Basic Trope: Someone is brainwashed into causing destruction.
- Straight: Bob is brainwashed into attacking Alice by Emperor Evulz.
- Exaggerated: Bob is forced to commit mass genocide.
- Downplayed: Bob sows discord and mistrust in the Five-Man Band, but does not physically harm anyone.
- Justified: Hypnosis cannot force anyone to do something that they intrinsically believe is wrong. However, Bob is the Token Evil Teammate and was already undergoing a Sanity Slippage.
- Subverted:
- Evulz and Bob have cornered Alice, and Bob is aiming his gun...and then he shoots Evulz, and reveals that he has a strong enough will to No-Sell brainwashing.
- Not Brainwashed.
- Double-Subverted:
- ...then he shoots Alice too. Alice can only be harmed if her guard is down, and Evulz was willing to sacrifice himself to trick her.
- Bob joined Team Evulz on his own volition, but he needed some "reinforcement" for that time Evulz ordered him to shoot Fido.
- Inverted:
- Evulz has a Villainous Crush on Alice, and brainwashes Bob to assist her.
- Heel–Face Brainwashing: General Drake is brainwashed by the heroes into fighting both his men and his superior, Emperor Evulz.
- Parodied: Evulz tells Bob to bring Alice great pain...by replacing her ketchup with Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce.
- Averted: Evulz never brainwashes Bob.
- Deconstructed: It would be much more efficient for Evulz to attack Alice himself, but he uses Bob for the cruel irony. As a result, Alice frees Bob with an "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight and they both wipe the floor with Evulz.
- Reconstructed: Evulz learns from his mistakes and is much more pragmatic in his future use of brainwashing.
- Zigzagged: Evulz’s brainwashing spell doesn’t quite work and causes Bob’s “programming” to randomly switch on and off.
- Enforced: The main writer has a mind control fetish.
- Played for Laughs: A slapstick routine occurs and gives Alice Amusing Injuries.
- Played for Drama: Killing Alice causes Bob to fall into a downward spiral of self-hatred and grief, and he hangs himself.
- Played for Horror: The Reveal of Evulz having hypnotic control of Bob occurs just as Alice escaped Evulz's three-hundredth attempt to kill her, it looked like the episode was going to end with some amount of happiness and Bob's murder method is not quick or painless.
- Lampshaded: “Oh, don’t worry, it’s easy to free someone from the Emperor’s control. You just gotta give ‘em a good pep talk.”
- Discussed: “Evulz has a mind control spell, so if I ever get brainwashed and attack you, don’t stay behind to try to talk me out of it. Just run.”
- Conversed: “The lady in this show is an idiot. Don’t stand around talking if they’re brainwashed, you dingus!”
- Invoked: “As a rule of thumb, if someone here betrays us, it usually means they’re brainwashed.”
- Exploited: “Bob can’t beat me in Monopoly if he’s out fighting for Evulz!”
- Defied: Alice and Bob are trained to No-Sell Evulz’s brainwashing spell.
- Implied: During the episode where The Republic invades the The Empire, Alice and Bob are working together. Later on, Bob is seen fighting Alice with glowing red eyes, and it has been established that some of the enemies have mind control.
