Painful Transformations in Literature.
- The "warpspasm" that occurs when a new Green Man comes into his powers in 100 Cupboards is painful enough that the sufferer has to be tied down to avoid having them rip out their own eyes or snap their bones in seizures. Luckily it only happens once per person. Interesting variation in that the Green Man doesn't emerge any different physically - the transformation is mental.
- In Animorphs it's often noted that morphing doesn't hurt...but really seems like it should, given how the characters can feel their bones crunching around as it happens.
- It is low-key Body Horror, though, as most people (Cassie being one exception) can't really control how the process works, causing parts of you to change at random and inconsistent rates. There is also a bit of the psychological element, too, depending on what kind of instincts they get when they're done.
- One book has Rachel note that the transformation is usually painless, but this time is an exception, until she figures out it actually is someone kneeing her in the back (they're demorphing in a tight spot).
- Roger's transformation in Behemoth is accompanied by Blood from Every Orifice, which coagulates and becomes Instant Armor and generally happens in response to grievous bodily harm. Comes with dangerous hypotension afterward.
- In BIONICLE: Beware the Bohrok, the six Toa's upgrades into their more powerful Nuva forms is described as getting battered with their own Elemental Powers, being lit aflame from the inside, frozen solid, plunged into water, swept away by a windstorm, suffocated under soil and smashed against a rock wall, all within less than a second.
- Older Than Print: In Irish Mythology, "The Boyhood Deeds of Cuchulainn" from The Cattle Raid of Cooley describes Cuchulainn's Riastarthae (warp-spasm) as a very painful-sounding transformation.
- In Tansy Rayner Roberts's Creature Court series, the characters can usually shift into animal, Lord or chimaera form pretty easily. However, if they've had recent contact with skysilver, the transformation becomes a lot more unpleasant. Naturally, this happens to Ashiol at every given opportunity.
- All werewolves in Darkest Powers first transform during puberty. Derek's was shown to be extremely painful.
- Inferno XXIV of The Divine Comedy gives a vivid account of thievish shades transforming into snakes and lizards, and vice versa. The transformation is treated like a rape, a topic so horrid Dante only explicitly mentions it in the context of Lucifer's rebellion against Heaven.
- Dr. Franklin's Island by Ann Halam, two girls get turned into a fish and a bird. The narrator describes this as being really uncomfortable. The bird-girl's sternum goes clean through the skin of her chest, not a pretty picture. The transformation back is much easier on both of them, but the fish-girl is sick and uneasy for much of it and the bird-girl spends five days in something like a coma.
- In Gaunt's Ghosts, the rogue Inquisitor Handro Rime has a collection of agents known collectively as the Sirkle. They all share the same face, to act as doubles for the Inquisitor, and it is implied the two scenes that he dies in are in fact his doubles. It's revealed that they use a special form of internal mechanism to alter the tension and position of muscles and even fracture and reset bone. It is repeatedly noted that it is incredibly painful, requires immense focus to maintain one face, and a moment of surprise causes them to reveal their true face. And whenever they transform, it occurs with a horrifying crunch of bone. Cue Hero Killer moments.
- Harry Potter:
- Werewolf transformations are described as being excruciatingly painful. Animagi and Metamorphmagi, however, easily transform at will without the slightest discomfort because it is a magical skill instead of a disease.
- The description of Polyjuice Potion transformation includes the phrase bubbling skin... creepy and painful.
- This trope happens when characters have to drink skelegrow to regrow lost skeletal parts (Harry had to do so thanks to a botched attempt at mending his arm when it was broken during a Quidditch match), and it is stated that the process is extremely painful and would require the entire night at the infirmary.
- In The Immortals, as Daine develops her powers in Wolf-Speaker she starts to use Partial Transformation, her body changing part of the way while she's pulling an Animal Eye Spy. These changed parts tend to cramp and ache. When she figures out outright Voluntary Shapeshifting she seems fine after changing into a wolf, and for some hours after changing back into a human, but in the epilogue of that book she mentions spending several days in bed, drinking Foul Medicine to help with the pain as her bones protested having warped so much. She says she won't go for a complete transformation again for a good while and hopefully by then her skeleton will be able to handle it. By Emperor Mage it's not an issue, so presumably she figured it out in the year between the books.
- Journey to Chaos:
- The transformation caused by mana mutation is always painful because it reshapes the victim's body at random. All the while the brain is receiving signals of what's happening, including ones that it doesn't know how to interpret.
- Looming Shadow has many examples of how painful this can be. Patrick Lumberson lay halfway between human and fitzger with mana sparking on him like electricity. Kallen encounters a monster in the midst of transforming and mistakes its screams of pain for threatening hisses. The reader sees into Eric's mind when it is shorting out from a mana explosion.
- Bladi Conversion is a a Forbidden Technique, in part, because it is painful. The convertor replaces the genetic information in the converted's blood by overwriting it, in effect, replacing the converted's parents, biologically speaking. Zettai describes it as the most painful thing she's ever experienced.
- A gradual version in Keys to the Kingdom: as Arthur's flesh and blood become more saturated with magic, he is shown to scream in agony as his bones and muscles shift and grow to make him taller, more handsome, and "more perfect".
- When in Loyal Enemies Rest asks, how does werewolf transformation feel, Deadpan Snarker Shelena sums it:Shelena: So, you're interested, what a human feels, when they're violently crumpled, turned inside out and stuffed with hair? Or a beast, in reverse order?
- Werewolf transformations in the Mercy Thompson series are quite painful and are often rather prolonged as well, with some of them taking around fifteen minutes or so. As werewolves are already rather short-tempered, it's generally a good idea to tread carefully around a recently-changed werewolf until they get themselves back under control.
- Averted with Mercy herself — as a walker, a type of Native American shapeshifter, switching between her coyote form and human is painless and nearly instantaneous. Charles Cornick, a werewolf who inherited some powers from his Native American mother, still feels pain when he shifts, but his transformations are much faster and smoother than normal.
- One werewolf is kidnapped and attempts to change while under the influence of copious amounts of drugs, which means she gets stuck halfway through. She starts leaking bodily fluids before managing to finish the change with the help of the almost-full moon.
- Mermaid (2011): Lenia takes the potion to transform herself into a human, and passes out from the pain of her tail ripping in half and her scales dissolving.
- The Mermaid's Sister: As Maren slowly transforms into a mermaid, she suffers pain in her legs for months. Once they fully combine, the pain mostly goes away.
- Monster Hunter International: Werewolf transformations always hurt since the body's very skeletal structure is transforming, much less the other body changes, though the pain get easier to handle (or at least acclimate to) with experience. Also played with, in that according to Earl Harbinger speaking from experience, pain itself can often be a catalyst for Involuntary Shapeshifting as a werewolf can instinctively try to go beast when hurt (usually to try and better murder whatever caused it), and it takes training to only transform on command (at least until the full moon comes out).
- Werewolves in The Parasol Protectorate face this problem when shifting between human and wolf forms. The physical pain never lessens, but older wolves get better at hiding it, culminating in Professor Lyall who is the most graceful shifter anyone in the cast has ever seen. The initial metamorphosis is also generally painful, but only because it normally involves an Alpha werewolf tearing you a new one.
- Paelen from Kate O'Hearn's Pegasus series can stretch his bones almost indefinitely. While this is a useful skill in a series where the protagonists keep getting captured, it also hurts like crazy.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians: While the scene following Percy's transformation into a Guinea pig is oddly funny, the way he describes the actual process hardly sounds fun. Like an above example, he's tricked into drinking a potion and says it felt like sudden, burning heat in his stomach, unnatural physical changes, and then terror, because he had no idea what was happening.
- Real Mermaids: When Jade transforms from a human to a mermaid it doesn't feel like anything, but when she transforms back into a human it's excruciatingly painful and makes her feel like her skin is on fire. Having her lower half immersed in water helps.
- Reign of the Seven Spellblades:
- Pete Reston begins suffering painful mana disruptions upon becoming a Sex Shifter. According to main character Oliver, this is a fairly common side effect of changes in the body among mages: in addition to normal puberty and illness sometimes causing it, he recalls helping a woman through mana disruptions caused by a pregnancy. It was his cousin Shannon.
- Fay Willock is a half-werewolf, and taking his wolf form puts him in constant severe pain. He's eventually able to fight through it and master Voluntary Shapeshifting out of sheer determination to stay with his now-lover Stacy Cornwallis.
- In Rivers of London, the disguise-spell dissimulo molds flesh and bone into a new appearance, and subverts this trope by dulling the resulting pain ... at least, until the spell shuts down. Then, the pain of having most of your face collapse is the least of your problems.
- In The Shattered World, were-folk transformations become more and more painful the older they get.
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: When Dr. Jekyll drank his potion, "the most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death."
- The Twilight Saga vampire transformations are described as three straight days of burning, terrible pain. But you can choose not to scream if you really don't want to.
- If the werewolves of Uncommon Animals initiate the change, it's very painful. So much so, that the human mind can black out, leaving a frightened wolf. Speaker initiated changes do not hurt at all.
- The Vampire Chronicles transformation includes the body painfully rejecting digested food and fluids.
- The Vazula Chronicles: It is widely believed that if a merperson's tail leaves the water, they'll dry out and die. At the end of A Kingdom Submerged, Merletta discovers that drying out isn't fatal — instead, it turns her into a human. Her first transformation is excruciatingly painful. Her later transformations involve a similar feeling of prickly heat, but are more uncomfortable than painful.
