Organ Autonomy: Difference between revisions

[[File:Diesh 9546.png|link=Goblins|frame|"For the love of gods, watch where I point those swords!"]]

 

'''Dib:''' Arm control nerve?

'''Zim:''' Yes.

'''Zim:''' Yes!

'''Dib:''' Humans don't ''have'' arm control nerves.

 

This trope is for when parts of the body have "minds of their own" and will control or influence the brain of whoever they're attached to. Typically happens when said limbs aren't normally a part of the body, as happens to a [[Frankenstein's Monster]] or [[Shapeshifter Mashup]]s.

* Just-Eat is a restaurant food delivery service. Their ads feature a red blobby character named Belly and a little scheming yellow blob named Brain. The slogan is "Belly says takeout - Brain says Just-Eat!" The characters are clearly supposed to represent body parts although they are never depicted inside a body. Belly sits there and drools while Brain reads the Just-Eat menu.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tML1z720C4 This] [[Nightmare Fuel]] Australian beer ad in which a man's tongue goes in search of beer while he is sleeping.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* Happens in the third ''[[Inuyasha]]'' movie: A demonic sword takes control of Inuyasha's arm by [[Squick|burrowing tentacles]] [[Body Horror|into it]] and pumping him full of demonic energy. It tries to force him [[For the Evulz|to slaughter a village]], but he temporarily disrupts its control by ''biting his own arm'' and holding on with his teeth while Miroku saves everybody.

 

* In one ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' fanfic, Dr. Daniel Jackson has a series of bizarre conversations with various body parts as a result of a caffeine overdose and nervous breakdown.

 

== Film ==

* This is a common horror movie trope. For example, Ash is forced to sever his possessed right hand in ''[[Evil Dead|Evil Dead 2]]''.

* ''[[Idle Hands]]'' is basically the possessed hand scene from ''[[Evil Dead]] 2'' blown up into an entire movie.

** There is at least one other movie with an almost identical premise as well as another that is similar, but is due to the vagina being ''possessed''.

* ''Soul Vengeance'' (aka ''[http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0073735/ Welcome Home Brother Charles]'') has a black man, experimented on during his term in prison, who takes vengeance on the people who put him there by strangling them with his ''giant prehensile penis.''

* Guess which organ has a mind of it's own in a movie called ''Pervert!'' {{spoiler|The homicidal maniac turns out to be James' voodoo-enchanted penis.}}

* ''[[Osmosis Jones]]'', which is about several animated anthropomorphic microbes living inside a live-action man.

 

== Literature ==

* In one of [[Aesop's Fables]], the members of the body refuse to help the belly. The body is dissatisfied with "King Stomach's" rule, so they overthrow him and try to decide who is most important and thus worthy to be king. Tongue nominates himself but is laughed off the floor; the debate continues without recess until a lack of rest and nourishment has everyone telling someone else to do the job since they're to tired to do it. They eventually work out that maybe King Stomach wasn't such a bad ruler and put him back in power, and go make soup so as to be not dying. Then the story derails and the body parts aren't metaphorical parts of everyone but the bits of one specific guy. This man hears that if he can collect the milk of a lion, the only cure for the disease from which the king's beautiful daughter suffers, he gets to marry her; in typical folk hero fashion, [[Guile Hero|he does so by cunning and resourcefulness]]. Just as he is presenting the king with the milk, Tongue, still bitter about being called worthless, makes the man say it's the wrong kind of milk. The king gets angry, and nearly has the man killed, but the other body parts relent and agree to respect Tongue a little more, and Tongue corrects the mistake. Guy marries princess, happy ending, hooray.

* There's a parody version of Aesop's fable, where the organs argue over which one is the king of the body, and they all seems to hate the anus because "he's an asshole", so the anus decides to clog up to "stop being an asshole" and the body gets gradually sick from constipation, then the organs apologize to the anus, which decides to work correctly (="be an asshole") again, the body recovers and the organs decide that the anus is the real king of the body. And this [[Just-So Story|explains why]] in any organization or committee it's always the asshole who is in charge.

* In ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (novel)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'', the notorious alien poet Grunthos the Flatulent died after a particularly bad recitation when his own small intestine tried to save the audience from further torment by throttling its owner's brain.

 

* In an episode of ''[[Seinfeld]]'', Jerry's girlfriend forces him to read scripts with her as she horribly overacts, and representations of his brain and penis engage in a chess match to see whether or not he'll dump her.

* In ''[[Herman's Head]]'', his head is the one controlling things, with bits of his personality disagreeing.

** And a third one: when something goes wrong with the hologram suite, Rimmer's lower half begins running around by itself, and Rimmer's upper half complains about it.

* One of Murdock's delusions on ''[[The A-Team]]'' involved his left hand using this trope, although it was more of a nuisance than actually evil. He names it Lefty.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

* A ''[[Beetle Bailey]]'' strip had a similar concept to the ''[[Peanuts]]'' one, with all of General Halftrack's body parts complaining as he tried to go to sleep. (Well, almost all - [[The Comics Curmudgeon]] was surprised there was no complaint from his poor, overworked liver.)

* ''[[My Cage]]'' features scenes inside Norm's head, where his brain, heart, and libido often have it out with each other.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* An occasional frustration for the [[Frankenstein's Monster|Frankenstein]] lineage in ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'' is that their limbs and organs sometimes run under their own control. This leads to, among other things, one eye sometimes insisting on looking in a different direction. Other lineages have this problem on occasion, but it happens most often to Frankensteins because they're always made of multiple corpses. There is, however, a merit called "Residual Memories", which can grant the Promethean bonus dice on skill rolls - because his body parts retain memories of the skills in question. (When the dice are exhausted, though, the risk of the body parts getting out of control goes up.)

* In ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'', there's a particular [[Eldritch Abomination|Abyssal entity]] called [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Flesh Intruders]], a highly intelligent race of parasites who manifest in tainted organ transplants. Over the period of their gestation, they [[Body Horror|reform their host's organs to ones suiting their goals]], until they literally hatch from the organ, [[And I Must Scream|totally suppressing the host's mind in the process, while they still remain aware]]. The kicker? Every organ that was infected was actually a victim of [[Black Magic|Sinister Organ Qigong]], so not only is there a crazy monster running around, you can ''bet'' there's somone whose watching all this [[Kick the Dog|and laughing]].

 

== Theater ==

* ''[[Me and My Dick]]'' by [[Team Starkid]] is a musical comedy about teenages learning the complexities of relationships by talking to parts of their body like their genitals, (usually, they have names like Dick or Miss Cooter), and other parts, like the heart. The main character's heart thinks Bill Pullman is the greatest actor of our generation.

 

== Video Games ==

* Subverted by {{spoiler|Hugh Bliss}} in the last episode (Bright Side of the Moon) of the first season of ''[[Sam and Max]]'' by [[Telltale Games]]. Max's hand, stomach, and tail {{spoiler|are literally removed from his body and then become separate copies of Max, personifying his senseless violence, greed, and sloth}}. Sam is horrified. Max is (somehow) able to continue to function, although he's definitely not himself.

* In ''[[Toribash]]'', severed limbs can still be controlled if they have joints still intact. This makes [[Bloody Hilarious|dismembering yourself]] for [[Grievous Harm with a Body|some moves]] [[Crazy Awesome|a valid strategy]].

 

* Seen with [http://miamaska.tidalcomics.com/?strip_id=56 Guere's arm] in ''[[Miamaska]]''.

* In ''[[The Noob]]'', Ohforf's crotch agrees to go on a suicidal quest against the brain's will when Hypatia says she might "do anything" for a man brave enough to go.

* In ''[[Girls with Slingshots]]'', Hazel's ovaries often speak up to tell her that [[My Biological Clock Is Ticking]]. And McPedro's mustache has run away from him. In addition, McPedro's mustache is ''French''.

* Even though it was not actual verbal communication, Ki from ''[[General Protection Fault]]'' experiences her own uterus going 'TWINGE' and triggering near uncontrollable lust [http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive.php?d=20010414 in] [http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive.php?d=20010419 these] [http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive.php?d=20010420 strips] of year 2001.

* Occurs in ''[[Spinnerette]]'' with the eponymous character's six arms sometimes acting on their own. Lower-lefty in particular appears to have a thing for her teammate, Mecha Maid.

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[An Akatsuki's Life|An Akatsukis Life]]'' takes this to its natural extreme, with an entire crowd of Kisame's taste buds reacting to the word "Spaghetti".

 

 

== Western Animation ==

{{quote|'''Homer:''' The last bar in Springfield. If I can't get a beer here, I'll have to quit drinking.

'''Liver:''' Yay! }}

{{quote|'''Marge:''' Would you like a tall, frosty one, Homer?

'''Brain:''' No! Must resist! I love The Leader!

'''Stomach:''' Go on! Give in! Beer!

'''Feet:''' Ooh, these nylon socks sure are comfortable! }}

{{quote|'''Brain:''' Don't say revenge. Don't say revenge.

'''Homer:''' Uh... revenge.

'''Brain:''' That's it, I'm outta here. (receding footfalls) (door slam) }}

{{quote|'''Homer:''' Twenty of the suckiest minutes of my life.

'''Ned:''' Ho ho ho, suckin' down the cider, uh? Hey, word to the wise -- ''[shows Homer a card]'' season pass! It pays for itself after the sixteenth visit. You know, most people don't know the difference between apple cider and apple juice, but I do. Now here's a little trick to help you remember. If it's clear and yella', you've got juice there, fella! If it's tangy and brown, you're in cider town. Now, there's two exceptions and it gets kinda tricky here...

'''Homer's Brain:''' ''[moans]'' You can stay, but I'm leaving. ''(brain floats away; Homer stares blankly for a second, then collapses)'' }}

'''Lisa's Brain:''' Yeah, I heard it too. Here's some music. (plays ''[[Ludwig Van Beethoven|Für Elise]]'') }}

{{quote|'''Lisa's Brain''': You do realise they're only pretending to like you because of the pool?

'''Lisa''': Shut up, brain! I don't need you any more; I have friends now! }}

** In "Taste Buds", Chowder's tongue is strengthened and ends up dominating the rest of his body, dictating what he will eat and beating him up if he does not comply

* A character who has conversations with his stomach (actually, it's more of a slave/master type relationship) is Jay Sherman on ''[[The Critic]]''.

* In ''[[Spliced]]'', Entree made a bet with his brain, heart and stomach that he could survive a week without them. They left his body for the duration of the bet and spent the week getting into trouble on the island.

* Happens to ''[[Krypto the Superdog (animation)|Krypto the Superdog]]'' when exposure to red kryptonite caused his tail to gain sentience and separate from his body to cause trouble.

* ''[[Family Guy]]'': [[Adam West]] is so crazy he struck up a relationship with his hand and even tried to marry it. His other hand, however, rejected the proposal. Priest: "If anyone has any reason as to why this marriage should not take place, speak now or forever hold your peace." (Adam West's other hand raises up) Adam West: "Shut up, you had your chance!" (There actually is a joke in there. For something by [[Seth MacFarlane]], it's incredibly subtle. [[A Date with Rosie Palms|Did you get it?]])

* ''[[South Park]]'':

* ''Reason And Emotion'', a 1940s [[Disney]] [[Wartime Cartoon]], demonstrates how the two forces (anthropomorhised into tiny people) fight for control at the 'drivers seat' of the brain.

* In ''[[The Amazing World of Gumball]]'', Gumball's brain leaves his body when Gumball tries reading a book, and spends the rest of the episode outside it.

 

== Real Life ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Absurdity Ascendant]]

[[Category:Autonomous and Artificial Appendage Index]]

[[Category:Rule of Funny]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]