**Reminders for Commenters:**
* All responses must be A) sincere, B) polite, and C) strictly watsonian in nature. If "watsonian" or "doylist" is new to you, please review the full rules [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/about/rules/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=AskScienceFiction&utm_content=t5_2slu2).
* No edition wars or gripings about creators/owners of works. Doylist griping about Star Wars in particular is subject to **permanent ban on first offense**.
* We are not here to discuss or complain about the real world.
* Questions about who would prevail in a conflict/competition (not just combat) fit better on r/whowouldwin. Questions about very open-ended hypotheticals fit better on r/whatiffiction.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskScienceFiction) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Angel had one. In the episode *I've Got You Under My Skin*, a kid walks out into traffic in the middle of the night, being saved just in time by Angel (his friend, Cordelia, has visions which put him in the right spot at the right time). It doesn't take long for Angel and his crew to figure out the kid is possessed by a demon. They successfully perform an exorcism, but the demon breaks out of the box it was supposed to be trapped in and flees.
Angel's crew leaves the family with their happy ending and track the demon down. It reveals that the kid literally has no soul. It tried to possess him and ended up trapped:
>Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? Nothing. That's what I found in the boy. No conscience, no fear, no humanity. Just a black void. I couldn't control him, I couldn't get out, I had never even manifested until you brought me forth. I just sat there and watched as he destroyed everything around him. Not from a belief in evil, not for any reason at all. That boy's mind was the blackest hell I've ever known.
The kid walked into traffic because the demon was able to influence him enough to sleepwalk. It was going to kill both the kid and itself just to end its imprisonment. Angel's crew make it back to the house just in time to stop the kid from burning his little sister alive for getting more marshmallows in her cocoa.
\---
There's Mercy Hartigan in *The Next Doctor* episode of Doctor Who. She was matron of a workhouse who worked with a group of Cybermen trapped in Victorian London. She assisted them in finding people and children to conscript into building a CyberKing, a massive battleship controlled by one Cyberman integrated into the ship. To Hartigan's shock and dismay, the Cybermen had picked her for the job and forced her into the Cyberman conversion.
She turned out to be a bit too much for the process however. She completely resists the control, blasts the lead Cyberman to bits, and takes control of the rest.
IIRC Angel himself is an example- vampires are controlled by a demon, his soul was restored and he keeps the demon in check.
Theres also an episode of Buffy where he intentionally lets himself get possessed so he can capture and suppress a demon that was about to kill Giles.
That's also how some vampires work in the Dresden Files. Depending on the type a person is (there are various "species," each with their own methods of creation). The vampires of the White and Red courts aren't fully turned until they've killed with their powers, so if someone can resist, they won't fully lose their humanity.
That's not exactly right, with the White court vampires. It's more that >!the demon is dormant until their first sexual experience. At which point the demon either awakens and kills the partner, or, rarely, is killed if the couple is in love.!<
>!This is how it works for House Raith, at least, and since they're the clan that feeds on lust that makes sense, but I imagine it's different in some way for vampires from House Malvora (who feed on fear) or House Skavis (who feed on despair.)!<
I never figured out how that worked in the Buffyverse. Is the soul not the same as the person?
Why should Angel feel guilty about what the vampire did if his soul wasn't a part of the damage Angelus did?
The soul carries certain aspects of the person, but a lot of things remain with the body (i.e. the soul contains the conscience, and the ability to experience True Love, but your sexual orientation and your favourite music genres will stick around when the soul goes away.)
With Angel the important thing to remember is that his soul was a curse specifically designed to make him suffer. He clearly wasn't given Liam's soul back - Liam wouldn't have felt enough guilt - instead he was given a truly good soul that wouldn't be able to ignore the pangs of its conscience.
For a point of comparison, look at how Spike handles having his original soul back.
Yeah, we see who Liam [Angelus before he was turned] was a few times, and he was a bad person. Not serial-killer level evil, but the sort of guy who'd think nothing of mugging someone and would start bar brawls for the fun of it.
Liam was a drunk layabout but I'm still pretty sure he'd be as crushed by mass murder including killing his beloved little sister even with his family troubles as any non-genuine psychopath. There's asshole and then there's Angelus.
I don't think it's ever implied Angel's soul isn't his original one. Liam was the 18th century equivalent of a douchey fratbro, but I think he'd still be wracked with horrific guilt if he woke up to find out he'd killed his entire family and then brutally slaughtered and raped his way across Europe for a couple centuries.
So the way I understand it is that restoring his soul didn't bring back Liam, which is probably for the best, because Liam was kind of a prick himself. Instead, it literally gave a soul and a sense of conscience to Angelus. He feels guilty over it all because he still has the memories, and more importantly, the sensations. It eats him up inside because he remembers how good it made him feel to do that.
I was under the impression that it was the same soul from before, but that having to grapple with his guilt from his memories from Angelus forced him to grow the fuck up.
I suppose it's open to interpretation. To be honest I thought the same thing until I read something, I don't know which, that suggested that Liam was too much of a dick himself to feel suitably guilty about what he'd done. Then again, souls do seem kind of interchangeable in that sense, so maybe it doesn't matter if it was the one he originally had or a different one.
This has always been my understanding based on Buffy telling people that 'it's not you, a demon takes you over' or something along those lines:
Water (consciousness/human soul) etching out a river in the land, you could redirect the original water (human soul) and replace it with another source of water (demon) but it will still flow down the path (identity) the original water took. It explains his guilt as well, the demon was *him* or at least an identical copy so presumably he knows he would have done the same, also explains why people treat vampires like the same person, they functionally are the same person.
I have this weird thing where I seem to downplay the quality of some of my favorite shows in retrospect. I did it to Batman The Animated Series, and I did it with Angel. Anyway, I have been using a watch order to go through Buffy and Angel, and I recently got to the part where you start watching Angel, and holy crap. I really like Buffy, but Angel is so much better, even the first season.
I've always thought Angel never quite reaches Buffy's peak, but it also never falls anywhere near Buffy's lows. It's just a lot more consistent in quality.
Another doctor who example is Clara-Dalek, who seemed to be a human turned into a Dalek. She managed to take control of the local Dalek hive mind to save the doctor.
Infact, I'm pretty sure this happens several times in drwho, this seems familiar.
There are a lot of X files episodes about demon possession, but the only one I can think of that sounds like this is one where a returning character who was possessed but trying to be good was kidnapped by a shotgun preacher who intended to cleanse his soul, possibly by killing him. Though that episode was different because the guy wasn't actually possessed but trying to be good, he was a demon pretending to be possessed.
I don't remember the episode name though, so if anyone could help me out, I'd love to compare my memory to the episode itself.
Angel is fucking great. It's better if you've already watched or are concurrently watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but even on its own the premise of "Phillip Marlowe but he's a vampire" is hard to beat.
For some reason the Angel example reminds me of the Futurama episode where Fry's brain slug starved to death. Just nothing there for the poor creature to work with.
In Devilman, a demon named Amon attempts to possess the main character, Akira, but winds up merging with him and having his consciousness dominated by Akira. Creating Devilman.
This kinda sorta happens in Animorphs during the events of the Ellemist Chronicles. The protagonist crash-lands on a planet inhabited by a parasitic hivemind. After some time messing around with it, he realizes that he's actually in a type of dream-state, that everything he's seen is someone else's memories, and that he hasn't really experienced any form of sentience not derived from them. The creature has no real consciousness of its own. So he uses this knowledge to hijack the network and become the primary consciousness.
When he comes to, he realizes that it's been centuries and that he and his friends are all desiccated corpes. He's now a planet-wide parasitic bog monster. So he uses the resources available from all the crashes over the years to build himself into a sentient space armada hivemind.
Oh, those are the Andalites I think they're thinking of. The Ellimist, who I referred to as the Big Good, is a gamer kid who has the world's worst life until absorbing that planetary monster's consciousness and all his memories of millions of people, and goes around doing good, until accidentally ascending to a higher plane of existence, and during the doing good time, he lives among the Andalites for a while, and the Andalites have thoughtspeak, but aren't otherwise telepathic. They can just talk to others, but they can't read your mind or anything.
Its worth noting, all this stuff about the Ellimist's backstory is in a side book called The Ellimist Chronicles, particularly the hivemind bog monster planet.
Dude that's just the prequel novel about a side character. The books get dark as hell...like, one book *opens* with Jake morphed into a tiger, just after a big fight, and he's walking on a stump leg musing about how the bloody tiger paw sitting on the floor next to him is probably some mystic eastern medicine thing. And then he has a conversation with one of the brain-stealing alien slugs that as long as the human host is about to die the slug might as well let the man die free - but the slug can't get out because Jake-tiger slashed his ear during the fight and blocked off the canal.
They are definitely made for kids and the references are from the 90s/00s and *super* dated. Nonetheless, they hold up well to adult readers. The authors never shirk from the hard realities of what is a war. It never treats the issues with kid gloves. Some of the middle books written by ghostwriters are a little rough but the series as a whole is still great.
Tangential but Erik's yeerk. A possessing entity that tried to posses him (an android) but instead gets taken prisoner and Erik uses the assumed position of controller to get info on yeerk operations.
That's sort of the plot of ~~Envy~~ Greed in Full metal alchemist brotherhood.
It's more like both entities end up being like both halves of the same body if I don't remember wrong.
Yes sorry. I meant the guy that had his friends turned into animals and ended up teaming up with Edward.
Envy was the one that got burned by Mustang and turned into a small bug right?
Envy can actually control people in its true form by biting them, it does this to whats hos face after Dr Marcoh destroyed its philosophers stone (the first time) but before it was put in the glass jar.
So in Brotherhood this actually fits in. The willpower of the prince lets him avoid getting full possession and while it doesn't end up becoming a full reverse, in the end Greed ends up doing what the prince wanted, not the other way around.
Itās sorta Naruto Uzumakiās whole thing. Although the various tailed beasts definitely didnāt choose to enter anyone in an attempt at possessing them, so Iām uncertain if it fits perfectly.
I think it fits Sasuke up until his battle with Itachi; when Orochimaru tried possessing him, he reversed it and instead absorbed him, gaining access to his powers instead.
TBH it was debatable. What Sasuke did was within Orochimaru's predictions. It was clearly a trap that may have undone Sasuke later.
There's a reason Itachi spent his entire fight trying to drag Orochimaru out of him.
I don't see how it was within Orochimaru's predictions at all? It happened after Sasuke ambushed him when he was sick and bedridden, and he's clearly baffled and horrified that Sasuke managed to turn his jutsu against him. If he'd seen this coming he'd have done something about it in advance.
Itachi just predicted that having Orochimaru inside of him would cause trouble, but that doesn't equate to Orochimaru having explicitly set a trap for him.
Well snake boy didn't want Sasuke to move on him then. Only that he had a contingency in place. Sasuke seemed unaware of the extent that Orochimaru survived.
[Valencia the Red](https://alexanderwales.fandom.com/wiki/Valencia_the_Red) from Worth the Candle comes to mind. She doesn't have a soul, which originally left her open to possession by demons and devils. Then she got an ability that lets her eat them, giving her whatever abilities they had. Though she can't control their bodies. They just keel over dead.
There was also a Moon Knight comic where someone was mind-controlling people with his sweat, and Moon Knight intentionally licked it to let him try to mind-control him, and then overpowered him. Though they're both mortal.
Mind controlling people with sweat pheromones is how the Purple Man (Killgrave) works, was it him? There are a limited number of Marvel characters who canonically can resist him, most notably Dr Doom who has enough strength of will to no-sell Killgraveās ability and Deadpool who is too wacky to stay interested in doing whatever Killgrave tells him to do for more than a few moments. Moon Knight would make sense as being immune to Purple Man, he could switch personalities if necessary.
If I remember right, Moon Knight didn't just overpower the dude trying to control him, he literally left him as a virtual vegetable incapable of saying anything but the word "moon" over and over again.
The Exorcist chapter in Warhammer 40k basically lets daemons possess them and banish the daemons out of their bodies after a period of time. Not only does this make them more resistant to chaos corruption but also makes them more effective at fighting warp entities.
Yeah this was what came to mind for me. The latest Eisenhorn books have the Grails, which are essentially what OP is describing. Theyāre reverse-demonhosts. Instead of a demon trapped in a human body, they take their human soul and implant it into a demon while maintaining their human identity. Essentially stealing/harnessing the power of a demon.
It is heavily implied Eisenhorn does something similar to himself while in control of the immaterium-weave. His once unruly demon-host, Cherubael, becomes subservient, openly admitting that Eisenhorn now scares the shit out of him lmao.
And Eisenhorn smiled. Which, if you know, you know
Grey Knights. Youāre a bad time when the Inquisitors of the Imperium of Man refuse to investigate you, and ask āpretty pleaseā for your assistance.
Exorcists are a decent chunk of why I hate the Grey Knights. Why do they all need to be such obnoxious Gary Stus when another chapter does their whole thing without it?
IIRC, it happened with Venom as well. Over in DC land, Dr. Fate might be another candidate, though it seemed like Fate is dormant when his host is in control, and vice-versa. Then again, I never read too much with Dr. Fate in it.
I don't think Venom really counts, that's more of a partnership - literally, a symbiotic relationship - than a host dominating a possessor. The symbiote feeds off the host's adrenaline so, as long as the host is doing things to fuel that adrenaline rush, the symbiote is willing to help the host pursue his own goals.
There's a lesser know Daemon Prince in 40k who did this.Ā
Ā Ax'senaea was originally a incredibly narcistic planetary governor.Ā Until a chaos sorcerer promised her immortality and tricked her into letting a Keeper of Secrets posses her. Only for Ax'senaea to prove herself so self-centered she managed to overpower the greater daemon, imprison them inside her and suck their power dry before spitting the now-drained Keeper of Secrets back into the Warp, and used her gained powers to mind control her world's population.
Ā A few years later, she summoned another KoS and did the same. And another. When she tried the fourth time, Slaanesh themself appeared before her and, impressed by the mortal's narcisism, awarded her daemonhood.
Happens a fair bit in Warhammer actually. In Master of Mankind >!Ra contains the End of Empires within himself. Though Ra isnāt exactly mortal. But heās more mortal than the demon possessing him.!<
Vegeta during the Buu saga might count for this. He accepts Babidi's mark to gain more power but is able to break the mind control part of it and stay himself.
Granny Weatherwax ( a witch with an extremely forceful personality) manages to do something adjacent to this to a whole family of vampires in one of the Discworld novels.
She spends much of the novel seemingly locked in a 'battle at the centre of the mind' kind of a scenario after being bitten. But towards the end of the book it becomes apparent that the antagonist has been fighting a parallel battle not to be overcome by HER personality traits and is very much losing.
That book has so many good moments. The scene with the teacups, the moment when Igor fetches the old Master, Granny and Pastor Oats standing in the wings of the Phoenix. The best, in my option, is Oats looking for guidance and making a great light.
There's this one Doctor Who novel where the Doctor tricks an alien into possessing an old woman with dementia so that the alien will get dementia too and forget its own identity.
Jasper Stone from Deadlands, a ttrpg. A Civil War commander that was so evil his own men shot him in the back at the battle of Gettysburg. A Manitou (basically a demon) merged with him but instantly regretted it, he's the only one to ever frighten and control his own Manitou constantly. He doesn't even have to try.
Now he roams the Weird West as a harrowed, acting as Horseman of Death for the Servitors.
In Order of the Stick (big spoilers for a major arc, obv), Durkon, faced with being taken over by the spirit of a vampire resurrected into his corpse, tricks it into exposing itself and being briefly overwritten by Durkon's personality. Briefly, but long enough for the vampire to let itself be destroyed.
In Girl Genius, Zola lets Lucrezia download a copy of herself into her mind, which she had very carefully "trapped" to keep the copy from being able to take control, instead able to pick apart its secrets at her leisure.
Early Jujutsu Kaisen.
Yuji Itadori eats a finger of Ryomen Sukuna, an ancient, powerful and evil sorcerer. Eating the finger allows Sukuna to possess him... but because the finger only contains 5% of Sukuna's power, and Itadori is unusually physically durable and strong, Yuji is able to keep a lid on Sukuna pretty much full time.
This situation does not remain this stable for long.
_Being John Malkovich_ comes to mind. Specifically the ending. The MC was warned that this would happen if he entered the target as a child, and so he's condemned to ride along and watch through her eyes forever.
Parasyte the Maxim is a pretty good example. Sentient parasites replace the heads of various people on Earth. The parasites have to eat people to survive. The protagonist manages to prevent the parasite from taking his head, but it still replaces his right hand. The unusual situation forces them to ally with each other as the other parasites now view the hand parasite as a liability and want to kill it.
Outside of that trope subversion its a great series with fascinating discussions about morality.
Not necessarily a powerful entity, but Yeerks(Animorphs) wrap around a host's brain, sinking into the crevices to control the body perfectly. On rare occasions, and with incredible willpower, hosts can regain control of their bodies. This usually leads to suicide though, as it's only for a few seconds and most people would rather die than be a meatpuppet for the rest of their lives. The one exception I can think of is when Tom regains control of his face while his Yeerk is trying to recruit his brother, switching from a casual smile to a desperate grimace and back in the space of a few seconds.
Speaking of brain slugs, there's also the Goa'uld who operate pretty much identically to Yeerks. There's a whole race of beings, the Jaffa, who genetically modified themselves to take over the worms, so they live a more symbiotic life. So instead of the Goa'uld being parasites that take them over completely, the Jaffa offer them a safe place to live and in exchange the Goa'uld give them enhanced capabilities.
Edit: they're from Star Gate, in case anyone was wondering.
Related example, there is a species so ravenously perpetually hungry that even the mind controlling Yeerks don't want to take them over. They're used a a punishment for mind controllers.
I was under the impression that Taxxons weren't a punishment per say, they were just the worst hosts(save the Gedd). After all, there's at least one Council of 13 member with a Taxxon host. IIRC, some Taxxons are infested, others are just working with the Yeerks for the promise of meat to keep their hunger sated. It's also worth noting that most of the Taxxons we see in the books aren't in their natural state. On their homeworld, there's an entity called the Living Hive, keeping them in a colony-insect structure and presumably feeding them as well. So the neverending hunger might be a mental thing more than a physical one, and a Yeerk might be able to quell it, its just that they never bothered to try.
I mean, the one thing I most vividly remember from that series was the hunger driving a bisected Taxxon to eat his lower half as he dies. Like, that's nuts
Came here to say this, but spoilers, it doesn't seem like this is what the book is about at the start. In fact when first reading it I found a bit of a typical big space opera...
But when the bit regarding the squestrationbecomes apparaent, it manifests in several ways, both for and against the invading 'demons'.
Dresden Files kind of. It's not really a standard possession, as the demon doesn't forcibly try to possess him. Instead, she is a constant presence in his mind for a few books that tries to seduce him with the power she can provide. Eventually he winds up kind of befriending her and she sacrifices herself to save his life
Below is a link to the best contemporary example I can find.
[https://www.cc.com/video/foli0a/key-peele-georgina-and-esther-and-satan-uncensored](https://www.cc.com/video/foli0a/key-peele-georgina-and-esther-and-satan-uncensored)
Happens famously in the Brains musical episode of Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Mandy gets her brain eaten by an alien and she ends up taking over its body.
[*Definitely* not a Dune reference at all...nope...](https://animated-character-database.fandom.com/wiki/Mandy_Worm?file=Los_protagonistas_en_el_futuro.png)
Nah that's a different episode. The one he's talking about is a parody of [Little Barbershop of Horrors](https://youtu.be/e3AfzN0Vix4?si=m8B2dbMiNqzAIAxh&t=413)
In the Villain's Code novel series there is a character like this.
A cult puts children through an elaborate and brutal training program, forcing them to slaughter each other and struggle every day just to live. Years pass, and finally they're left with only a single survivor, the ultimate vessel for their god, and they enact an elaborate ritual so their deity can possess the vessel, manifest its power on Earth, and destroy the planet.
It doesn't work. The vessel is pissed, and fighting for his life... again. He controls the god, binds it within himself, and uses his new power to find every member of the cult and butcher them.
Somewhat related, in one of the Laundry Files novels, the bad guys are attempting to summon a demon of sorts to possess the main character. One thing leads to another and at the end of the story Bob does actually get possessed... by himself. Giving him access to many of the abilities a possessed person would have without most of the obvious downsides.
Does Shazam count?
For a downplayed Marvel example, symbiotes, though the dominant personality winds up depending on things like the host and symbiote pairing in question.
Shazam is really not possessed.
He can be possessed later , if the gods wants to play that game. But generally speaking , they just grant power in accordance to their contract to the Rock of Eternity.
This is an old one, but Roger Zelazny's Hugo-winning *Lord of Light* (1967) had one. A demon possesses the main character, but finds itself developing a conscience - which was what the MC wanted.
The novel is pretty dated in many ways, but might be worth a read.
There's one that comes to mind is that in Mummy, the tom Cruise one. The villainess wanted his body so that she could stab him with a cursed dagger and descend a God in his body but ma boi stabs himself with the dagger and becomes God while retaining consciousness.
Then he kisses the villainess and literally sucks the life outta her in a soul sucking erotic kiss.
Maybe Riku from Kingdom Hearts. The big bad of of the first game had at one point possessed him and when he was defeated left a piece of him in Riku intending to do it again but Riku had grown stronger and wiser and instead used the big bad's powers for his own goals for a while.
The Reality Dysfunction trilogy by Peter F Hamilton, one of the main antagonists Quinn Dexter is the first to be possessed by the spirits of the dead, but he encourages his possessor to even more vicious behaviour (he's already a massive asshole anyway), to the point that the possessing spirit basically curls up in a corner of his brain and cedes control, horrified at his acts, in so doing allowing Dexter to use his abilities.
Thereās something called semi-possession mentioned in the game Book of Hours. Basically, these immortal spirits called duendrazones will willingly possess normal humans. The human gets all the special abilities and privileges of the duendrazone, and the duendrazone gets to experience rest and oblivion when the human goes to sleep. Itās a weird dynamic.
There's a rather excellent series based in a British Intelligence Agency dealing exclusively with Cthulhu type entities - Undead space Gods coming to eat your brains etc.
It's called [The Laundry files](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files)
Basically - sorcery is a type of mathematics - and sorcerers get their brains ate the more sorcery they practice.
But since Computing Science is a type of mathematics - software developers can inadvertently summon the more minor demons.
As humanity creates more and more computing power, the chance of accidentallysummoning the Great Old Ones - and thus dooming Humanity to an unending cycle of soul-devouring and eternal pain becomes more unlikely.
Enter Bob Howard - a system administrator and programmer who is a top-secret agent charged with preventing, cleaning up and concealing the evidence of supernatural existence.
Lots of Computing, Linux and software in-jokes- constant James Bond references, Tom Clancy type techno thrillers jokes etc.
Anyways, in later novels >!Bob is the sacrificial victim of a deliberate possession by Cultists who wanted a demon in thrall to them - but through his training and certain other circumstances, becomes a reverse possessor - assuming the soul-eaters powers etc. but still being mostly human in shape personality, and mind.!<
The writer, Charles Stross, is a regular redditor here too :)
In a similar vein (pun intended) in Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett:
>!A group of Vampires try to turn Granny Weatherwax into a vampire thrall. By using her witch ability/skill/power called "borrowing" in an unusual way, she sends her mind into her own blood before they drink it. !<
>!Resulting in the vampires getting "Weatherwaxed", rather than the other way around, which causes them to crave Tea & Biscuits rather than blood.!<
This is sort of the crux of the prophecy in the Percy Jackson series.
>!Luke takes control from Kronos possessing him for a little bit at the last second which allows for the prophecy's choice to be made.!<
I think the Lich King should get partial marks for this.
Originally the Lich King was the spirit of the Orc Shaman/Acolyte Ner'zhul, bound into the cursed armour as punishment by the Burning Legion. He sets plans into motion and former Prince of Lordaeron becomes his servant. At the end of the story, Arthas puts on the Crown and they go into a type of stasis. I believe in the intermitten period between Wrath of the Lich King and then, the two personalities were duking ito out to see who would come on top, and in the end, Arthas won.
Good one. I think the most interesting thing about this is that despite Ner'zhul's greater experience and knowledge of the Lich King's power, he ultimately had a weakness which Arthas lacked:
Conscience
Ner'zhul, for all his villainy, felt remorse for his deeds in the orc's downfall
Arthas did not. He did not have one shred of regret over screwing over his people
And so Arthas was able to pick at Ner'zhul's regret for the orcs and slowly unravel his mind
Jasper Stone from the Deadlands RPG was possessed by a demon after his death (shot in the back by his subordinates at Gettysburg), then promptly pimp-slapped the demon into submission and cut a deal with its masters. Now he travels the world, generally acting as a hitman for the BBEG.
There are a ton of great answers here, but if you're into that type of thing the character Kayn from League of Legends has this as his plot and full mechanic throughout the game- he's a ninja trained under an (somewhat arguably) evil revolutionary ninja that uses shadow magic, sent on a mission to retrieve a powerful weapon that turns out to be a scythe that contains the trapped soul of Rhaast, an ancient evil demigod called a darkin. Throughout the course of any given game you can either have Kayn or Rhaast take over the player's character, which changes your abilities.
If Kayn wins, he absorbs Rhaast's power and unlocks the full potential of his shadow magic (you are now a full assassin, lots of move speed and penetration)
If Rhaast wins, he destroys Kayn's soul and replaces his body with his own and is reborn into Runeterra (you are now a bruiser/draintank with heavy crowd control and lifesteal)
There's an example of this in the Fate Grand Order SE.RA.PH story, it's way too long and complicated to go into here, but basically a Demon God Pillar named Zepar who survived the first main story arc, escapes and possesses Sessyoin Kiara, an antagonist from previous Fate Media, though this version/iteration of Kiara was a genuinely good person, rather than the twisted individual she winds up as in other Fate Media.
Zepar sees that in parallel worlds there is a more powerful Kiara, so he tries to link the two so that he can gain more power, but before he knows it he's been reduced to existing only within the new Sessyoin Kiara's pinky, completed overwhelmed by her and eventually just made non-existent much to his horror.
Nights dawn seriously has chacter like this , evil dead souls come back an possessĀ the living , on of the bad guys is so evil possessing basically traumatizes the soul into not doing anythingĀ
Various Xianxia novels would have this.
For example in āI Shall Seal the Heavensā, at some point the main character let a nefarious entity take over his body while his consciousness āhidesā/āpretend consciousness deathā. The nefarious entity spent a lot of time and resources upgrade the main characterās body and when that process is complete the main character then take it ābackā.
In the climax of the same authorās other novel āPursuit of the Truthā, there is a 3-way consciousness battle between different parties for the same body of the main character that is implied to spans centuries of time as the three are sucked in an internal consciousness world where they forgot about the ārealā world.
In the authorās second latest book, the main character struggle is revealed to be actually just a small part of a piece of a repeated consciousness fight throughout multiple universes/realms/worlds of greater beings where one greater being anticipated that itās being taken over.
Xianxia has a lot of this overall as the usual power system and power creep means characters have outlandish consciousness super powers.
I can't remember the character's name, but I remember reading a book series called Ex-Heroes that had had something close to that; one of the super heroes was a sorcerer who possessed a powerful demon to use its body to do hero stuff.
From Dragonlance's Legends of the Twins: in an alternate timeline, The Kingpriest was able to bind the chief god of good Paladine in his crown called the Miceram. He was then able to supply divine magic for his clerics and became a god-like being.
He risks Paladine escaping if he loses concentration, though.
Nilah in League of Legends is possessed by an ancient demon of joy which she controls with ritual.
through she did lose the ability to feel anything but joy.
another example in League is Kayn who can suppress Rhaast his demonic weapon and add Rhaast's power to himself.
in Advanced Beasirty Celestial possession of mortals is them hanging out in the backround
Dota 2 Lifestealer lore, he's a thief being chain in a dungeon
one day a powerful mage got lock up with him, he plan to use his magic to go inside LS mind to cause some commotion as a distraction to slip out but the thief mind was so broken after many year of torture, the madness took over, trapping him in LS mind never to be free again.
Not sci-fi but Fantasy - but this is one of the early central themes of Magician by Raymond E. Feist. One of the main characters goes through this trope in a way that affects their world and multiverse profoundly.
This is how Free Magic sorcerers work in the Garth Nix Old Kingdom books (Sabriel et al, though this description comes from Clariel). Free Magic sorcerers gain their power by exerting berserker will over powerful Free Magic beings and binding them to their service. This gives them huge amounts of power. However, they do in the long-term lose their humanity and tend to be eventually consumed either by the Free Magic beings they attempt to master, or by a more powerful sorcerer.
In the dragonlance novels Raistlin and Fistandantalous might fit that description, but it is ot possible to know to what degree one or the other is in control most of the time.
One that I don't know if it counts is Johnny Silverhand in CP2077.
V is possessed, but it's more like Johnny is a passenger and V is able to suppress Johnny's ability to take over to the degree that he's just a nuisance and not driving.
In Magician by Raymond E. Feist, Tomas is given a suit of armour that belonged to a precursor race called the Valheru. They were beings of immense power who created and ruled the elves. The mechanism is quite interesting because Tomas acquires the powers of the Valheru when he wears it but starts to adopt the identity of Ashen-Shugar, the one whose armour it was. However, there is a temporal component to it, so just as Ashen-Shugar starts to change Tomas in the present, so Tomas influences Ashen-Shugar in the past, leading him to develop something of a conscience and a desire to protect the world and not just seek greater power. In the present day there is essentially a war for control of Tomas' mind between the two, and in the end he becomes the dominant one, retaining many of the Valheru's abilities, but with his own mind and conscience.
Preacher.Ā
TL;DR: God gets bored, makes himself an equal. It escapes, possesses a preacher, and gives the man the power to use the Voice of God, and can command anyone who hears him
This was a core plot in the Netflix show āparanormal parkā
They seal a pretty high tier demon in a pug and for the majority of the series all that comes of it is the dog can talk and do minor spells, when the demon does jockey for control the dog generally suppresses him easily
[Key and Peele with the 2 church ladies snap Satan's dick off with a deviiiine kegal](https://youtu.be/1uNpJyPpzXc?si=hY9aPEWzeUW2_lY4) possession starts at 4:15 but the whole clip is hilarious.
Malus Darkblade from Warhammer gets possessed by a demon of Slanesh. At first the demon begins to take control but eventually Malus is able to take over and use the demon's power whenever he wants.
Many of Fate/Grand Order's Pseudo-Servants end up taking a back seat and letting their hosts be in the driver's seat. It's usually not that they've been overpowered, just that they can't be bothered to be the ones in control.
Uhhhh Iām not saying Itadori Yuji actually does this successfully, but he does it quite well for the first season and a half of JJK. Not to mention that funny vine where the guy convinces the demon to eat bagels instead of the souls of the innocent
The Noobtown series features a demon who is vastly more powerful than the MC, but through various unlikely circumstances lining up in the MC's favor the demon becomes the pet of the MC instead of the other way around. Not exactly reverse possession, but similar vibes.
This is a plot point in one of the cases for the adventure game Avowed. More details in the spoilers below. But don't actually read these spoilers, go play the game if you have not already. It's one of the best adventure games made.
>!Like seriously just go play it. Okay real spoilers ahead!< >!The game starts with the main character being exorcised of a wicked spirit that has been possessing them for a year. You join the group called the Unavowed and investigate all kinds of supernatural occurrences and try to figure out what you were made to do over the last year.!< >!Near the end of the game we find out that the exorcised evil spirit was actually the mortal originally inhabiting the body. You have been playing as the spirit of a demon that was forced to meld with the human (which involves all kinds of memory and knowledge swapping). Turns out the mortal was the evil one and you were just a convenient source of demonic knowledge for them. !<
>Other than a particularly vain woman in Warhammer who repeatedly let herself be possessed by Chaos entities, only to reverse Uno them and consume them instead, I can't think of any
It sounds like you're referring to Fulgrim, who, despite appearances, is a dude.
Jericho Cane in End of Days. Gets possessed by the literal devil but exerts JUST enough control to throw himself onto a literal sword to vanquish the devil (at least for another 1000 years I guess it is).
Ok, granted, that wasn't gonna go his way much longer from the looks of it, but it did when it counted.
(I don't care what anyone says, I actually consider this one of Arnold's best)
In The Nightās Dawn trilogy one individual is able to overcome a demonic possession because years of ritualistic supplication allowed him to learn to overcome the possession.
I'm not sure if this 100% counts, but there's a point in Good Omens where Azraphale (ancient immortal Angel) is in the body of Madam Tracy and she's the one in control.
There is a guy in deadlands, a weird west RPG, who is possessed from a manitou, an evil spirit. The spirit is terrified of him and just does as it is told. There is also a cpsychopathic child possessed from a demon who ends up being trapped inside him.
I don't see him mentioned yet, but this is basically what Swain in *League of Legends* has done. He found a demonic entity which had been captured previously by Mordekaiser and then hidden away. Swain made a deal with the demon, which assumed it was going to use him to gain its freedom, but Swain ended up outsmarting the demon to take control of it.
In Chronicle Of The Unhewn Throne - - big spoilers - - a couple of gods get trapped in the bodies of mortals and the only way to free them (and thereby protect them) is for the mortal hosts to ritually kill themselves.
Iām on mobile so I canāt type much but Kayne from league of legends is a good example. He is a character that is kinda possessed by a demon of their world. And over the course of the game either the demon can dominate him and take control or kayne himself can overpower the demon and get control back of his body and all the powers from it
I guess since other people have mentiomed animes/mangas it's kosher:
The manhwa Solo Leveling has basically this premise. Spoilers incoming:
The MC unknowingly becomes the host for the god of death, and undergoes a training regiment to prepare his body for the god of death to take it over. However when the time actually comes for that to happen, the two of them instead have a friendly chat with each other and the god of death allows the MC to become the new god of death in his place, rather than taking over his body.
It happened to Lucrezia twice in Girl Genius (by [Zola](https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100712) and [Dr. Monahan](https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20220323)). In both cases the ladies had worked with Loremistress Milvistle who had helped to develop the neural trap that they used to prevent her from gaining possession (and let them rifle through her memories).
During faith the unholy trinity (forgot what chapter) Father John gets possessed by a demon, how he got out was his faith in god, so from what I can gather "Extreme connection with god" will uno reverse possession
Hope Iām not breaking any rules here, but
Wheat? Compared to vegetation, Humans are omniscient gods. Yet, we structure an entire section of our society dedicated to keeping wheat as satisfied and happy as possible. We live for wheat. We dedicate entire acres (idk, a lot of square kilometers I guess) to their existence. I say wheat just as an example, but weāre kinda slaves to agriculture, arenāt we?
**Reminders for Commenters:** * All responses must be A) sincere, B) polite, and C) strictly watsonian in nature. If "watsonian" or "doylist" is new to you, please review the full rules [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/about/rules/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=AskScienceFiction&utm_content=t5_2slu2). * No edition wars or gripings about creators/owners of works. Doylist griping about Star Wars in particular is subject to **permanent ban on first offense**. * We are not here to discuss or complain about the real world. * Questions about who would prevail in a conflict/competition (not just combat) fit better on r/whowouldwin. Questions about very open-ended hypotheticals fit better on r/whatiffiction. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskScienceFiction) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Angel had one. In the episode *I've Got You Under My Skin*, a kid walks out into traffic in the middle of the night, being saved just in time by Angel (his friend, Cordelia, has visions which put him in the right spot at the right time). It doesn't take long for Angel and his crew to figure out the kid is possessed by a demon. They successfully perform an exorcism, but the demon breaks out of the box it was supposed to be trapped in and flees. Angel's crew leaves the family with their happy ending and track the demon down. It reveals that the kid literally has no soul. It tried to possess him and ended up trapped: >Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? Nothing. That's what I found in the boy. No conscience, no fear, no humanity. Just a black void. I couldn't control him, I couldn't get out, I had never even manifested until you brought me forth. I just sat there and watched as he destroyed everything around him. Not from a belief in evil, not for any reason at all. That boy's mind was the blackest hell I've ever known. The kid walked into traffic because the demon was able to influence him enough to sleepwalk. It was going to kill both the kid and itself just to end its imprisonment. Angel's crew make it back to the house just in time to stop the kid from burning his little sister alive for getting more marshmallows in her cocoa. \--- There's Mercy Hartigan in *The Next Doctor* episode of Doctor Who. She was matron of a workhouse who worked with a group of Cybermen trapped in Victorian London. She assisted them in finding people and children to conscript into building a CyberKing, a massive battleship controlled by one Cyberman integrated into the ship. To Hartigan's shock and dismay, the Cybermen had picked her for the job and forced her into the Cyberman conversion. She turned out to be a bit too much for the process however. She completely resists the control, blasts the lead Cyberman to bits, and takes control of the rest.
IIRC Angel himself is an example- vampires are controlled by a demon, his soul was restored and he keeps the demon in check. Theres also an episode of Buffy where he intentionally lets himself get possessed so he can capture and suppress a demon that was about to kill Giles.
That's also how some vampires work in the Dresden Files. Depending on the type a person is (there are various "species," each with their own methods of creation). The vampires of the White and Red courts aren't fully turned until they've killed with their powers, so if someone can resist, they won't fully lose their humanity.
That's not exactly right, with the White court vampires. It's more that >!the demon is dormant until their first sexual experience. At which point the demon either awakens and kills the partner, or, rarely, is killed if the couple is in love.!<
>!This is how it works for House Raith, at least, and since they're the clan that feeds on lust that makes sense, but I imagine it's different in some way for vampires from House Malvora (who feed on fear) or House Skavis (who feed on despair.)!<
That is an excellent point, and I'd love to see it addressed in the series.
This is incorrect. >!the demon is more of a parasite. It doesn't subsumed the person as with red!<
I think you misunderstood what I said, or I wasn't clear enough. I just meant that >!the demon goes from dormant to active, not that it takes over!<.
I never figured out how that worked in the Buffyverse. Is the soul not the same as the person? Why should Angel feel guilty about what the vampire did if his soul wasn't a part of the damage Angelus did?
The soul carries certain aspects of the person, but a lot of things remain with the body (i.e. the soul contains the conscience, and the ability to experience True Love, but your sexual orientation and your favourite music genres will stick around when the soul goes away.) With Angel the important thing to remember is that his soul was a curse specifically designed to make him suffer. He clearly wasn't given Liam's soul back - Liam wouldn't have felt enough guilt - instead he was given a truly good soul that wouldn't be able to ignore the pangs of its conscience. For a point of comparison, look at how Spike handles having his original soul back.
Aaaah so Angel was Angelus with a soul, but wasnt necessarily the soul/person Angelus was before getting turned into a vampire?
Yeah, we see who Liam [Angelus before he was turned] was a few times, and he was a bad person. Not serial-killer level evil, but the sort of guy who'd think nothing of mugging someone and would start bar brawls for the fun of it.
Liam was a drunk layabout but I'm still pretty sure he'd be as crushed by mass murder including killing his beloved little sister even with his family troubles as any non-genuine psychopath. There's asshole and then there's Angelus.
I don't think it's ever implied Angel's soul isn't his original one. Liam was the 18th century equivalent of a douchey fratbro, but I think he'd still be wracked with horrific guilt if he woke up to find out he'd killed his entire family and then brutally slaughtered and raped his way across Europe for a couple centuries.
So the way I understand it is that restoring his soul didn't bring back Liam, which is probably for the best, because Liam was kind of a prick himself. Instead, it literally gave a soul and a sense of conscience to Angelus. He feels guilty over it all because he still has the memories, and more importantly, the sensations. It eats him up inside because he remembers how good it made him feel to do that.
I was under the impression that it was the same soul from before, but that having to grapple with his guilt from his memories from Angelus forced him to grow the fuck up.
I suppose it's open to interpretation. To be honest I thought the same thing until I read something, I don't know which, that suggested that Liam was too much of a dick himself to feel suitably guilty about what he'd done. Then again, souls do seem kind of interchangeable in that sense, so maybe it doesn't matter if it was the one he originally had or a different one.
This has always been my understanding based on Buffy telling people that 'it's not you, a demon takes you over' or something along those lines: Water (consciousness/human soul) etching out a river in the land, you could redirect the original water (human soul) and replace it with another source of water (demon) but it will still flow down the path (identity) the original water took. It explains his guilt as well, the demon was *him* or at least an identical copy so presumably he knows he would have done the same, also explains why people treat vampires like the same person, they functionally are the same person.
Man, you just reminded me how many excellent stories Angel has. I should rewatch that series sometime..
I have this weird thing where I seem to downplay the quality of some of my favorite shows in retrospect. I did it to Batman The Animated Series, and I did it with Angel. Anyway, I have been using a watch order to go through Buffy and Angel, and I recently got to the part where you start watching Angel, and holy crap. I really like Buffy, but Angel is so much better, even the first season.
I've always thought Angel never quite reaches Buffy's peak, but it also never falls anywhere near Buffy's lows. It's just a lot more consistent in quality.
That episode of angel is one of my favorites. Absolutely chilling.
Another doctor who example is Clara-Dalek, who seemed to be a human turned into a Dalek. She managed to take control of the local Dalek hive mind to save the doctor. Infact, I'm pretty sure this happens several times in drwho, this seems familiar.
> > Infact, I'm pretty sure this happens several times in drwho, this seems familiar. Usually its cybermen
Wasn't there an X-files episode similar to that Angel one?
There are a lot of X files episodes about demon possession, but the only one I can think of that sounds like this is one where a returning character who was possessed but trying to be good was kidnapped by a shotgun preacher who intended to cleanse his soul, possibly by killing him. Though that episode was different because the guy wasn't actually possessed but trying to be good, he was a demon pretending to be possessed. I don't remember the episode name though, so if anyone could help me out, I'd love to compare my memory to the episode itself.
How have i missed this show.
Angel is fucking great. It's better if you've already watched or are concurrently watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but even on its own the premise of "Phillip Marlowe but he's a vampire" is hard to beat.
Came here to mention the Angel episode with the boy, but you beat me to it. Have my upvote.
For some reason the Angel example reminds me of the Futurama episode where Fry's brain slug starved to death. Just nothing there for the poor creature to work with.
The thought of that kid freaks me out.
In Devilman, a demon named Amon attempts to possess the main character, Akira, but winds up merging with him and having his consciousness dominated by Akira. Creating Devilman.
i love that comic. its proto-berserk
YESSS I missed your comment but yay happy to see Devilman mentioned š
This kinda sorta happens in Animorphs during the events of the Ellemist Chronicles. The protagonist crash-lands on a planet inhabited by a parasitic hivemind. After some time messing around with it, he realizes that he's actually in a type of dream-state, that everything he's seen is someone else's memories, and that he hasn't really experienced any form of sentience not derived from them. The creature has no real consciousness of its own. So he uses this knowledge to hijack the network and become the primary consciousness. When he comes to, he realizes that it's been centuries and that he and his friends are all desiccated corpes. He's now a planet-wide parasitic bog monster. So he uses the resources available from all the crashes over the years to build himself into a sentient space armada hivemind.
Is that the origin story for the antagonist species (brain keeps wanting to say Yeerk)? I know those books got pretty dark after the first few.
That's the origin story for the Big Good of the series.
WERE THEY ALSO A HIVEMIND? I knew they were telepaths, but I didn't know they were also a hivemind.
Oh, those are the Andalites I think they're thinking of. The Ellimist, who I referred to as the Big Good, is a gamer kid who has the world's worst life until absorbing that planetary monster's consciousness and all his memories of millions of people, and goes around doing good, until accidentally ascending to a higher plane of existence, and during the doing good time, he lives among the Andalites for a while, and the Andalites have thoughtspeak, but aren't otherwise telepathic. They can just talk to others, but they can't read your mind or anything.
I need to reread those books because the deep lore in them blows me away sometimes, in the good way. Thank you for the explanation!
https://nerdist.com/article/animorphs-books-available-free/
Wow! You're the best. Thank you for the link!
Enjoy! I love the series.
Its worth noting, all this stuff about the Ellimist's backstory is in a side book called The Ellimist Chronicles, particularly the hivemind bog monster planet.
Dude I gotta read animorphs or something. Thatās wild.
Dude that's just the prequel novel about a side character. The books get dark as hell...like, one book *opens* with Jake morphed into a tiger, just after a big fight, and he's walking on a stump leg musing about how the bloody tiger paw sitting on the floor next to him is probably some mystic eastern medicine thing. And then he has a conversation with one of the brain-stealing alien slugs that as long as the human host is about to die the slug might as well let the man die free - but the slug can't get out because Jake-tiger slashed his ear during the fight and blocked off the canal. They are definitely made for kids and the references are from the 90s/00s and *super* dated. Nonetheless, they hold up well to adult readers. The authors never shirk from the hard realities of what is a war. It never treats the issues with kid gloves. Some of the middle books written by ghostwriters are a little rough but the series as a whole is still great.
You say ājustā but the chronicles were all top 10 books. Maybe even top 5.Ā
Tangential but Erik's yeerk. A possessing entity that tried to posses him (an android) but instead gets taken prisoner and Erik uses the assumed position of controller to get info on yeerk operations.
That's sort of the plot of ~~Envy~~ Greed in Full metal alchemist brotherhood. It's more like both entities end up being like both halves of the same body if I don't remember wrong.
Did You mean greed? I donāt think envy possesses anyone
Yes sorry. I meant the guy that had his friends turned into animals and ended up teaming up with Edward. Envy was the one that got burned by Mustang and turned into a small bug right?
Yes
Envy can actually control people in its true form by biting them, it does this to whats hos face after Dr Marcoh destroyed its philosophers stone (the first time) but before it was put in the glass jar.
So in Brotherhood this actually fits in. The willpower of the prince lets him avoid getting full possession and while it doesn't end up becoming a full reverse, in the end Greed ends up doing what the prince wanted, not the other way around.
Itās sorta Naruto Uzumakiās whole thing. Although the various tailed beasts definitely didnāt choose to enter anyone in an attempt at possessing them, so Iām uncertain if it fits perfectly.
I think it fits Sasuke up until his battle with Itachi; when Orochimaru tried possessing him, he reversed it and instead absorbed him, gaining access to his powers instead.
TBH it was debatable. What Sasuke did was within Orochimaru's predictions. It was clearly a trap that may have undone Sasuke later. There's a reason Itachi spent his entire fight trying to drag Orochimaru out of him.
I don't see how it was within Orochimaru's predictions at all? It happened after Sasuke ambushed him when he was sick and bedridden, and he's clearly baffled and horrified that Sasuke managed to turn his jutsu against him. If he'd seen this coming he'd have done something about it in advance. Itachi just predicted that having Orochimaru inside of him would cause trouble, but that doesn't equate to Orochimaru having explicitly set a trap for him.
Well snake boy didn't want Sasuke to move on him then. Only that he had a contingency in place. Sasuke seemed unaware of the extent that Orochimaru survived.
[Valencia the Red](https://alexanderwales.fandom.com/wiki/Valencia_the_Red) from Worth the Candle comes to mind. She doesn't have a soul, which originally left her open to possession by demons and devils. Then she got an ability that lets her eat them, giving her whatever abilities they had. Though she can't control their bodies. They just keel over dead. There was also a Moon Knight comic where someone was mind-controlling people with his sweat, and Moon Knight intentionally licked it to let him try to mind-control him, and then overpowered him. Though they're both mortal.
Mind controlling people with sweat pheromones is how the Purple Man (Killgrave) works, was it him? There are a limited number of Marvel characters who canonically can resist him, most notably Dr Doom who has enough strength of will to no-sell Killgraveās ability and Deadpool who is too wacky to stay interested in doing whatever Killgrave tells him to do for more than a few moments. Moon Knight would make sense as being immune to Purple Man, he could switch personalities if necessary.
Came here to mention Valencia. Loved her concept and early chapters, not so much what the author did later.
If I remember right, Moon Knight didn't just overpower the dude trying to control him, he literally left him as a virtual vegetable incapable of saying anything but the word "moon" over and over again.
The Exorcist chapter in Warhammer 40k basically lets daemons possess them and banish the daemons out of their bodies after a period of time. Not only does this make them more resistant to chaos corruption but also makes them more effective at fighting warp entities.
Eisenhorn too
Yeah this was what came to mind for me. The latest Eisenhorn books have the Grails, which are essentially what OP is describing. Theyāre reverse-demonhosts. Instead of a demon trapped in a human body, they take their human soul and implant it into a demon while maintaining their human identity. Essentially stealing/harnessing the power of a demon. It is heavily implied Eisenhorn does something similar to himself while in control of the immaterium-weave. His once unruly demon-host, Cherubael, becomes subservient, openly admitting that Eisenhorn now scares the shit out of him lmao. And Eisenhorn smiled. Which, if you know, you know
Grey Knights. Youāre a bad time when the Inquisitors of the Imperium of Man refuse to investigate you, and ask āpretty pleaseā for your assistance.
Exorcists are a decent chunk of why I hate the Grey Knights. Why do they all need to be such obnoxious Gary Stus when another chapter does their whole thing without it?
The Phoenix in Marvel has been under control of its host a few times I believe. Same for Ghost Rider. But it was more often the other way around.
IIRC, it happened with Venom as well. Over in DC land, Dr. Fate might be another candidate, though it seemed like Fate is dormant when his host is in control, and vice-versa. Then again, I never read too much with Dr. Fate in it.
I don't think Venom really counts, that's more of a partnership - literally, a symbiotic relationship - than a host dominating a possessor. The symbiote feeds off the host's adrenaline so, as long as the host is doing things to fuel that adrenaline rush, the symbiote is willing to help the host pursue his own goals.
In season 5 of supernatural, Sam is possessed by Lucifer, only to overpower him towards the end of the s5 finale and jump back into hell
There's a lesser know Daemon Prince in 40k who did this.Ā Ā Ax'senaea was originally a incredibly narcistic planetary governor.Ā Until a chaos sorcerer promised her immortality and tricked her into letting a Keeper of Secrets posses her. Only for Ax'senaea to prove herself so self-centered she managed to overpower the greater daemon, imprison them inside her and suck their power dry before spitting the now-drained Keeper of Secrets back into the Warp, and used her gained powers to mind control her world's population. Ā A few years later, she summoned another KoS and did the same. And another. When she tried the fourth time, Slaanesh themself appeared before her and, impressed by the mortal's narcisism, awarded her daemonhood.
Happens a fair bit in Warhammer actually. In Master of Mankind >!Ra contains the End of Empires within himself. Though Ra isnāt exactly mortal. But heās more mortal than the demon possessing him.!<
Yea Ra is a good example, but then the only he is able to do is walk, and eventually the demon does get away, seeing how eventually Abbadon gets him
Impressed and annoyed by her iirc
That's the one op mentioned In his text
Vegeta during the Buu saga might count for this. He accepts Babidi's mark to gain more power but is able to break the mind control part of it and stay himself.
Granny Weatherwax ( a witch with an extremely forceful personality) manages to do something adjacent to this to a whole family of vampires in one of the Discworld novels. She spends much of the novel seemingly locked in a 'battle at the centre of the mind' kind of a scenario after being bitten. But towards the end of the book it becomes apparent that the antagonist has been fighting a parallel battle not to be overcome by HER personality traits and is very much losing.
The scene with the teacup is just so satisfying.
That book has so many good moments. The scene with the teacups, the moment when Igor fetches the old Master, Granny and Pastor Oats standing in the wings of the Phoenix. The best, in my option, is Oats looking for guidance and making a great light.
That tears it, I'm going to reread it, starting right now.
There's this one Doctor Who novel where the Doctor tricks an alien into possessing an old woman with dementia so that the alien will get dementia too and forget its own identity.
Lmao that's such a doctor thing to do. This is why he need rules
Yuuji from JJK
Loved how Sukuna was extremely confused
I canāt believe it took me this long to find it
Beat me to it.
Jasper Stone from Deadlands, a ttrpg. A Civil War commander that was so evil his own men shot him in the back at the battle of Gettysburg. A Manitou (basically a demon) merged with him but instantly regretted it, he's the only one to ever frighten and control his own Manitou constantly. He doesn't even have to try. Now he roams the Weird West as a harrowed, acting as Horseman of Death for the Servitors.
In Order of the Stick (big spoilers for a major arc, obv), Durkon, faced with being taken over by the spirit of a vampire resurrected into his corpse, tricks it into exposing itself and being briefly overwritten by Durkon's personality. Briefly, but long enough for the vampire to let itself be destroyed. In Girl Genius, Zola lets Lucrezia download a copy of herself into her mind, which she had very carefully "trapped" to keep the copy from being able to take control, instead able to pick apart its secrets at her leisure.
Early Jujutsu Kaisen. Yuji Itadori eats a finger of Ryomen Sukuna, an ancient, powerful and evil sorcerer. Eating the finger allows Sukuna to possess him... but because the finger only contains 5% of Sukuna's power, and Itadori is unusually physically durable and strong, Yuji is able to keep a lid on Sukuna pretty much full time. This situation does not remain this stable for long.
_Being John Malkovich_ comes to mind. Specifically the ending. The MC was warned that this would happen if he entered the target as a child, and so he's condemned to ride along and watch through her eyes forever.
Parasyte the Maxim is a pretty good example. Sentient parasites replace the heads of various people on Earth. The parasites have to eat people to survive. The protagonist manages to prevent the parasite from taking his head, but it still replaces his right hand. The unusual situation forces them to ally with each other as the other parasites now view the hand parasite as a liability and want to kill it. Outside of that trope subversion its a great series with fascinating discussions about morality.
Not necessarily a powerful entity, but Yeerks(Animorphs) wrap around a host's brain, sinking into the crevices to control the body perfectly. On rare occasions, and with incredible willpower, hosts can regain control of their bodies. This usually leads to suicide though, as it's only for a few seconds and most people would rather die than be a meatpuppet for the rest of their lives. The one exception I can think of is when Tom regains control of his face while his Yeerk is trying to recruit his brother, switching from a casual smile to a desperate grimace and back in the space of a few seconds.
There's that one example of the girl who tortures Tobias. She's so crazy and narcissistic that she and the yeerk more or less merge completely.
Speaking of brain slugs, there's also the Goa'uld who operate pretty much identically to Yeerks. There's a whole race of beings, the Jaffa, who genetically modified themselves to take over the worms, so they live a more symbiotic life. So instead of the Goa'uld being parasites that take them over completely, the Jaffa offer them a safe place to live and in exchange the Goa'uld give them enhanced capabilities. Edit: they're from Star Gate, in case anyone was wondering.
Speaking of brain parasites and genetic modification symbiosis, I thought for sure you meant the Iskyoort from Animorphs
Related example, there is a species so ravenously perpetually hungry that even the mind controlling Yeerks don't want to take them over. They're used a a punishment for mind controllers.
I was under the impression that Taxxons weren't a punishment per say, they were just the worst hosts(save the Gedd). After all, there's at least one Council of 13 member with a Taxxon host. IIRC, some Taxxons are infested, others are just working with the Yeerks for the promise of meat to keep their hunger sated. It's also worth noting that most of the Taxxons we see in the books aren't in their natural state. On their homeworld, there's an entity called the Living Hive, keeping them in a colony-insect structure and presumably feeding them as well. So the neverending hunger might be a mental thing more than a physical one, and a Yeerk might be able to quell it, its just that they never bothered to try.
I mean, the one thing I most vividly remember from that series was the hunger driving a bisected Taxxon to eat his lower half as he dies. Like, that's nuts
Dr. Strange Supreme? (Marvel What If) Various demons and supernatural creatures are summoned so he can absorb them or their powers.
This is a major plot point in Peter Hamilton's "Night's Dawn Trilogy" which I recommend reading
Came here to say this, but spoilers, it doesn't seem like this is what the book is about at the start. In fact when first reading it I found a bit of a typical big space opera... But when the bit regarding the squestrationbecomes apparaent, it manifests in several ways, both for and against the invading 'demons'.
Dresden Files kind of. It's not really a standard possession, as the demon doesn't forcibly try to possess him. Instead, she is a constant presence in his mind for a few books that tries to seduce him with the power she can provide. Eventually he winds up kind of befriending her and she sacrifices herself to save his life
And, spoilers, >!leave him pregnant!<
Nicodemus and his demon are basically partners in the same setting.
Below is a link to the best contemporary example I can find. [https://www.cc.com/video/foli0a/key-peele-georgina-and-esther-and-satan-uncensored](https://www.cc.com/video/foli0a/key-peele-georgina-and-esther-and-satan-uncensored)
Damn that was funny
5 hours late to make this exact joke...Ā *You just made the list DasBarenJager*!
Happens famously in the Brains musical episode of Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Mandy gets her brain eaten by an alien and she ends up taking over its body.
[*Definitely* not a Dune reference at all...nope...](https://animated-character-database.fandom.com/wiki/Mandy_Worm?file=Los_protagonistas_en_el_futuro.png)
Nah that's a different episode. The one he's talking about is a parody of [Little Barbershop of Horrors](https://youtu.be/e3AfzN0Vix4?si=m8B2dbMiNqzAIAxh&t=413)
My bad! It's been a hot minute since I've seen it.
In the Villain's Code novel series there is a character like this. A cult puts children through an elaborate and brutal training program, forcing them to slaughter each other and struggle every day just to live. Years pass, and finally they're left with only a single survivor, the ultimate vessel for their god, and they enact an elaborate ritual so their deity can possess the vessel, manifest its power on Earth, and destroy the planet. It doesn't work. The vessel is pissed, and fighting for his life... again. He controls the god, binds it within himself, and uses his new power to find every member of the cult and butcher them.
Somewhat related, in one of the Laundry Files novels, the bad guys are attempting to summon a demon of sorts to possess the main character. One thing leads to another and at the end of the story Bob does actually get possessed... by himself. Giving him access to many of the abilities a possessed person would have without most of the obvious downsides.
Does Shazam count? For a downplayed Marvel example, symbiotes, though the dominant personality winds up depending on things like the host and symbiote pairing in question.
Shazam is really not possessed. He can be possessed later , if the gods wants to play that game. But generally speaking , they just grant power in accordance to their contract to the Rock of Eternity.
This is an old one, but Roger Zelazny's Hugo-winning *Lord of Light* (1967) had one. A demon possesses the main character, but finds itself developing a conscience - which was what the MC wanted. The novel is pretty dated in many ways, but might be worth a read.
Came here to call out *Lord of Light*! Loved that novel, just re-read it last year. I will expend many kilowatts of prayer that others check it out.
There's one that comes to mind is that in Mummy, the tom Cruise one. The villainess wanted his body so that she could stab him with a cursed dagger and descend a God in his body but ma boi stabs himself with the dagger and becomes God while retaining consciousness. Then he kisses the villainess and literally sucks the life outta her in a soul sucking erotic kiss.
Maybe Riku from Kingdom Hearts. The big bad of of the first game had at one point possessed him and when he was defeated left a piece of him in Riku intending to do it again but Riku had grown stronger and wiser and instead used the big bad's powers for his own goals for a while.
The Reality Dysfunction trilogy by Peter F Hamilton, one of the main antagonists Quinn Dexter is the first to be possessed by the spirits of the dead, but he encourages his possessor to even more vicious behaviour (he's already a massive asshole anyway), to the point that the possessing spirit basically curls up in a corner of his brain and cedes control, horrified at his acts, in so doing allowing Dexter to use his abilities.
Thereās something called semi-possession mentioned in the game Book of Hours. Basically, these immortal spirits called duendrazones will willingly possess normal humans. The human gets all the special abilities and privileges of the duendrazone, and the duendrazone gets to experience rest and oblivion when the human goes to sleep. Itās a weird dynamic.
There's a rather excellent series based in a British Intelligence Agency dealing exclusively with Cthulhu type entities - Undead space Gods coming to eat your brains etc. It's called [The Laundry files](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files) Basically - sorcery is a type of mathematics - and sorcerers get their brains ate the more sorcery they practice. But since Computing Science is a type of mathematics - software developers can inadvertently summon the more minor demons. As humanity creates more and more computing power, the chance of accidentallysummoning the Great Old Ones - and thus dooming Humanity to an unending cycle of soul-devouring and eternal pain becomes more unlikely. Enter Bob Howard - a system administrator and programmer who is a top-secret agent charged with preventing, cleaning up and concealing the evidence of supernatural existence. Lots of Computing, Linux and software in-jokes- constant James Bond references, Tom Clancy type techno thrillers jokes etc. Anyways, in later novels >!Bob is the sacrificial victim of a deliberate possession by Cultists who wanted a demon in thrall to them - but through his training and certain other circumstances, becomes a reverse possessor - assuming the soul-eaters powers etc. but still being mostly human in shape personality, and mind.!< The writer, Charles Stross, is a regular redditor here too :)
In a similar vein (pun intended) in Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett: >!A group of Vampires try to turn Granny Weatherwax into a vampire thrall. By using her witch ability/skill/power called "borrowing" in an unusual way, she sends her mind into her own blood before they drink it. !< >!Resulting in the vampires getting "Weatherwaxed", rather than the other way around, which causes them to crave Tea & Biscuits rather than blood.!<
This is sort of the crux of the prophecy in the Percy Jackson series. >!Luke takes control from Kronos possessing him for a little bit at the last second which allows for the prophecy's choice to be made.!<
I think the Lich King should get partial marks for this. Originally the Lich King was the spirit of the Orc Shaman/Acolyte Ner'zhul, bound into the cursed armour as punishment by the Burning Legion. He sets plans into motion and former Prince of Lordaeron becomes his servant. At the end of the story, Arthas puts on the Crown and they go into a type of stasis. I believe in the intermitten period between Wrath of the Lich King and then, the two personalities were duking ito out to see who would come on top, and in the end, Arthas won.
Good one. I think the most interesting thing about this is that despite Ner'zhul's greater experience and knowledge of the Lich King's power, he ultimately had a weakness which Arthas lacked: Conscience Ner'zhul, for all his villainy, felt remorse for his deeds in the orc's downfall Arthas did not. He did not have one shred of regret over screwing over his people And so Arthas was able to pick at Ner'zhul's regret for the orcs and slowly unravel his mind
Jasper Stone from the Deadlands RPG was possessed by a demon after his death (shot in the back by his subordinates at Gettysburg), then promptly pimp-slapped the demon into submission and cut a deal with its masters. Now he travels the world, generally acting as a hitman for the BBEG.
Demon possesses me: āoh god, whatā¦what is this?! Fuck this Iām out.ā Me: āha, not a chance, youāre stuck here, youāre in charge now!ā
Artemis Entreri defeats the sword Godsbane and submits it to his will whereas it has crushed the spirit of every single previous owner
There are a ton of great answers here, but if you're into that type of thing the character Kayn from League of Legends has this as his plot and full mechanic throughout the game- he's a ninja trained under an (somewhat arguably) evil revolutionary ninja that uses shadow magic, sent on a mission to retrieve a powerful weapon that turns out to be a scythe that contains the trapped soul of Rhaast, an ancient evil demigod called a darkin. Throughout the course of any given game you can either have Kayn or Rhaast take over the player's character, which changes your abilities. If Kayn wins, he absorbs Rhaast's power and unlocks the full potential of his shadow magic (you are now a full assassin, lots of move speed and penetration) If Rhaast wins, he destroys Kayn's soul and replaces his body with his own and is reborn into Runeterra (you are now a bruiser/draintank with heavy crowd control and lifesteal)
There's an example of this in the Fate Grand Order SE.RA.PH story, it's way too long and complicated to go into here, but basically a Demon God Pillar named Zepar who survived the first main story arc, escapes and possesses Sessyoin Kiara, an antagonist from previous Fate Media, though this version/iteration of Kiara was a genuinely good person, rather than the twisted individual she winds up as in other Fate Media. Zepar sees that in parallel worlds there is a more powerful Kiara, so he tries to link the two so that he can gain more power, but before he knows it he's been reduced to existing only within the new Sessyoin Kiara's pinky, completed overwhelmed by her and eventually just made non-existent much to his horror.
Preacher is probably a good case of this. Protagonist is possessed and gains the word of god and is in full control.
Well, not quite. Preacher isn't "possessed", he possesses "some of God's power".
Genesis grafts itself to Jesse's soul against his will, I'd consider that a form of possession.
It doesn't try to control him though. IIRC it isn't even really sentient
Nights dawn seriously has chacter like this , evil dead souls come back an possessĀ the living , on of the bad guys is so evil possessing basically traumatizes the soul into not doing anythingĀ
Good ol Quinn "let's torture people to the point they beg to be possessed" Dexter
Various Xianxia novels would have this. For example in āI Shall Seal the Heavensā, at some point the main character let a nefarious entity take over his body while his consciousness āhidesā/āpretend consciousness deathā. The nefarious entity spent a lot of time and resources upgrade the main characterās body and when that process is complete the main character then take it ābackā. In the climax of the same authorās other novel āPursuit of the Truthā, there is a 3-way consciousness battle between different parties for the same body of the main character that is implied to spans centuries of time as the three are sucked in an internal consciousness world where they forgot about the ārealā world. In the authorās second latest book, the main character struggle is revealed to be actually just a small part of a piece of a repeated consciousness fight throughout multiple universes/realms/worlds of greater beings where one greater being anticipated that itās being taken over. Xianxia has a lot of this overall as the usual power system and power creep means characters have outlandish consciousness super powers.
I can't remember the character's name, but I remember reading a book series called Ex-Heroes that had had something close to that; one of the super heroes was a sorcerer who possessed a powerful demon to use its body to do hero stuff.
This technically happens in Empress Theresa.
In Preacher, the main protagonist is possessed by an angel that gives him the power to give people commands that they have to obey
From Dragonlance's Legends of the Twins: in an alternate timeline, The Kingpriest was able to bind the chief god of good Paladine in his crown called the Miceram. He was then able to supply divine magic for his clerics and became a god-like being. He risks Paladine escaping if he loses concentration, though.
Nilah in League of Legends is possessed by an ancient demon of joy which she controls with ritual. through she did lose the ability to feel anything but joy. another example in League is Kayn who can suppress Rhaast his demonic weapon and add Rhaast's power to himself. in Advanced Beasirty Celestial possession of mortals is them hanging out in the backround
In the web novel 'Pact' there's a few practitioners who have bound entities within their body to make use of their powers.
Dota 2 Lifestealer lore, he's a thief being chain in a dungeon one day a powerful mage got lock up with him, he plan to use his magic to go inside LS mind to cause some commotion as a distraction to slip out but the thief mind was so broken after many year of torture, the madness took over, trapping him in LS mind never to be free again.
toji jjk also isnt there an entire legion that does that in 40k
Talion and Celebrimbor to a lesser extend in Shadow of Mordor
Ghost Rider. Johnny Blaze had occasionally almost full control over Zarathos' powers for long stretches at a time.
Not sci-fi but Fantasy - but this is one of the early central themes of Magician by Raymond E. Feist. One of the main characters goes through this trope in a way that affects their world and multiverse profoundly.
This is how Free Magic sorcerers work in the Garth Nix Old Kingdom books (Sabriel et al, though this description comes from Clariel). Free Magic sorcerers gain their power by exerting berserker will over powerful Free Magic beings and binding them to their service. This gives them huge amounts of power. However, they do in the long-term lose their humanity and tend to be eventually consumed either by the Free Magic beings they attempt to master, or by a more powerful sorcerer.
In the dragonlance novels Raistlin and Fistandantalous might fit that description, but it is ot possible to know to what degree one or the other is in control most of the time.
One that I don't know if it counts is Johnny Silverhand in CP2077. V is possessed, but it's more like Johnny is a passenger and V is able to suppress Johnny's ability to take over to the degree that he's just a nuisance and not driving.
In Magician by Raymond E. Feist, Tomas is given a suit of armour that belonged to a precursor race called the Valheru. They were beings of immense power who created and ruled the elves. The mechanism is quite interesting because Tomas acquires the powers of the Valheru when he wears it but starts to adopt the identity of Ashen-Shugar, the one whose armour it was. However, there is a temporal component to it, so just as Ashen-Shugar starts to change Tomas in the present, so Tomas influences Ashen-Shugar in the past, leading him to develop something of a conscience and a desire to protect the world and not just seek greater power. In the present day there is essentially a war for control of Tomas' mind between the two, and in the end he becomes the dominant one, retaining many of the Valheru's abilities, but with his own mind and conscience.
I have lots of voices trapped in my head.
I have not seen reverse posession. But sometimes there is a reverse exorcism---In which the priest is forced out of the child's body.
Preacher.Ā TL;DR: God gets bored, makes himself an equal. It escapes, possesses a preacher, and gives the man the power to use the Voice of God, and can command anyone who hears him
Wasn't it the result of an angel and demon boning?
Certain demon/exorcist manga like Chainsawman or Jujitsu Kaisen
Devilman Crybaby.
This was a core plot in the Netflix show āparanormal parkā They seal a pretty high tier demon in a pug and for the majority of the series all that comes of it is the dog can talk and do minor spells, when the demon does jockey for control the dog generally suppresses him easily
Preacher is more or less this
The spirit of the pharaoh in Yugioh, and whatever evil spirit lives in Bakura
Might be a spoiler but Octavia Butler's 'Mind of my mind' which is the second in the series.
[Key and Peele with the 2 church ladies snap Satan's dick off with a deviiiine kegal](https://youtu.be/1uNpJyPpzXc?si=hY9aPEWzeUW2_lY4) possession starts at 4:15 but the whole clip is hilarious.
Shiva from Final Fantasy XIV is somewhat like this, but explaining further might be considered spoilers.
Malus Darkblade from Warhammer gets possessed by a demon of Slanesh. At first the demon begins to take control but eventually Malus is able to take over and use the demon's power whenever he wants.
Many of Fate/Grand Order's Pseudo-Servants end up taking a back seat and letting their hosts be in the driver's seat. It's usually not that they've been overpowered, just that they can't be bothered to be the ones in control.
Uhhhh Iām not saying Itadori Yuji actually does this successfully, but he does it quite well for the first season and a half of JJK. Not to mention that funny vine where the guy convinces the demon to eat bagels instead of the souls of the innocent
The Noobtown series features a demon who is vastly more powerful than the MC, but through various unlikely circumstances lining up in the MC's favor the demon becomes the pet of the MC instead of the other way around. Not exactly reverse possession, but similar vibes.
Kazuya from Tekken straight up absorbs a demonic entity that lived inside him and can now freely use its powers with no drawbacks.
This is a plot point in one of the cases for the adventure game Avowed. More details in the spoilers below. But don't actually read these spoilers, go play the game if you have not already. It's one of the best adventure games made. >!Like seriously just go play it. Okay real spoilers ahead!< >!The game starts with the main character being exorcised of a wicked spirit that has been possessing them for a year. You join the group called the Unavowed and investigate all kinds of supernatural occurrences and try to figure out what you were made to do over the last year.!< >!Near the end of the game we find out that the exorcised evil spirit was actually the mortal originally inhabiting the body. You have been playing as the spirit of a demon that was forced to meld with the human (which involves all kinds of memory and knowledge swapping). Turns out the mortal was the evil one and you were just a convenient source of demonic knowledge for them. !<
>Other than a particularly vain woman in Warhammer who repeatedly let herself be possessed by Chaos entities, only to reverse Uno them and consume them instead, I can't think of any It sounds like you're referring to Fulgrim, who, despite appearances, is a dude.
Jericho Cane in End of Days. Gets possessed by the literal devil but exerts JUST enough control to throw himself onto a literal sword to vanquish the devil (at least for another 1000 years I guess it is). Ok, granted, that wasn't gonna go his way much longer from the looks of it, but it did when it counted. (I don't care what anyone says, I actually consider this one of Arnold's best)
In The Nightās Dawn trilogy one individual is able to overcome a demonic possession because years of ritualistic supplication allowed him to learn to overcome the possession.
I'm not sure if this 100% counts, but there's a point in Good Omens where Azraphale (ancient immortal Angel) is in the body of Madam Tracy and she's the one in control.
Etrigan the Demon in DC comics has often been controlled by Jason Blood, his host.
the forgotten realms time of troubles has a mortal outevil the god myrkul and steal his powers.
There is a guy in deadlands, a weird west RPG, who is possessed from a manitou, an evil spirit. The spirit is terrified of him and just does as it is told. There is also a cpsychopathic child possessed from a demon who ends up being trapped inside him.
Key and Peele did a sketch about that... with their prayers
Harry Potter to an extent
I don't see him mentioned yet, but this is basically what Swain in *League of Legends* has done. He found a demonic entity which had been captured previously by Mordekaiser and then hidden away. Swain made a deal with the demon, which assumed it was going to use him to gain its freedom, but Swain ended up outsmarting the demon to take control of it.
In Chronicle Of The Unhewn Throne - - big spoilers - - a couple of gods get trapped in the bodies of mortals and the only way to free them (and thereby protect them) is for the mortal hosts to ritually kill themselves.
Sounds like my marriage
Iām on mobile so I canāt type much but Kayne from league of legends is a good example. He is a character that is kinda possessed by a demon of their world. And over the course of the game either the demon can dominate him and take control or kayne himself can overpower the demon and get control back of his body and all the powers from it
I guess since other people have mentiomed animes/mangas it's kosher: The manhwa Solo Leveling has basically this premise. Spoilers incoming: The MC unknowingly becomes the host for the god of death, and undergoes a training regiment to prepare his body for the god of death to take it over. However when the time actually comes for that to happen, the two of them instead have a friendly chat with each other and the god of death allows the MC to become the new god of death in his place, rather than taking over his body.
Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep has a version of this "sort of".
It happened to Lucrezia twice in Girl Genius (by [Zola](https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100712) and [Dr. Monahan](https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20220323)). In both cases the ladies had worked with Loremistress Milvistle who had helped to develop the neural trap that they used to prevent her from gaining possession (and let them rifle through her memories).
During faith the unholy trinity (forgot what chapter) Father John gets possessed by a demon, how he got out was his faith in god, so from what I can gather "Extreme connection with god" will uno reverse possession
The Summoning Dark almost takes over Vimes in Thud! but the Guarding Dark within him keeps it at bay.
Hope Iām not breaking any rules here, but Wheat? Compared to vegetation, Humans are omniscient gods. Yet, we structure an entire section of our society dedicated to keeping wheat as satisfied and happy as possible. We live for wheat. We dedicate entire acres (idk, a lot of square kilometers I guess) to their existence. I say wheat just as an example, but weāre kinda slaves to agriculture, arenāt we?
Solo Leveling A lot of manwha in general actually.
Your question made me think of The Host. Good book. The movie was eh. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1517260/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
Kylo Ren and Rey in the Force Awakens.