Alice assembles her doll army for disturbingly cute warfare.
A Marionette Master doesn't fight via their own power; they have a doll, puppet, or similar figurine — that they control via strings, magic, or advanced technology — to do it for them. In exaggerated cases, the character might control a group or entire army of these puppets at once. If the Marionette Master is technically skilled, their puppets may come equipped with all manner of clockwork armaments or wind-up weapons; spring-loaded blades and tiny projectile weapons concealed in the puppet's mouth are favorites, but the only limit is the puppeteer's creativity. Particularly sadistic Marionette Masters can also make People Puppets, or use Perverse Puppets. See also Evil Puppeteer.
A Sub-Trope of Art Attacker and The Minion Master. May overlap with Robot Master or Wicked Toymaker.
Compare and contrast Puppeteer Parasite. See also Marionette Motion. If it involves normally-autonomous machinery, the character is a Robot Master.
Not to be confused with Puppet Fighter, a metaphor to describe a certain type of gameplay, although at times, these tropes may overlap.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Bleach:
- The Hollow Numb Chandelier has this as her main power, using the virus to make People Puppets out of Orihime's friends.
- Ditto one of the Bounts, Mabashi, who takes over Rukia's body; Orihime restores Rukia's sanity by hugging and then activating her powers.
- Also, the Septima Espada Zommari Rureaux. His ability Amor allows him to control body parts of other people with one of his many eyes. If it's the head, it allows him to control the entire body even when they are unconscious.
- Genso from Genzo is a puppet master of amazing skills, and combines this with being Crazy-Prepared. Other "puppet masters" in the series are his teacher and father-in-law Seibei and his half-brother Koshiro, who's even more skilled than him.
- One of Yura of the Hair's abilities in Inuyasha. She would use threads of hair to manipulate the bodies of unconscious people from Kaede's village, then force them to attack Inuyasha and the group.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders: Enya the Hag's Stand, Justice takes the form of fog that she can force into open wounds of both living and dead bodies to manipulate them as she pleases. When she is outed as the Stand user by Jotaro, she sics an army of corpses onto him, all being controlled by Justice.
- In Jujutsu Kaisen, Masamichi Yaga's cursed technique is to make cursed corpses, dolls and puppets infused with cursed energy to act autonomously.
- The Shirogane in Karakuri Circus are members of an entire organization of Marionette Masters, using highly complex puppets to fight against evil robots.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid:
- Corona is revealed in flashbacks to have doll manipulation as her main talent. After Vivio praised her for it, she trained and refined this skill to the point where she can now manipulate giant Golems in battle. She can also use it on herself to become a Ditto Fighter.
- Olivie Sägebrecht used a similar technique to control her artificial arms when she was alive.
- The Hidden Sand Village from Naruto is renowned for its ninja puppeteers, who typically use puppets full of hidden weaponry, including poison; unlike most examples, said puppeteers, including Kankuro and Chiyo, are actually fairly heroic (eventually, anyways). However, the Hidden Sand's greatest puppeteer, Sasori of the Red Sand, is an outright villain who turns human corpses into puppet that still possess any powers they had while alive and marionette live captives to fight their allies.
- Evangeline from Negima! Magister Negi Magi makes the list as well. One of her several dozen titles is "The Puppetmaster", and at the height of her power she could apparently control an entire army's worth of puppets. Though as a powerful Vampire mage, this is mainly a secondary ability.
- Doflamingo of One Piece is of the People Puppets variety, though he also seems to have the strings themselves as part of his personal arsenal.
- Princess Rangiku, is the titular girl of Puppet Princess. Rangiku seeks vengeance on those who murdered her father by using her 3 of her father's greatest warrior puppets.
- Gein from Rurouni Kenshin hides inside his puppet and basically uses it like a Clock Punk Humongous Mecha.
- Tiger & Bunny: Kriem, who uses her powers to control Mad Bears (Ugly Cute teddy bears). The Mad Bears go into giant robots and start attacking the city.
- IV from Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL used monsters called Gimmick Puppets, nightmarish marionettes with graphic and macabre powers.
Comic Books
- The Beano: The now obscure General Jumbo and his Pocket Army, appearing between 1953 to 1974, was another heroic example. Unusually, the forces at his command extended to full air and artillery support as well as a variety of vehicles for several thousand Small Soldiers-style infantry bots, and a lot of the weapons involved were explicitly capable of inflicting lethal harm.
- The DCU:
- Batgirl: The villain Shauna Belzer, a.k.a. the (third) Ventriloquist, uses telekinesis to control her puppet Ferdie.
- Convergence: Carny, a member of the Extremists. Due to being an extremely loose Expy of Walt Disney and X-Men villain Arcade, he commands an army of It's a Small World esque robot dolls to fight for him.
- Firestorm (DC Comics): Black Bison can bring to life any inanimate objects to fight for him. These can range from toys, amusement park animatronics, and even the statue of liberty.
- Hawkman: The villain Toyboy (not to be confused with the Toyboy robot created by the original Toyman, below) uses telekinesis to control toys.
- Superman: The Toyman usually uses an army of toys to do his fighting for him. Toyman's son Anton Schott a.k.a. the Dollmaker, is an enemy of Supergirl, who has an army of robotic dolls, as well as human sized robot dolls with children trapped inside as to make it harder for Supergirl to fight them.
- Teen Titans: The Puppeteer has a huge array of puppets, all fashioned in different clothing. When at home the puppets would do chores for him such as cook his breakfast.
- Fables: Gepetto, as in the original story, is a master puppet-crafter, and a Wicked Toymaker as The Man Behind the Man for the Adversary.
- Toybox from Top 10, whose box is full of creepy toys resembling Sid’s collection in Toy Story 1. It’s only briefly seen in the prequel, but her father Colonel Lilliput had a small army of toy soldiers, and created Robyn’s toys in his later years.
- Wanted has The Doll-Master, who's a Captain Ersatz of Toyman. Like his inspiration, he has a small army of puppets at his beck and call.
Fan Works
- Lupine Tree has the timberwolves, the most notable of which being the protagonist himself. The timberwolves are trees that drop "transmission seeds," which can magically gather up plant matter and assemble it into the form of a wolfnote and puppet the construct within a set radius of where they grow. The wolves hunt for prey and use it to fertilize their controlling tree.
Films — Animated
- The Other Mother a.k.a. Beldam in Coraline. Her dolls are not primarily made for fighting, however if her victim comes to realise the trap it has fallen into and attempts to fight back, they can become rather deadly.
Films — Live-Action
- Toy Santa from The Santa Clause 2 takes over the North Pole by creating an army of sentient life-sized toy soldiers that obey him.
- Tales from the Hood: The army of undead slave dolls tormenting a white supremacist is controlled by an elderly voodoo priestess whose soul is contained inside an old Civil War painting.
- The Peddler in The Wiz controls two Perverse Puppets that start dancing on their own before growing 7 feet tall and chasing the heroes menacingly throughout the Sinister Subway.
Literature
- Ishura: Zeljirga the Abyss Web is a clown and magician who fights mainly using Razor Floss. She’s also a skilled puppeteer, her street marionette performances are so good that even the grumpy Kiyazuna gives her rare praise. In her match against Mestelexil, she controls a jet-propelled golem Reshipt Modified using her durable strings like a puppet. The strain of controlling the blazing-fast golem is so strong that it breaks her fingers.
- In Panguan, one of the four magical arts that panguan can learn is puppetry, which enables them to create powerful puppets that can serve as guardians or servants and use puppet string to cut or tie up objects and people. The most powerful panguan, like the main character Wen Shi at the peak of his powers, are capable of creating puppets that are nigh-indistinguishable from humans and even turning other humans into their own puppets. Wen Shi and most of the other puppet masters in the novel use their abilities for benevolent purposes, but the Big Bad Zhang Daiyue has no qualms about using his puppetry to do vile things.
- Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Rather than practice sword arts, spellology professor Frances Gilchrist argues that mages should seek magical solutions for close-in defense, and demonstrates this by summoning up a small squad of marionette-like automatons in the first class. Discussed later by the Sword Roses: Pete notes that this particular solution is probably Awesome, but Impractical for most mages, but the underlying idea of alternatives to sword arts isn't an inherently bad one.
- Friagne, the first villain in Shakugan no Shana, controls hordes of exploding dolls (possibly constructed from torches). His goal is to turn Marianne, the Rinne doll he loves, into an independent existence.
- That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime:
- Otherworlder Alice Rondo has the ability to levitate and manipulate dolls. When first encountered by Rimuru, she did this with her trio of stuffed dolls for their practice bout, with Rimuru noting despite the cuteness her control is very good and these would be a lot more intimidating if they had claws or weapons attached. After her training, that's exactly what she did as now she controls dolls made of metal armed with various weapons.
- Demon Lord Clayman outright has the Red Baron "Marionette Master", and true to form his preferred combat style though not his only one is to use powerful puppets, often fueled with souls that grants them both increased powers as well as innate healing abilities to anything aside from soul-damaging attacks. His masterpiece is "Viola", a powerful multi-armed puppet with various magical attacks and tricks at its disposal. He can also uses curses to turn people into People Puppets via binding their bodies and/or minds.
- Velvetveen from the Velveteen vs. series fights with animated stuffed animals and dolls. When she needs new ones, she goes to Goodwill, animates all theirs, and lays out the score: that going with her will mean giving up any chance of a new child and probably a short life, but also doing good in that period.
Live-Action TV
- Two Toku series have given this the same twist: the heroes of Kamen Rider Decade and Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger can assume the forms of their predecessors. Each series also has an antagonistic character who uses the same cards/keys but produces "dupes" of the hero in question rather than changing his own form — respectively, Kamen Rider Diend and Basco ta Jolokia.
- The Wild Wild West: The villain in "The Night of the Puppeteer" has an army of life-sized marionettes at his command which he controls via steam lines. They can serve wine, play music... and kill.
Music
- Another k-pop example: Zelo is a Marionette Master in the music video for B.A.P's first single, "Warrior"
, using his fellow members as People Puppets. At the end, they break out of his control and shoot him as part of the dance.
Video Games
- Dollmaykrs from Angelic Waifus are angelic puppet masters responsible for creating the doll armies of heaven. Their primary attack is to summon an endless army of dolls armed with knives, pistols and shotguns.
- Lieselotte's sister Elfriede of Arcana Heart has the power to control puppets and used this to possess a Perverse Puppet to remain with Lieselotte when she died. That is, that was the original story. In reality, it is Lieselotte herself who has the power to control the puppet, and her sister is still alive.
- BlazBlue:
- Carl Clover is never seen without a giant marionette called Nirvana (which contains the soul of his sister Ada), which can be controlled by the player as he fights. Early on in Noel's Story Mode, an important question comes up: who's really pulling whose strings? Something of either a subversion or an inversion, depending on how you look at it.
- His father, Relius Clover, is also a puppeteer, the puppet in question being his wife Ignis.
- Celica A. Mercury is accompanied by a marinette named Minerva, similar to the Clover family. Unlike them, Minerva does not have a soul of a living person. Minerva was built by Celica's niece, Kokonoa to protect her and amplify her power.
- Lime from Blue Reflection uses a teddy bear called Mr. Bear as her weapon. It can grow to giant size and shoot Eye Beams, or function as a Magic Wand for shooting fireballs. Oh, and her skillset and starting stats strongly favor her being an offense-focused character, meaning Mr. Bear is potentially the strongest weapon in the game.
- In DC Universe Online, the Trickster can be seen commanding robotic action figures of Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman to fight for him.
- Final Fantasy:
- While Lulu from Final Fantasy X primarily uses magic in battle, she can also attack enemies with magically animated toys.
- While Luca from Final Fantasy IV: The After Years is capable of fighting by herself (and is quite good at it), she fights alongside her mechanical dolls, Calca and Brina.
- Fire Emblem Fates has the Mechanist as a Hoshidan-exclusive unit class that Ninjas and Apothecaries can be promoted to. They ride on puppet mounts, use Hidden Weapons and Bows, and can also create a puppet clone to fight alongside themselves.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Puppet Ganon from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a massive marionette controlled by Ganondorf himself. You even have to sever the strings controlling it if you want to win.
- Skull Kid from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess uses wooden puppets to slow you down while you're chasing him.
- As of the latest update to Mabinogi the player now has the option of being this.
- In Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis, Pamela Ibis lets her Teddy do most of the fighting. Then again, this is not your average bear.
- Metal Gear:
- Screaming Mantis in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots prefers zombie People Puppets, and even controls them with literal puppets. Using said puppets you can even try it out yourself, though not nearly as well as the bosses.
- The Scourge Warlock class from Neverwinter has the ability to create "Soul Puppets" when they use certain powers on their enemy's. They fade pretty fast, meaning you have to make another one to replace it, unless you taker the Damnation skill tree to its capstone (which also comes with other nifty upgrades to the puppet).
- Jov Leonov from Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy who has the power of mind control and a Meat Puppet army.
- Geppeto in Shadow Hearts: Covenant. He attacks by controlling his marionette Cornelia. His weapon is different types of puppet string (his Infinity +1 Sword is the Red String of Fate), and his elemental affinity is based on what dress Cornelia is wearing. His late daughter's soul is inhabiting Cornelia's body, raising the question of just how much Geppeto is actually in control of it. Fortunately, she was a good person in life.
- Shining Force has Mishaela. Shining Force Gaiden: Final Conflict reveals that the Mishaela you killed in the original was really one of her puppets all along.
- This is one of the powers of Gig from Soul Nomad & the World Eaters. A spell called Dominion causes a small doll in the form of the person used on to appear. From there, the user can summon that person whenever needed and control them in battle.
- Anise Tatlin from Tales of the Abyss has a stuffed doll which can grow big enough for her to ride into battle, making her the resident Cute Bruiser.
- Touhou Project: Alice Margatroid's main specialty is her Doll Army. She also has them help her do chores all over the house, even when she's not in the same room as them. The weird thing about it is that they aren't capable of independent action, so she's putting just as much if not more effort into micro-managing them than just doing the work herself. It also makes her habit of holding conversations with them all the more eccentric.
- In WitchSpring3, Eirudy's companions are Dolls that replace the Pet system of the first two games. The Dolls are originally inanimate but they can be activated by being injected Vitality collected from defeated foes and can be enhanced the same way. She already has several in storage but others can be acquired through progressing the main story or exploring the world.
- The World Ends with You: Shiki Misaki has her stuffed cat, Mr. Mew. Seeing as they're in a world where some people can shoot fireballs or drop vending machines on their enemies, her partner (and The Protagonist) Neku finds this... rather underwhelming. Shiki defends herself by saying that Mr. Mew was the only thing that worked and he "sort of does his own thing". Neku comes around to it later on, including the two of them having a combo attack where Mr. Mew grows to a giant size to devastate the monsters they fight.
Web Animation
- The Fruitless Quests of Nabiu: Wizzro has a flying doll he can use to talk to Nabiu remotely.
Webcomics
- All over the place in Erfworld. Dollomancy, Croakamancy, and Decryption are all this trope through and through. Even the setting, where soldiers telepathically know their leader's wishes to some extent, counts.
- Homestuck:
- Dave's Bro may or may not have been this with his favourite puppet, Lil' Cal. On one hand, he was capable of flashstepping so fast that he could have been making it look like Lil' Cal was moving of his own accord, and initially that's what appears to be happening. On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence and testimony throughout the story that Lil' Cal actually is alive and capable of autonomous movement. We simply can't know for certain, and that makes it all the more terrifying a thought...
- Dirk Strider, Bro's alternate universe equivalent, also counts. He holds a puppetkind strife specibus and can use Cal in combat, though he seldom does. Instead, in a less-literal take on the trope, Dirk builds robots and A.I.s that do battle for him.
