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brightknightie) wrote2020-05-17 04:56 pm
brightknightie) wrote2020-05-17 04:56 pm
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scope of FK's vampiric hypnotism (just pondering)
How often in canon does an FK episode deploy vampiric hypnotism to make a character do something against his or her will or nature?
That is, we very frequently see it used to make a character forget something, or to accept an interpretation or explanation, or to not feel pain (up to even the extreme of not trying to stop a vampire character from killing). Those can perhaps be classed as negative actions, the absence or reversal of actions. What is there on the other side, positive actions, presence of action, that the hypnotized individual is not inclined to do? There are incidents of Nick using hypnotism to strongly encourage -- compel -- perpetrators to confess and reporters to back off. There's the time Nick unquestionably abused his ability to get Schanke to both drive him home and wash the Caddy. There's perhaps Natalie letting Spark into her apartment (but lots of interpretive complications there, from being a documented resister, of course, to apparently having intended to let him in had things gone as she planned). And there's Emily ceasing to write her Vampire Sagas books (presumably going on to write other books, I hope), but again this is stopping something rather than starting, and may have been something she was inclined to do, anyway, under the circumstances.
Off the top of my head, though, no episode incident of vampire hypnotism approaches compelling the action that the human/technology hypnotism of "Strings" does, where the victim commits murder under its influence. Or even "Faithful Followers," where the motivation situation is more complex than in "Strings," but fundamentally similar.
(Real-life hypnotism, both for stage and therapy, is scientifically controversial, a quick glance at Wikipedia confirms. Yet it seems generally uncontroversial to say that whatever else it is, there is heightened suggestibility, but not too heightened. That is, a cooperative patient and therapist together may accomplish something, but there's zero documented proof of military, intelligence, or criminal application in real life to date.)
That is, we very frequently see it used to make a character forget something, or to accept an interpretation or explanation, or to not feel pain (up to even the extreme of not trying to stop a vampire character from killing). Those can perhaps be classed as negative actions, the absence or reversal of actions. What is there on the other side, positive actions, presence of action, that the hypnotized individual is not inclined to do? There are incidents of Nick using hypnotism to strongly encourage -- compel -- perpetrators to confess and reporters to back off. There's the time Nick unquestionably abused his ability to get Schanke to both drive him home and wash the Caddy. There's perhaps Natalie letting Spark into her apartment (but lots of interpretive complications there, from being a documented resister, of course, to apparently having intended to let him in had things gone as she planned). And there's Emily ceasing to write her Vampire Sagas books (presumably going on to write other books, I hope), but again this is stopping something rather than starting, and may have been something she was inclined to do, anyway, under the circumstances.
Off the top of my head, though, no episode incident of vampire hypnotism approaches compelling the action that the human/technology hypnotism of "Strings" does, where the victim commits murder under its influence. Or even "Faithful Followers," where the motivation situation is more complex than in "Strings," but fundamentally similar.
(Real-life hypnotism, both for stage and therapy, is scientifically controversial, a quick glance at Wikipedia confirms. Yet it seems generally uncontroversial to say that whatever else it is, there is heightened suggestibility, but not too heightened. That is, a cooperative patient and therapist together may accomplish something, but there's zero documented proof of military, intelligence, or criminal application in real life to date.)
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Pretty much every episode makes up its own rules, of course! And then we reconcile them as pleases us. :-) "Near Death" in particular definitely wants to suggest that it is a matter of choice, either dying fully and continuing on to one's eternal destination, or returning as a vampire. Yet Urs in "Hearts of Darkness" protests that Vachon made her choice for her.
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(On a tangential note, the North American version of Being Human had vampiric hypnotism, but got around it being the easy solution to everything by making the main vampire character absolutely terrible at it. Since he rarely and only reluctantly dealt with other vampires, he had to seek other solutions most of the time.)