters regaining their focus that, should they occur, need to be faced.

Simple problems might be that relationships are strained, as other people might not be quite so eager to forget the character's actions off the bat. A brainwashed character who commits actions that would have crossed the Moral Event Horizon had they been freely chosen obviously won't be as easily redeemed, even with the all-forgiving power of friendship. More problematic is that the characters aren't completely back to normal, and traits from their former self may still linger on even after they've overcome their vices. Can this get any worse? It can.

The most problematic issue becomes when a character essentially has to live up to their actions and face the music, thus being dealt Cartesian Karma. After all, sure it's great that they're not trying to eat your soul, kick puppies, or burn down that orphanage any more, so what's the deal?

Tragically in failing that, they still managed to kick a few kittens, and rob the local grocery market. And law enforcement isn't exactly ready to take 'I was brainwashed by a Super-villain/mind-virus' as a valid legal alibi. Also anybody 'normal' seeing you in your altered state might be equally hard to work out, especially if it's not something you could explain without telling too much. The consequences of one's actions simply don't vanish when the mentality causing them does, so even mind-controlled characters have to face some sort of retribution, like it or not. Except when they don't.

What's more, who's to say you were just eating children and playing hopscotch during your brainwashed-existence, and won't have to face any serious danger or genetic experiments? Any damage sustained, bodily changes or physical alterations aren't going to go away just because you've come to your senses. Those are going to have to be faced as well. If your brainwashed self ate a few too many donuts in the baddies' hideout, back-to-normal you is simply going to have to live with his/her sustained diabetes.

In cases where the dealt karma is so major the character can't persist, it often leads to death, heroically or tragically.

Can lead to My God, What Have I Done? moments. A heroic or moral enough character, if determined and truly guilty, will probably try to reconcile with their past actions in order to fix their record and deal with the situation.

Sometimes the narrative itself sees fit to affix responsibility on the character, when the party responsible for the brainwashing should be solely held accountable.

A subtrope of Moral Luck. Compare Alternate Personality Punishment, which is the equivalent with clones/split personalities/etc. Contrast Karma Houdini, which can be justified if this trope is averted.

This trope can involve unmarked spoilers, particularly if the brainwashing is a plot twist, and/or if this plotline determines the ending, so proceed with caution.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School: Several characters were brainwashed into Despair by the mastermind. While Naegi believes that they can be saved and redeemed, Munakata wishes to see them all executed for their crimes, and has Naegi captured and tried as a traitor to the Future Foundation.
• Fairy Tail: Jellal returns to the side of good after trying to resurrect Zeref with the Tower of Heaven while brainwashed by Ultear, but the Magic Council and several others he wronged during this time refuse to let him off the hook, whether or not they realize he was controlled. It especially doesn't help that he can't forgive himself and becomes The Atoner to the point of being willing to try and pull off a Heroic Sacrifice or forfeit his life to the ones he's especially wronged.
• Haré+Guu: In the episode "Confusion Jungel", Guu uses her powers to swap Haré and Dr. Clive's bodies. While at first annoyed with the situation, Haré soon discovers the doctor's kinder, more professional side, leading him to think the doctor isn't as bad a person as he thought he was. However, when he wakes up the following morning, back in his own body, Haré is confronted by an angry mob of young women that Dr. Clive groped and molested while in Haré's body. Obviously, they wouldn't believe Haré if he told them that he and the doctor had swapped bodies, so poor Haré is punished with a bare-bottomed spanking for the doctor's actions.
• Hunter × Hunter:
  • Possibly subverted when one of the side characters gets kidnapped by the ants, brainwashed and altered to be one of them. She's eventually comes to her senses, and as Killua points out, her entrusted one Gon is not one to judge, and it helps the Hunter organization itself isn't one to persecute her just because she's now a chimera ant.
  • His teacher and role-model Kite, who is made into a living rag doll for the ants to manipulate that Gon desperately wishes to bring back. The realization that he can't do so, and Kite truly is 'dead' is what pushes Gon into a Deadly Upgrade.
• Discussed and ultimately defied in Jujutsu Kaisen: Higuruma is a lawyer whose cursed technique involves charging his opponent with a crime, setting up an impromptu supernatural trial, and allowing him to punish the defendant with severe penalties if they are found guilty. He once uses it to charge Yuji with something Sukuna committed while controlling his body (wiping out thousands of people during the Shibuya Incident). Yuji immediately pleads guilty due to his Guilt Complex, enabling Higuruma to punish him with death, but Higuruma refuses to kill him, explaining afterward that no matter how at fault he feels Yuji is not legally responsible for things Sukuna did with his body.
  Higuruma: Article 39, Clause 1 of the penal code. The absence of reasons and/or control signifies non compos mentis. Sukuna possessed your body in Shibuya. In other words, you couldn't control yourself. And you didn't abandon self-control voluntarily. So you're innocent. You didn't commit that crime.
• In Tales from Earthsea, Arren murders his father, the king of Enlad, at the start of the film and steals his Cool Sword. Later, it is revealed that Lord Cob has been controlling him. Even though he is freed from Cob's influence, Arren decides to go home to answer for the murder.
• Constantly in Valvrave the Liberator.
  • Particularly with Haruto. As the pilot of Unit 1, he sometimes gets possessed by a sort of monster impulse that makes him attack his friends. What happens can range from biting someone and inadvertently body-jacking them, to, well, the incident that the series is infamous for towards the end of season 1. Notable/played with in that most of the retribution for these things comes from his own guilt and fear that he's a monster.
  • This is also the case with L-elf, who was body-jacked by Haruto in the beginning - Haruto in his body shot L-elf's friend in the eye and betrayed L-elf's team. Since his teammates don't know about the body-jacking until the end, they blame L-elf for it and wonder what could have made such a loyal soldier turn traitor. He manages to use the situation to his advantage, helping the Ordinary High-School Student JIORans form a decent enough military to defend their town, but you can see the sadness in his eyes throughout...
• Tacitly averted in Zatch Bell! with Koko who was sadistically brainwashed, but is later rescued by Sherry and restored back to her original, kind innocent state. It's a good thing she's not a wanted criminal now or anything and can happily go to college too, especially after (publicly) razing most of her town and kidnapping dozens of people. It would have to be inferred that her savior Sherry has some pretty good connections.
  • In the final chapters where the final battle for King is had, it's mentioned that damage to the land and possibly the people is undone (the one communicating would be the book). Considering how the battle for Mamodo King is called the God's Trial, this would explain why a lot of calamities and such were undone.
  • Kolulu is a sweet Mamodo girl who has zero interest in the Mamodo tournament and didn't even want to compete. Unfortunately, she was forced into it and in the process, all her spells were altered to turn her into a raging berserker that attacks anything around her save her book owner. Despite the damage she causes when this happens, this is another case of this trope being Averted. Zatch is actively so horrified that those in charge would force that on someone like her that it becomes his primary motivation for wanting to win the tournament, so no Mamodo has to be forced to ever go through that ever again.

Comic Books

• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (Boom! Studios): The annual short "The Trial of Astronema" is about Karone being put on trial in a Kangaroo Court for the crimes she committed as Astronema, her brainwashed evil alter-ego.
• Spider-Man: During Superior Spider-Man (2013), Doctor Octopus controlled Spider-Man's body. After Peter gets his body back, many of his prior relationships are strained, especially that with his former lover, Black Cat, who has made a Face–Heel Turn and doesn't believe or care that it was Octavius in Peter's body when she was attacked.
• Thorgal: Thorgal is imprisoned by his wife Aaricia, who refuses to acknowledge him as her husband after he returns from his amnesiac stint as the pirate lord Shaigan the Merciless (which was pushed by Kriss de Valnor, who wants Thorgal all to herself), during which she and her children were branded and exiled. She only forgives him after he singlehandedly takes out a pirate invasion.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Cyclonus is infamous among the crew of the Lost Light for having fought for Galvatron during the war, and was involved in several atrocities. Most Autobots consider him basically a Decepticon, despite the fact that he is technically unaligned (the purple paint job can't help). In fact, Cyclonus was under the influence of The Darkness when this occurred, and thus unable to resist Galvatron's commands. He seems to not make too much of an issue of it, however, not caring about the Autobots' approval.
• X-Men:
  • After Jean Grey has been brought back from the The Dark Side in The Dark Phoenix Saga, she's found guilty of genocide and sentenced to death by the Shi'ar empire, despite the empress' romantic relationship with Charles Xavier. Unfortunately for everyone, fighting for her life reawakens Marvel Girl's Dark Phoenix side.
  • Her beau Cyclops faces similar problems being imprisoned in the wake of Avengers vs. X-Men after he took over the world and killed Charles Xavier while under the Phoenix's influence.

Fan Works

• The Accidental Animagus: After the last war, many Death Eaters claimed that they were being controlled by the Imperius Curse and shouldn't be held responsible for their actions. However, it was ruled that there is one specific exception to this: casting the Cruciatus Curse while under Imperius. This is because the Cruciatus Curse is fueled by sadistic enjoyment of the pain the caster is inflicting... something the Imperius Curse cannot make its victims feel.
• One of the central conflicts in Back To Us is the rise of anti-akuma sentiment in the years following Hawkmoth's defeat, as people convince themselves that he was only able to turn his victims into monsters because there was something naturally monsterous already inside of them. It hardly helps that Chat Noir supports this movement, driving a wedge between him and Ladybug... as well as between Adrien and many of his friends, given the vast majority were akumatized at some point during Hawkmoth's reign of terror. The emergence of a new Butterfly-wielding villain only makes matters worse.
• CONSEQUENCES (Miraculous Ladybug): The series' take on ZOMBIZOU Discusses this heavily in the aftermath, as Ms. Caline Bustier considers taking a temporary break from teaching. While Principal Damocles reminds her that Hawkmoth's victims generally aren't considered liable for the actions they take while akumatized, Caline points out that her powers worked by kissing, which nobody involved consented to. What's more, she's worried that her students might feel uncomfortable around her. The principal convinces her to talk things through with her class first, and Juleka immediately realizes the core of her concerns, with the whole class reassuring her that they don't blame her for what happened.
• Crimson and Noire: Compared to canon, the former Akumas faced this even after Crimson Beetle and Lady Noir told the public that they were made to do so by Monarch. Many former victims like Ivan, Aurore, and Mylene are punished due to actions committed outside of their control. Both Marinette and Adrien are taking steps as both heroes and civilians to put a stop to this victim blaming.
• A Darker Path: Dragon agrees with Atropos that it's best to hide the true identity of Riley, after Panacea erases the Bonesaw personality that resulted from Jack Slash traumatizing and brainwashing her, knowing that the public would not trust any claims of a Heel–Face Turn.
• Distortions (Symphogear): Samantha Acampona blames Miku for killing her brother even though she did so while brainwashed by Dr. Ver. She justifies this by claiming that Miku allowed herself to be brainwashed.
• Dragons and Swarm: This gets Discussed after some of the Earthbound Immortals become Skybound once more. Despite being freed from their corruption, they also have to live with the actions they took while Earthbound.
• Throughout the Eleutherophobia series, ex-hosts are frequently blamed for actions their Yeerks did. This is an especially big problem for Tom, whose Yeerk led a revolution shortly after the war went public, and strangers assume he's dangerous as a result. A recurring topic in Ghost in the Shell is if voluntary hosts who knew what they were signing up for deserve to be punished or not.
  Tom: She's annoyed with me for something that someone else did with my body. Possession is nine-tenths of my identity.
• The How Miraculous Should Have Ended version of "Princess Fragrance" plays this for laughs; Prince Ali is weirded out by Rose and chooses to go with Chloé instead due to Rose's actions while she was akumatized into Princess Fragrance.
• Kill count is a Miraculous Ladybug AU where devices called Karma Balances can reveal how many deaths a given individual has caused. These kill counts also count when someone was an Akuma or had a sentimonster made from their emotions, even when it was out of their control and Ladybug was able to bring the dead back. Ondine is barred from various swim tournaments because she drowned over two million people in Paris as Syren, while Adrien was forced to lay low and even step down as Chat Noir after it was found out that he killed the entire world as Chat Blanc.
• Zig-Zagged in Leave for Mendeleiev when Chloé is banned from her mother Audrey's fashion show for two reasons. One is that she stung Audrey while she was akumatized into Queen Bee. The other is because she previously stole one of Marinette's designs and attempted to pass it off as her own.
• Nymph and the Corrupted Miraculous Downplays this. The Big Bad possesses the ability to corrupt Miraculouses; both the Black Cat Ring and the Bee Comb are subjected to this, with Adrien and Sabrina winding up as their brainwashed bearers. After the villain is finally taken down, both are cleared of all charges for their actions; however, the latter's father still pulls their child out of school in order to protect them from the backlash they'll inevitably face, knowing that they don't have the same kind of support network as Adrien.
• Purple (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power): Although Horde Prime is gone, Entrapta remains extremely suspicious of the modified clone who formerly served as his vessel, struggling with the fact that Hordak recognizes them as their own individual and is willing to offer them a home.
• In Sea Of The Unconscious, the Investigation Team find themselves possessed by Shinto gods and historical figures of Japan. Yosuke Hanamura ends up possessed by Susanoo, and he has to deal with the fallout of his actions (such as being hunted down by Susanoo's enraged sister Amaterasu, who is in Yukiko's body, for throwing a dead horse at her again) because Susanoo is too much of a brat to not hide within his host's bodies.
• Tales of Kitty-Whiskers and Ladybug: In Turnabout Akuma, Mike Meekins is tried for the murder of his boss Rekta Resu when he shot and killed her as the akuma Bad Badger. This ends up Subverted when Apollo is able to prove through video evidence and witness testimony (including Rekta, who was restored by the Ladybug Cure that Meekins was Brainwashed and Crazy and has no recollection of being under Hawkmoth's control. It sets the precedent that any destruction or death caused by an akuma will be charged to Hawkmoth once Ladybug and Kitty-Whiskers defeat him.
• Two Letters: Marinette grew to resent how often people were being akumatized, believing that they weren't even trying to resist Hawkmoth's influence. Some were getting akumatized for the pettiest reasons, while others, like Xavier Ramier, were repeat offenders. This ultimately led to her deciding to retire, passing the Ladybug Earrings to a Sketchy Successor she describes as being exactly the kind of hero the citizens of Paris deserve.

Films — Animated

• In Incredibles 2, Elastigirl takes down the Screenslaver near the midpoint and has him arrested. He turns out to be a decoy Screenslaver who was an Unwitting Pawn that Evelyn used and is actually an innocent pizza delivery guy.

Films — Live-Action

• The horror-comedy Ava's Possessions features a young woman who recently endured a Demonic Possession and now has to answer for all the things that the demon made her do, which cost her her job and her friends and may well get her thrown in jail.
• Captain America: Civil War: Sure, Bucky was under mind-control from HYDRA for all of his career as the Winter Soldier. That hardly means he's off the hook for decades of terrorism and assassinations, forcing him to stay in hiding from the authorities at the start of the movie. Despite his reassurance to Steve that he's no longer doing these kind of things, it's easy for Zemo to cast blame on Bucky for bombing the U.N. building just by wearing a scarf and a prosthetic mask. Only Captain America (and his followers) believe he's innocent, and it's more for emotional than rational reasons. T'Challa doesn't accept the brainwashing argument as an excuse for the death of his father, and pursues Bucky as Black Panther to kill him, only relenting when he learns it was actually Zemo. Neither does Tony Stark when he finally learns the Winter Soldier is responsible for the murder of his parents. He goes ballistic, and none of Cap's words are enough to calm Iron Man in his attempt to vaporize Bucky. However, at least part of Tony’s rage is that he thinks Steve knew this, and didn’t tell him.
  • Bucky himself isn't exactly convinced either.
    Bucky: I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve.
    Steve: What you did all those years, it wasn't your fault.
    Bucky: I know... but I did it.
• Carrie (2002) subverts this with a change from the original book. Carrie massacres her classmates at the prom after a Deadly Prank is pulled and she unleashes her telekinetic powers on them. In this version, she instead goes into a trance and loses control of her powers, later having no idea what she's done when she comes out of it. This is the only version to give an Adaptational Alternate Ending where Carrie survives, is forgiven by Sue and the two escape to Florida in the hopes the police don't track her down.
• The Hangover is about a non-supernatural version of this. The protagonists are a group of guys who throw a monster of a bachelor party in Vegas that they can't remember any of the following morning due to how intoxicated they were,^note Though intoxication is generally exempt from "wrong attribution of responsibility" because people tend to be responsible for getting themselves intoxicated in the first place. forcing them to figure out what happened and come face-to-face with all the outrageous things that they did in order to find the missing bachelor and bring him to his wedding.

Literature

• In the Book of Exodus, the pharaoh is punished for refusing to free the Hebrews by having the Ten Plagues continue until the final one kills all the Egyptians' firstborn sons. However, some translations specify God as having made the pharaoh refuse. What this says about free will (or how accurate a translation this was) is a frequent topic of religious scholars. The specific wording in question in this debate is that the Pharaoh's heart was hardened, which appears in multiple verses — both from the point of view of God and the Pharaoh, so it's difficult to tell which one was doing the heart-hardening and, thus, which one is to blame for the Ten Plagues.
• Harry Potter:
  • An inversion. Many of Voldemort's followers claimed that they were coerced using the Imperius Curse into committing their crimes to avoid prison time. It's actually a very simple bluff to fall back on, since mind control is relatively easy to perform in this universe, and Voldemort's men really did use the Imperius Curse frequently to torment people. The inversion continues after Voldemort's return to power when the Ministry, partly out of fear of this happening again, begins jailing innocent people who just appear vaguely sketchy.
  • In Chamber of Secrets, Ginny is terrified of facing punishment after Voldemort has been possessing her into summoning the Basilisk to attack Muggle born students. Heartwarmingly, Dumbledore instantly assures her she did nothing wrong.
• Heralds of Valdemar's Winds of Fate has Falconsbane, able to make a Manchurian Agent out of the Tayledras Adept Starblade; Starblade had False Memories and had the remains of his old self paralyzed and held in check by a Creepy Crow, forcing him to cause various terrible things. When Falconsbane's influence is finally discovered and purged Starblade is immediately forgiven by Darkwind and everyone else. Falconsbane also had a daughter, Nyara, on whom he didn't bother with such intricate brainwashing; instead, she was simply forced to obey him. After she escaped him and sought shelter with the Tayledras' allies, he reeled her back and discovered the things she'd learned, then let her go to gather more information for him. Discovering that he'd used this information to hurt the gryphons, who were her first friends and the first people who trusted her, Nyara immediately confessed what had happened. Her new allies became extremely harsh with her and were unmoved by her tears. Ultimately Darkwind is never more than civil to her again, but the gryphons do come back around to being affectionate again.
• Jedi Academy Trilogy: Inverted with Kyp Durron, who, under the influence of The Dark Side and Exar Kun's possession, destroys two solar systems and billions of their inhabitants. The New Republic decides there's No Adequate Punishment and remands him to Luke Skywalker; after Kyp gets some Epiphany Therapy and risks his life to destroy the superweapon he used, Luke simply forgives him. The public reaction to this decision haunts the Jedi Order for decades after, and even some Jedi Luke was training at the time objected.
• In The Red Vixen Adventures, Ali is arrested for the crimes she committed as a slave, but is acquitted of most, though not all of them.
• Played With in The Stormlight Archive. Big Bad Odium can manipulate people towards a certain outcome, but can only outright control someone if they give up control. Odium does this by manipulating people into performing atrocities that they regret, and then persuading them that they are blameless and it was Odium's fault all along. In other words, not taking responsibility for cases of non-mind control manipulations open the way for real mind control. Amaram, who took this deal to escape blame, is nonetheless considered guilty for all crimes both before and after their loss of control.

Live-Action TV

• Arrowverse: Supergirl ends up getting this herself for her rampage against National City near the end of season 1. Because the public has no idea that she was infected with red kryptonite at the time as the reason for said rampage, they started treating her like a pariah by the time she's cured, with Alex, Winn, and James the only ones who remain supportive of her because they know the truth.
• Babylon 5: When Michael Garibaldi was brainwashed into betraying Captain Sheridan so he could be turned over to the authorities on Earth, he is declared persona non grata aboard Babylon 5. He ultimately averts this trope by planning and leading Sheridan's rescue himself, with the help of Franklin, Marcus, and the Mars Resistance.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer and his own spinoff, this is Angel's main character conflict. After becoming a vampire and losing his soul, the human Liam became Angelus and built a reputation as one of the most vicious and bloodthirsty vampires in history. After getting his soul restored and becoming Angel, he keeps the memories of the atrocities Angelus committed over the centuries, causing him tremendous and unimaginable guilt, even though Angelus is actually a demon who stole Liam's body. He also loses his soul and becomes Angelus again on a couple of occasions, affecting his relationships with his friends, allies, and even his Love Interests, who often find it difficult, if not impossible, to trust him again after he gets his soul back. And then there's Holtz, a vampire hunter and Angelus's Arch-Enemy, who seeks revenge for Angelus murdering his entire family by targeting Angel, despite being completely aware that Angel and Angelus are different people who inhabit the same body.
• Charmed (1998):
  • Cole's Face–Heel Turn in Season 4 is brought on by him being tricked by the Seer into becoming the new Source of All Evil. Any evil thing he does is entirely down to being possessed. When he returns from the dead, free from brainwashing, he's treated as though he did everything on his own.
  • This is also subverted with Phoebe - who was in fact much more willing in becoming Cole's queen when he was the Source (though she was tricked into getting pregnant with an Enfant Terrible who it's implied corrupted her mind). She is Easily Forgiven by her sisters, at the same time they shun Cole.
  • When Paige sees a flashback of Phoebe and Piper torturing a dark priestess and later Leo, she's horrified. Phoebe tries to point out they were under a spell. The same incident is used against them later when they're on trial for misusing their magic.
• Jessica Jones (2015):
  • Kilgrave kidnaps Hope Schlottman, and as one final command to her, he makes her shoot her parents after Jessica reunites her with them. Hope is charged with murder and Jessica spends a good portion of the season trying to gather evidence on Kilgrave for use defending Hope at trial.
  • A father whose young son was acting up on a drive. While the car was stopped at a light, Kilgrave got in and made the guy drive on. Kilgrave got irritated by the kid's crying, so he made the father abandon his son on the side of the road. The man spent a week as Kilgrave's chauffeur and when he was finally released, he was arrested for child endangerment, his wife left him and he lost his job.
  • Even though Jessica was under Kilgrave's control when he made her kill Luke's wife Reva, Luke is still pissed at Jessica, though it's over the fact that she pursued him and slept with him, all while keeping the truth about something so big from him.
• Merlin:
  • Hoo boy Morgana. Her Face–Heel Turn comes about when she's taken away by her evil half-sister Morgause and is kept in hiding for a year - where we never find out exactly what happens. She returns fully evil in Season 3, willing to kill innocent people and torture her former friends. Despite obvious influence from Morgause (and the fact that in their last moment before being kidnapped, Merlin chose to poison Morgana^note This one is complicated; she was an unwitting pawn in one of Morgause's spells. Everyone in Camelot is put into an enchanted sleep so that Morgause's soldiers can enter and kill Uther. Merlin discovers that Morgana is the source of the magic, and she has to die for the spell to break. He withholds this information from her and tricks her into drinking hemlock.) it's treated as though she made a Face–Heel Turn of her own free will.
  • Gwen is Mind Raped by Morgana into committing adultery with Lancelot right before her wedding to Arthur and gets banished from the kingdom because of it. The writers proceed to forget this and act as if Gwen had done so willingly because she had a thing for Lancelot in the past. Arthur eventually 'forgives' her, even though there's actually nothing to forgive. He never finds out about the brainwashing either.
• Skylar Storm from Mighty Med has only joined forces with the Annihilator at the start of season 2 because he corrupted her powers prior to claiming them. With the exception of Kaz and Oliver in which they're easily forgiving towards her when she's back to fight for the side of good after her powers were removed again, none of the superheroes in the titular hospital were welcoming towards her. There are some who don't know she was being brainwashed at the time, and there are some who know but couldn't care less of it. Alan took advantage of the karma she's getting as a chance for him to get liked. Of course, it didn't last long when he tries to destroy her attempt to make amends that the superheroes stopped turning against her, and that they turned against him once again.
• Once Upon a Time: Ingrid the Snow Queen exploits this by taunting Elsa that Anna imprisoned her in an urn - as an example of how their family bond is not strong. She failed to mention she used the Spell of Shattered Sight to turn Anna into a Jerkass who wouldn't have done it otherwise.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch has to enter a challenge to discover whether she or her twin Katrina is the Evil Twin of the pair. They see a recap of each witch's use of magic, and Sabrina loses that round because she's shown using her magic selfishly. One of the clips — turning Libby into a pineapple - happened the day she got her powers and lost control without meaning to cast a spell. Another — torturing Mr Kraft at school — happened when molecular instability gave her the Alpha Bitch's personality.
• Smallville has a downplayed example in the episode "Unsafe", which has Clark marry Alicia in Las Vegas after she tricks him into wearing a necklace made of red Kryptonite. While Clark doesn't face any real consequences since the marriage isn't legal, his mother treats him with as much anger and disappointment as if he made a stupid decision of his own free will despite knowing that he was drugged against his will and does things while on red Kryptonite that he'd never do in his right mind.
• This sort of thing appears to happen a lot in Star Trek. A character is temporarily possessed by a more powerful force or otherwise suborned against their will to perform actions contrary to their own interests or inclinations. But they then carry on in post afterwards with no sanctions once they're free of possession, or can demonstrate that they were not in control of themselves at the time. ^note This appears to be a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in the ST continuum.
  • The franchise's most prominent example of this trope is when Captain Picard was assimilated into the Borg Collective and used to coordinate their strategy against the Federation. The pilot of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine opens with a freed Picard ferrying Commander Sisko to his new command. Sisko is one of the very few survivors of the massacre at Wolf 359 that Locutus (the Borg's designation for him) was the face of. Sisko's wife, commanding officer, and likely many others he knew were killed. Therefore his attitude to Picard is one of very thinly disguised hostility, loathing and hatred, checked only by the respect required towards a superior officer. This continues to happen even decades later in Star Trek: Picard, with another veteran of Wolf 359, Captain Shaw, displaying the same resentment towards Locutus ("the only Borg so deadly they gave him a goddamn name"). The parties involved all understand at least on an intellectual level that Picard was not responsible for what the Borg made him do, but emotions don't always catch up so quickly. Picard himself suffered a breakdown not long after being rescued over his own inability to resist the Borg, even though he put up more of a fight than anyone could have expected.
  • There is a more ambiguous example in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine with Odo and his interactions with the Founder who is in command during the Dominion's occupation of the station. He routinely links with her (a form of intimate communication unique to their species) not out of any disloyalty to his friends, but out of a desire to understand his people better, but it ends up causing him to neglect his responsibilities to Kira and the rest of the Federation resistance. He's not very contrite about it either when confronted. It's clear that he has some sort of altered consciousness as a result of the link that makes him trivialize all other concerns, but it's less clear how much agency he has in this. Kira, certainly, holds Odo accountable for his actions and doesn't start to forgive him until he earns back the trust he sacrificed.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons
  • Sometimes characters are required to receive an Atonement from a cleric even for actions that were performed under magical mind-control, due to trickery, or otherwise involuntarily or unwittingly. However, in such a circumstance, the cleric does not have to make the personal sacrifice of experience points normally required by the Atonement spell.
  • The Forgotten Realms have a lot of this.
    • Including Laeral Silverhand donning a relic of the local evil death-god and catching a bad case of artifact possession. Of course, as a semidivine being herself, she recovered after the crown was destroyed, but people threw suspicious glances for some time. Eventually this died down to lame taunts about bad luck with headgear from a political opponent, though.
    • Elminster Ecologies appendix II is narrated by a rather grumpy druid, so the approach is rather simple, and not quite unreasonable:
    Bara: ...moldering ancient spells and magical items of great and obnoxious power. More than once have I come upon some mess caused by adventurers only to have them tell me that they couldn't prevent an incident's occurrence because their mage was "under the control of an ancient and malevolent artifact of evil". If you must come to the High Moor and you must hunt treasure there, be careful. Check things for curses before you pick them up and play with them. Being mind-controlled doesn't give you free rein to come in and muck up the region I protect.
• Justified with the acamoth of Mage: The Awakening. They can only possess mortals who have made a Deal with the Devil and given their consent to be so possessed (mortals agree to this because if they can survive possession without their mind breaking the acamoth are required to give them magical power in exchange), and as such whatever they do with your body is considered your fault for letting them in in the first place.

Video Games

• At the end of Monster Sanctuary, Marduk accepts arrest for the crimes he committed while possessed by the Mad Lord, because he's not sure how much agency he had.
• In Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, Nanashi can refuse to unseal the Sealed Evil in a Can, but then the being he made a Deal with the Devil with can force him to do it. Many deaths later, he's called to a hearing for his execution. The Reasonable Authority Figure notes that if he's not always under full control over his body, even if his heart's in the right place, he can't be trusted.
• A subtle one in Starcraft I: the main reason Mengsk abandons Kerrigan to the Zerg is that when she was still a literal Confederate puppet, she was one of the Ghosts responsible for the murder of his father, mother and sister. That she has no memory of it or that she hates the Confederacy for their experiments doesn't matter to him, and ends up causing the plot of Brood War and the next two games when she finally gets her revenge on him.
• In Fire Emblem Engage, Veyle, the Deuteragonist of the game, has a Split Personality. Her true personality is kind, innocent and childlike, but an artificially-imposed evil personality is cruel and completely loyal to her father Sombron. Veyle is initially ignorant of her evil side's existence, as well as her actions, merely blacking out and waking up somewhere else, and is horrified when Alear and the four main royal characters confront her with her crimes in Chapter 15. Alear learns the truth two chapters later and comes to regret treating Veyle so badly, ultimately leading to Veyle ridding herself of her evil personality and joining the heroes. After that, Hortesia, second princess of Elusia, blames Veyle for killing her father and treats her coldly(unlike her older sister Ivy, who insists that Veyle has nothing to atone for), and Veyle herself feels responsible for her evil self's actions and tries to atone for them.
• Planescape: Torment: It's revealed at the end of the game that the Amnesiac Hero, The Nameless One, is damned to Hell for all eternity no matter how you played him due to actions he did before becoming amnesiac. Whatever it was the First Incarnation did, it crossed an In-Universe Moral Event Horizon and damned his immortal soul forever. Nothing can change that, and becoming immortal was the First Incarnation's vain attempt at getting enough time to make up for his sin. The fact that he gets Identity Amnesia every so often when he resurrects just made things infinitely worse; even all the combined good of all his good incarnations were drowned out by the evils of his evil ones, never mind that those evils were drops in the ocean of his original sin. In any ending where The Nameless One is allowed to permanently die (as opposed to being imprisoned, having his body permanently destroyed or is Ret-Gone through a loophole), he ends up in Hell.
• In Terraria, the Mechanic hates the Clothier for tying her up and throwing her into the Dungeon while he was under the Demonic Possession of Skeletron. Meanwhile, the Clothier hates the Mechanic as well, but he doesn't know why.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney: In "Turnabout Reunion", Franziska attempts to use this in order to get Maya Fey convicted of murdering Dr. Turner Grey, arguing that she did so while she was channeling the spirit of his dead nurse Mimi Miney. It doesn't help that Maya seems to believe herself guilty for not being able to control the spirit. Thankfully, Phoenix proves that Mimi was never dead to begin with, and there wasn't any spirit possession whatsoever.
• In Daughter for Dessert, when Heidi tries to take the car keys from the very drunk protagonist, he calls her a "Nazi bitch". When he goes back to the same bar another night, Heidi not only behaves coldly toward him, but charges him double for drinks.
• This gets inverted in Full Metal Daemon Muramasa with the main character Kageaki demanding that he face retribution and punishment for his murder of several innocents including his own mother only for those around him to refuse as they know that he never had any choice in the matter due to him being bound under the Law of Balance which forced him to commit those actions.
• Super Danganronpa Another 2: Hibiki Otonokoji was brainwashed to help her sister, Kanade, murder Setsuka Chiebukuro and only realizes she even killed her when everyone else connects the dots. To Monocrow, however, she still counts as a murderer and she is executed along with her sister.

Web Comics

• In Dominic Deegan, Jayden renounced her faith by reciting a Heresy while under mind control and lost her white magic as a result. It takes a while for her magic to return.
• Done so in Homestuck, to a more general sense. After being brainwashed by the Condesce into turning evil, Jade is eventually killed by Aranea, and Paradox Space declares her death just, nullifying her God Tier immortality. It must be noted that Aranea has a hand in that decision, using her abilities as a Sylph of Light to cause a "Lucky 8reak". Shortly after, the same thing happens to Jane, who was also brainwashed; Aranea wasn't directly shown impacting the decision this time, but since her situation was no different from Jade's, it's likely that Aranea's manipul8ion that caused Jade to die simply remained consistent from then on and caused Jane's death, too. The creator also stated that the more God Tier players an Sburb session has, the lower the standards for a Heroic or Just death become, so Jane might have revived if there were less God Tier players around.

Web Original

• Discussed in Law and the Multiverse's post on mind control. It turns out that a person under mind control would probably get off easily.

Western Animation

• Subverted in DuckTales (2017)'s penultimate Season 1 episode. While Scrooge initially blames Lena for letting Magica De Spell into his home, he does listen to her reasons (Magica is her aunt, who at first coerces and then bodily forces Lena to work for her) and acknowledges his own role in letting things get that far. He then makes her an offer.
  Scrooge: Help me get my family back, and you'll have a place in it.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the sole truly evil things Trixie has ever done were while she was under the influence of the Alicorn Amulet, which turned her into a megalomaniac. Otherwise, she's just a rather harmless braggart. Nonetheless, the inhabitants of Ponyville (including Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship herself) were still distrustful of her in her next appearance, "No Second Prances", despite the regrets she expressed. Granted, she did go to depths to find the artifact and explicitly use it for revenge which provides some reason, but considering her career was ruined by "being bested by Twilight", she was being actively harassed by Ponyville residents, and besting Twilight in a Magic Duel would (and did) fix all of that, it's hard to blame her even for that. Starlight calls Twilight out on this when she is unsupportive of her befriending Trixie, though as Twilight points out, forgiving her brainwashed antics doesn't excuse Trixie being a Jerkass in her own right.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Mime for a Change", after the evil Mister Mime is turned back into Rainbow the Clown, his cheerful song of thanks is interrupted by the Girls beating the snot out of him and Rainbow being taken to jail for all the trouble his alter-ego caused. Though since he was last seen at the Powerpuff Girls' party, it can be assumed that they straightened everything out.
• Slugterra: Junje of the Eastern Caverns was originally his homeland's protector until a Goon Doc slug put him under his power and turned him into the Dar Slinger, terrorizing the Easter Cavern for 20 years for the Goon's master, the Emperor. After being freed by the Shane Gang, Junje returns to his home to learn of the destruction he caused while under the Goon's power, and finds the people he once protected now loathe and distrust him. He spends much of the "Eastern Cavern" arc atoning for him brainwashed actions.
• In Superman: The Animated Series, Superman is captured and brainwashed by Darkseid into believing that he was his son and attacking Earth, in order to destroy his reputation as a hero, causing many of his former allies (like Professor Hamilton) to turn his back on him. It took the Man of Steel several years to regain people's trust, and even by the time of Justice League many still want to hold him accountable for his actions while under Darkseid's control.
• In Young Justice (2010), the Light manages to take control of the Justice League and sends some of their strongest members through a Boom Tube to an alien planet called Rimbor to wreak havoc for sixteen hours. As a result, Earth suddenly stops being an Insignificant Little Blue Planet and gets a lot of hostile alien attention, especially in light of this whole "superpower" thing. Furthermore, the League members involved feel obligated to go to Rimbor and try to clear their name, which puts the League at a disadvantage against the Light's new plans.

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