Playing with Puppets

Often when someone is under control of the mind or the body, the controller will force them to do things that either don't advance the Evil Plan at all or are simply very inefficient in doing so. This is because getting things done isn't the point. The point is to torment or humiliate the victim, or the onlookers if the victim isn't aware, by making it abundantly clear just how helpless and owned they are.

Sometimes the controller claims they're testing the extent of their control, but it will never be the most reliable way of doing that, either; the purest examples are clearly For the Evulz. If the victim is only made to Kneel Before Zod, they got off very lucky indeed; the Power Perversion Potential here is all too obvious, not to mention the possibility of forcing the victim to injure himself or someone else. A less malicious mind-controller might just force his zombie slave to perform routine manual labor or perform a dance for simple entertainment, without the motive of triumphant gloating about how he has obliterated someone else's free will. Of course, any mind-controller who would be simply indifferent about his victims' free will might ultimately seem to be even more alien to the audience's normal value system than a Card-Carrying Villain who enjoys forcing a slave to kneel before him.

Compare Hypno Fool, which is more benign and usually accidental.

Examples of Playing with Puppets include:

Anime and Manga

• In Code Geass, Lelouch is usually relatively responsible and economical with his Hypnotic Eyes's, but during one of many Heroic BSOD/Villainous Breakdown's he's subjected to, he commands some drug dealers to do push ups, squats, handstand (he quite dislikes PE class), dance, howl and clap. The catch is that his mind control is permanent and forces the victim's body beyond its limits if necessary to carry out the command. And Lelouch did not specify a time limit.

Comic Books

• In Earth X, the Skull takes over the minds of everyone in America and most of the world's heroes. He's too inexperienced to do this on that vast a scale, but he has great fun with his superpowered army--especially pretty girls like MaydayParker. He is, however, squicked when Spiders Man and the Iron Maiden profess love for each other, and makes them stop.
• In the first issue of Brit, the villain Master Mind takes control of hundreds of people on a stretch of highway and forces them to dance.

Film

• Ella Enchanted, unsurprisingly.

Literature

• Before turning the principal into Captain Underpants, George and Harold made him pretend to be a chicken and give them money with their hypnotic ring.
  • And the boys got up to this because the principal is a cranky slave-driver who doesn't like kids and does this with his authority when they put even a breath out of line.
• Done in a variety of ways, and over the course of an entire day, to the main character of Heir Apparent by Vivian Van Velde. Under the control of a magical ring, she does indeed cluck like a chicken, not to mention singing "I'm a little teapot." Fortunately for her, the Reset Button is soon activated.
• Spider Robinson's Callahan's Lady. A villain uses her Mind Control Device to force the people in Lady Sally's House to perform disgusting and embarrassing acts for her own amusement.
• The Imperious Curse in Harry Potter, doesn't usually fit the trope because normally it's used to put moles in the Ministry, but Voldemort does try to use it to humiliate Harry at one point (in Goblet of Fire).

Live Action TV

• Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Plato's Stepchildren": The Platonians use their telekinetic powers to make the Enterprise crew members act in absurd and humiliating ways.
• Doctor Who: "Planet of the Spiders" has the Great One taking control of the Doctor's body and forcing him to march in a circle. An especially frightening example as this is arguably the first time we've seen the Doctor so powerless and utterly dominated by one of his foes.
• Farscape has Scorpius taking control of Grunchlk's body with a Mind Probe, and forcing him to eat two of his own fingers- partly for Scorpy's amusement, but mostly to get him to talk.
• Heroes has Eric Doyle, whose superpower is controlling other people's actions with his mind. He uses this power to force Claire, Sandra, and Meredith into a twisted three-person game of Russian Roulette, among other things.

Video Games

• In Bioshock, this trope lends weight to a vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Run! Stop! Turn!
  • "A man chooses! A slave obeys... "Would you kindly..." (hands Jack a golf club) "KILL!" You then proceed to beat your own father to death without any control over it.

Web Original

• In A Very Potter Musical, Voldemort and Quirrell use the Imperio spell to make Harry dance during the song "Dance Again".

Western Animation

• In Disney's Aladdin, when Jafar takes over Agrabah, he humiliates Sultan and Jasmine with People Puppets. One of his cut songs involved doing this to Aladdin.
• Avatar has the water tribe member who is teaching Katara start doing this with Aang and Sokka, both to demonstrate how powerful bloodbending is and to force Katara to use bloodbending to stop her.
• In Teen Titans, Slade gains access to Terra's powers via a special suit with neural interfaces, supposedly to help her control her powers. But later when Terra starts to have second thoughts, he uses the suit to practically hijack her body and forces her to fight her former Love Interest while she's clearly in distress.
• Lilo and Stitch: The Series - Under the control of a hypnotizing experiment he just captured, Experiment 625 and Hamsterviel force Gantu to: eat a peanut butter sandwich with sardines, hop on one foot and say 'blah, blah, blah', dance like a ballerina and say he's a 'big blubberhead', stick out his tongue and make spitting noises, and balance himself on a rolling pin while juggling sandwiches and a cake on his head....with a cherry on top. Lilo herself does this to her rival, Murtle, by using the same experiment to make her act like a chicken.
• Quack Pack: Huey does this when he accidently gets braces laced with mind-control head gear. He forces his brothers to pull their own underwear and act like monkeys, and then orders Donald to recite Shakespeare's soliloquies.
• In the Kim Possible episode "The Twin Factor", Drakken has Kim dress up in Shego's clothes and Shego wear a pink apron and clean the lair.