rdfs:comment
| - This character is... barely a character. For a variety of reasons, he or she has gone past the Extreme Doormat and Stepford Smiler and become nothing. They aren't pushovers or empty of real personality, they are completely dead inside. They are this side of a Convenient Coma because there is still something there... they move, talk, eat, sleep, but they have no drive, ambition, or capacity for emotion. Basically, the body is an active biochemical machine, but the part that made him or her alive and human is gone. Examples of Empty Shell include:
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abstract
| - This character is... barely a character. For a variety of reasons, he or she has gone past the Extreme Doormat and Stepford Smiler and become nothing. They aren't pushovers or empty of real personality, they are completely dead inside. They are this side of a Convenient Coma because there is still something there... they move, talk, eat, sleep, but they have no drive, ambition, or capacity for emotion. Basically, the body is an active biochemical machine, but the part that made him or her alive and human is gone. In Real Life, the closest term for it is probably "catatonic". However, catatonia is as likely to result from the inability to initiate movement as it is from lack of consciousness; the individual could be anything from fully conscious to nearly comatose, and you could never tell. How did this happen? Here's a few ways: regular old Crapsack World induced trauma, psychological torture, Mind Control, Mind Rape, and high end uses of an Agony Beam. It can be done metaphysically by being drained of all their Liquid Assets or Life Energy, or having their Soul or part of their Soul Anatomy stolen. Then again, sufficiently radical body alterations can do this too, like being "upgraded" into a machine body or a less-than-successful attempt at resurrection. Sometimes it's curable, others it's a permanent Fate Worse Than Death. Expect these characters to be the preferred People Puppets for Telepaths and demons for being not so much Weak-Willed as No Willed. Contrast The Soulless, who are like Empty Shells filled with drive and ambition, and lacking all moral restraint. Compare to Soulless Shells, who died and were brought back without their souls. Examples of Empty Shell include:
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