http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PeoplePuppets

Linguini can get awkward if given a scalp massage.

Ron Stoppable: Hey, stop hitting yourself!

Professor Dementor: I cannot! Kim Possible , "Ill-Suited" Hey, stop hitting yourself!I cannot!

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Not Mind Control - body control!

Some guys just feel the need to be in control... of everything. Including you. No, not with possession, not through manipulation; we mean literally controlling your body, forcing you to move as he wishes, and turning you into his personal People Puppets.

Such a character, usually a villain, can control his victims' limbs as if they were marionettes on a set of strings. Sometimes he'll actually have a puppet-theme, and many a Demonic Dummy has powers like this to play on the irony of a person being puppet-ed by the puppets; but other times a character just happens to have this ability along with related Psychic Powers. In either case, those controlled will often move in Marionette Motion.

Either way, he can manipulate others' bodies while they're still in 'em, much to his victims' dismay... as said victims are usually conscious, confused, and complaining (sometimes loudly, to inform allies — and the audience — that "I ...can't... control my... body!") Or maybe they Can Only Move the Eyes. Most times, they haven't been Brainwashed or anything, as they're protesting mightily — it's just that there's not much they can do about it. For some reason, many character's mouths seem to be immune to this, as they will often protest whatever it is that they're being made to do. This may be related to Voices Are Mental.

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Often shown by having the bad guy says "Kneel" to the person. The person says "I will never kneel before you!" — and then they duly get made to kneel. Worse, this can also be used to make them hit themselves.

Occasionally corpses can be animated and used as People Puppets, but if a corpse's every motion is not explicitly controlled by its animator, then there's a good chance it's just an average zombie.

If it is the puppet's own weapon which is controlling them, they are a victim of Weapon Wields You.

The ability to turn people into People Puppets is often a very specific form of Mind over Matter.

Don't let this happen to you! Take a quick course in Heroic Willpower to build up resistance!

And, yes, there are erotic examples of this. Just use your imagination.

Subtrope of Body Snatcher. Compare with Dead Guy Puppet, Brain with a Manual Control, Compelling Voice. Not to be confused with Puppet Permutation, in which a character is transformed into a literal puppet. Also not to be confused with Meat Puppet which is a type of manipulated Host. See also Living Doll Collector; and Playing with Puppets for when the puppeteer starts toying with his puppet, usually in a cruel fashion.

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Examples

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Jack Black is made into a puppet by Orange's "Little People", promptly after he says he isn't Orange's puppet. Found here .

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Films — Animation

In Ratatouille, Remy the rat manages to study as a restaurant chef despite the obvious ban on rats through his partnership with a young man named Linguini who works in the kitchen. Remy discovers he can cause involuntary movement in Linguini by tugging certain hairs on his head, and they figure out a system where Remy hides under Linguini's hat and controls him like a marionette, making it look like Linguini is doing the cooking all by himself.

In Shrek Forever After, the Pied Piper can force many different creatures to dance by playing his magical flute.

Aladdin: Jafar plays with this trope. "If you won't bow before a sultan, then you will cower before a sorcerer!" And, well, they do. Of course, Jafar had always seen the sultan as a "puppet king," so he just took the chance to make that literal and ran with it. Including giving him actual marionette strings.

In the climax of Sausage Party, Douche sticks his nozzle up a gun-wielding Darren's ass and controls him by pulling on his testicles .

Films — Live-Action

Literature

Live Action TV

Music

Done in the cover-art of Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast, which shows the Devil controlling someone like a marionette and is in turn controlled by the band's mascot Eddie in a similar fashion.

*NSYNC milked this concept as much as possible for their album No Strings Attached. The album's cover portrays them dangling from strings like puppets and the video for "Bye Bye Bye" portrays them as marionettes being controlled by a Psycho Ex-Girlfriend and escaping from her. Their debut television performance of the song had several dancers dangling from strings controlled by Giant Hands of Doom while the band performed and their tour promoting the album opens with them dangling from the roof and dressed in patchwork doll costumes.

Invoked by Metallica's "Master of Puppets" ("Obey your master! Master! Master of puppets, I'm pulling your strings!"), though it's more Mind Control than body one. The album's cover even has strings coming out of a graveyard.

Tabletop Games

Powerful psykers in Warhammer 40,000 are known to do this on occasion.

A major aspect of the antagonists in Mage: The Awakening, the Seers of the Throne, is the fact that they possess artifacts known as "Profane Urim" which allow them to do this. Its probably a major factor in their ability to effectively rule the world. Vampire: The Masquerade had the Dominate clan ability, which at its highest levels let you physically possess another person. It also had the Presence ability, which covered Charm Person. The Ventrue had both, which went a long way to explaining why they were the de facto leaders of the Camarilla faction. Geist: The Sin-Eaters features the Marionette Manifestation which, depending on the Keys invoked, allows a Sin-Eater to control machinery (Industrial), zombies (Stillness), animals (Primeval), or ghosts (Stigmata). There isn't really a control for normal people, though; the Passion Marionette is more about mindfuckery than bodily manipulation.

Older editions of Dungeons & Dragons make this possible with the Dominate Person or Dominate Monster spells. In spell compendium there is a spell called puppeteer that does this.

In Shadowrun there's a spell called "Contral Actions" which does exactly that.

Video Games

Web Animation

In the World of the Damned story arc of Banana-nana-Ninja!, Seppuku enters his opponent's bloodstream and plugs his communicator into a tangle of neurons to amplify his signal and send a distress call. The hapless opponent embarrasses herself by speaking the radio transmissions out loud.

Church does this a couple of times after becoming a ghost in Red vs. Blue, but not maliciously, just when he really needs a body. The people he possesses typically don't remember anything that happened, though. Epsilon inherited this ability. (In contrast, O'Malley's victims tend to retain some elements of free will.) Arguably the Meta is like this by the end, either because of Sigma having control over him, or simply having so many AIs shouting in his head at once

Webcomics

Web Original

A somewhat disturbing example comes from DeviantArt, in the animation Puppet .

. In The finale of There Will Be Brawl, Ness and Lucas do this to Princess Peach's Bloodily Worse .

There Will Be Brawl, . Gaea from Noob gets the power to control the avatar of another player from her faction for ten seconds. After she reaches level 100 the power expands to thirty second for allied avatars and ten seconds for those of other factions. This gives her Manipulative Bastard qualifier a whole new meaning.

the power expands to thirty second for allied avatars and ten seconds for those of other factions. This gives her Manipulative Bastard qualifier a whole new meaning. The Jenkinsverse has biodrones, unfortunate humans (or nonhumans) whose brains have been riddled with control implants. The drone's control software can reference the memories and personality of the body so as to convincingly blend into society. The body's native personality has no conscious agency of their own beyond sending constant feedback to the control software that if it were conscious and in control right now, it would be screaming a whole lot.

In Mortasheen, this is the power of the monsterCackle . Who was originally designed to watch over children. And yes, they do play that for all the creepy it's worth. And it is inverted with the creature Victrossus , which is essentially a body that puppeteers the brains of others.

. Who was originally designed to watch over children. And yes, they do play that for all the creepy it's worth. And it is inverted with the creature Victrossus , which is essentially a body that puppeteers the brains of others. The mutant codenamed Skinwalker in the Whateley Universe can do this to one person. He takes over the person's body, and that person watches helplessly as Skinwalker does whatever he wants.

Western Animation