Fixing Love Potions

[GreatWyrmGold]

Love potions are a trope as old as time. For as long as hominids have been able to comprehend romantic love as an emotion separate from other positive emotions, we've surely wished it was easier to get. The love potion is a plot device that can make two characters fall in love, easy as spiking her drink!
Of course, as our society came to view consent as something that, you know, mattered, the concept of a love potion became more...problematic. It deprives people of their agency in a faculty which is (obviously) very important and can have life-changing consequences; basically, a classic love potion is brainwashing with a side of date rape. Hence, it has fallen out of common use, with the few exceptions usually coming under scrutiny by audiences and authors alike. (Though sometimes only one of the two...)
Why is it still around? Well, it's a classic element of both ancient fairy tales and more recent classic literature (e.g, A Midsummer Night's Dream). Any trope steeped in that much literary tradition is going to recur sooner or later. But there are better ways to handle them.



Recontextualize it. Don't have "love potions" as something bought or brewed by romantics wanting to help their beloved admit and commit to their feelings; they're a concoction used like poison by schemers, or else coveted by self-proclaimed "Nice Guys" who think they're just securing what is already rightfully theirs. Functional love potions aren't sold to impulsive schoolgirls like "functional" love potions are IRL, because they are as heavily-regulated as mind-control amulets and hats of devouring. If you want a sympathetic use for them, something to justify them not being entirely illegal, perhaps couples trapped in loveless marriages use them to feel less miserable together. (I bet Shakespeare could have written one heck of a play about a king and queen trying this, only to have their potion-laced tea constantly mixed up with tea for guests or servants.)
Tweak it. The literary purpose of a love potion is generally either to facilitate a relationship about to happen, as a shortcut for someone who really wants someone else's affections but won't put in the effort to actually get those affections, or an excuse for hijinks. Is there a way we can accomplish at least some of those goals without the date-rape vibes? Perhaps, instead of a generic love potion, you have a potion which strengthens someone's feelings for someone else, whatever they may be. It can convince a Juliet to admit she likes her Romeo, a guy who thinks he's Romeo would use it to try and get the girl, and such a feelings-multiplier would (obviously) allow for all sorts of new hijinks. Or perhaps the potion makes the target to see the potion-user the way the -user sees themselves, which could provoke literal sympathy between love interests, get a girl to like the self-obsessed jerk who thinks potions can replace love, or potentially allow some hijinks. (It's admittedly not as good at the third.) Or there could be other options.
Move it from "plot device" to "MacGuffin". The story isn't about the side effects of a love potion, or about some romantic nonsense with a love potion thrown in as a confounding event, or anything like that; it's a story where one party is trying to get a love potion (for one reason or another) and another is trying to stop them. It might not sound as epic as a quest to save the world or an overlord trying to conquer it, but hey, not every hero needs to save the world.


What do you guys think about these possibilities? Can you think of others, or other love-potion-esque effects which can serve the same literary purpose without the baggage? Or anything else love-potion-related that you think is worth talking about?

[Lord Raziere]

I'd just make them a pure villain thing and have the hero be all about earning their affection the right way. no need for anything fancy, just make it clear: "love" potions are one sided relationship makers, wrong and a violation of the victims rights, leading to an unhealthy dynamic, and the hero should be all about earning that love, not taking that evil shortcut.

make drinking the love potion outright disturbing. make the drinker contort and scream and struggle trying to fight against the effects before suddenly straightening up and putting on an unnatural smile, make the "love" as fake and unnatural as possible, make it clear that what gives you is a lie, a poorly stitched together creepy parody that would never truly satisfy anyone sane. make it something the hero has to protect people against and cure.

thats what I'd do: just show how WRONG it is. embrace the implications and make them intended, disturbing and evil as shown as it is when you think about it.

[Seerow]

Maybe shift it from something you give to someone else to something you take yourself?

It could be a potion that encourages the shy and awkward person to be more capable of expressing their feelings. Not a guarantee of reciprocity, but a nudge in the right direction. Or it could be a potion that actually does awaken feelings of love towards another person...but only if the person taking it wants that. How many times do you see/hear in a story of somebody who cares for someone, but can't think of them 'that way' for one reason or another. There are conceivably cases where someone may want to take the easy way out and say "Hey, this person really likes me, it sucks I don't feel that way about them, I want to fix that".

Either way, the core idea is that instead of drugging somebody else, for whatever reason the magic only kicks in if the drinker imbibes it knowingly wanting whatever the result is. Mind you, these changes bring up other potential moral concerns, so I'm not sure if it really contextualizes them into something that would be generally accepted, but it'd be more of a controversial type of morality as opposed to mind raping somebody into being your lover.

[Cikomyr]

Tristan and Isold's story of accidentally drinking a love potion that forced them to fall in love while she was promised to Tristan's king has always been a strong tragedic tale. While both individuals had their feelings somewhat violated, no malice actually caused the event.

I wonder why people never think of the single best love potion utility: for a failing marriage/relationship. Ya know, both individuals voluntarily drink a love potion to jump-start the emotions that were once vivid.

The thing is, "Love Potion" is a horrible thing only and if only it is taken against one's will. And the question would then be: "in what circumstances would someone willingly drink a love potion? If they want to fall in love, what's stopping them?" Hence failing marriages.

[Kitten Champion]

One idea I liked is to have the love potion be similar to a luck potion, except aimed at romantic fortune. The potion creates the circumstances via tweaking probabilities to find your True Love. Possibly with a Monkey's Paw effect, as it would ignore your financial or physical well-being when altering your fate to manifest that one in a million possible future where that particular pairing comes to pass.

Another idea is basically the premise to Kanojo ga Flag o Oraretara, a LN/anime series about a character who can see flags above people's heads that represent their future relative to himself - love flags included - but is mostly preoccupied by his own death flag. A potion built on a similar concept - visualizing the threads of fate or some such - could be interesting. You'd be seeing the potential for love rather than materializing it or coercing it chemically, how it would actually come to pass would be the mystery.

There's also the easiest, I think. Have the love potion be fake, and the circumstances that follow be a placebo effect.

[Cheesegear]

Love potions are a trope as old as time.
[...]
Why is it still around?

Is it still around?

I'm 30, and every time I've ever seen a love potion it has;
a) Gone horribly wrong,
b) Been a placebo the entire time, or
c) Wears off and the drinker hates the person who has brainwashed them.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any recent examples where the love potion has worked as intended, permanent (i.e; not option 'c'), and been seen as a good thing.

[Khedrac]

I rather like Gilbert and Sullivan's take on this - in their lesser known work The Sorceror.
The love potion has one limitation - it doesn't work on people who are married.
It works by putting the drinker to sleep and then they fall in love with the first person they see when they wake up.

Now if you follow the opera you will notice that the "hero" is actually a bit of a cad. Ostensibly he gets the potion so everyone else can experience the joy that he and his fiance are about to have; however:
1. He then insists that his fiance takes it so he can be sure of her love.
2. He then blames his fiance for falling in love with someone else when she wakes up - despite the fact that it was his fault she took the potion.
3. Gilbert also pokes fun at class prejudices, the two lesser nobles are moved away from the general throng so that they don't see someone of the wrong class when they wake, however since they are both single and taken home I think they both see servants on waking...
4. In the end they decide they need to break the spell of the potion, and the only way to do this is for either its creator or purchaser to go to hell, the hero still won't take responsibility for his actions so the sorceror willingly goes to free everyone from the potion's effects.

Now Isaac Asimov (I think - it could have been Arthur C Clarke) theorised that Gilbert wanted to have the ending that they all got married, the potion stops working so then those who are happy remain married while those who are not get divorced, but prejudice against divorce was still too strong for this ending.

My headcanon is that Gilbert wanted the Sorceror to be shown going on his way having faked his trip to hell while lamenting that some people never learn to take responsibility for their actions (or something similar) - possibly even eloping with the hero's fiance as she has now realised how much of a cad the "hero" is. Without this extention one has to be really paying attention as the criticism of the "hero" is very subtle.

Anyway the story needs very little modification to work today - probably just someone else for the heroine to fall in love with at the end.

[Aotrs Commander]

I wonder why people never think of the single best love potion utility: for a failing marriage/relationship. Ya know, both individuals voluntarily drink a love potion to jump-start the emotions that were once vivid.

Not quite a potion, but in MLP:Friendship is Magic, Princess Cadance's magic is essentially supposed to be able to pretty much do that (I.e. remind people why they feel in love or whatever).

And even in that fandom, accusations were levelled (some for humour others... not) at her basically abusing mind-control. And in the show itself, we've seen her use that magic about once; which means she's been significantly more often using COMBAT magic than her preported special talent.



I do think that perhaps some of the literary role of the love potion has been somewhat replaced by alcohol (somewhat unfortunately), wherein Drunk Happens and that has some effect (starting/ending) a relationship. This seems more societally respectable, though only to the degree that getting drunk is societally acceptable.

(Myself, I tend to view that with barely less quite horror than the love potions. (Actually, just Being Drunk in general.) As far as I'm concerned, inhibititions exsist for a reason... Now watch my offhand comment completely de-rail the thread again by accident...)

So one possibility for "fixing" love potions is perhaps to make them have the same sort of inhibition-lowering effect of being drunk, perhaps without the other side-effects.

(Still a bit squicky, but there's never a way around that.)

[GreatWyrmGold]

Is it still around? -snip-
I can't claim a full knowledge of the subject, but Strange Magic is practically centered around love potions without displaying full awareness of their implications. One of the two characters who decide to use a love potion is a prick, but the other is a deurtagonist who is clearly supposed to be sympathetic and who ends up with the girl he planned to drug. (Side note: Watching a review of Strange Magic is what inspired this thread in the first place.)
A quick skim of the TV Tropes page for love potions also reveals:

Fallout 3, where getting a couple together via love potion nets a positive karma boost.
While Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince treats love potions seriously, they're still apparently legal...and in one of the earlier books, Mrs. Weasely makes an off-hand comment about using one on her future husband, which isn't taken seriously at all.
Magical Pokemon Journey's plot is about the protagonist trying to get a love potion to make someone fall in love with them.
Several examples are mentioned for Power Rangers. Most took it seriously, but some...didn't.
The Sims, where love potions are a thing that was thrown in with about as much critical examination as anything else in The Sims.
A show called Space Island One was mentioned, where one crewmember was treated as wrong for rejecting the advances of another, with the latter making the technobabbly equivalent of a love potion to "fix" that situation.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse gives werecreatures an "Animal Magnetism" ability, which basically works like a love potion without the potion. They tried revising it a couple of times, but it didn't help much. And while we're on the subject of not-potion love potions, let's consider Cupid and his arrows...
Many, many examples which were basically impossible to analyze from the information available, some of which probably fell into the problematic category (if only because of Sturgeon's Law).


It's not horribly common, but it's not unheard of. As with any old trope, there are plenty of people who throw it in without considering the implications.

[2D8HP]

Is it wrong that Ihttp://humoncomics.com/art/ask-a-witch.png

source (http://humoncomics.com/ask-a-witch)

[Giggling Ghast]

I prefer portraying love potions/love spells as something you don’t want to use under any circumstances because it creates a violent obsession, not love.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Not quite a potion, but in MLP:Friendship is Magic, Princess Cadance's magic is essentially supposed to be able to pretty much do that (I.e. remind people why they feel in love or whatever).

And even in that fandom, accusations were levelled (some for humour others... not) at her basically abusing mind-control. And in the show itself, we've seen her use that magic about once; which means she's been significantly more often using COMBAT magic than her preported special talent.

And let's not forget the Love Poison incident in Hearts and Hooves Day (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E17HeartsAndHoovesD ay) - a hilarious deconstruction of love potions.

(Shrek 2 had a good take on it as well).

[Frozen_Feet]

@Aotrs_Commander: comparison to alcohol is completely warranted and I was about to do it myself anyway. Because it's the same thing: either people have some degree of control and hence responsibility over what they do under the influence, or they do not and you hang yourself on the implications while shouting something about consent.

[lt_murgen]

I prefer portraying love potions/love spells as something you don’t want to use under any circumstances because it creates a violent obsession, not love.

One time, I had a D&D player attempt to break into what he thought was a trapped chest by pouring a vial of acid into the lock. Fumbled. I ruled he used his Potion of Love instead. Poor lovesick mimic followed him around for weeks.....

[Devils_Advocate]

So one possibility for "fixing" love potions is perhaps to make them have the same sort of inhibition-lowering effect of being drunk, perhaps without the other side-effects.

@Aotrs_Commander: comparison to alcohol is completely warranted and I was about to do it myself anyway. Because it's the same thing: either people have some degree of control and hence responsibility over what they do under the influence, or they do not and you hang yourself on the implications while shouting something about consent.
But the main point of this thread, as I understand it, is that surreptitiously drugging someone with a love potion is like surreptitiously drugging someone with an intoxicant, which is to say blatantly unethical under normal circumstances (although it could be justifiable in some cases, much like violence could be justifiable in some cases).

Someone who voluntarily uses a drug knowing its effects is still responsible for behavior under the influence because they're the one responsible for their chemically altered state and chose to take the risks involved. That sort of case, where Person A is responsible for the mental state of Person A, is very significantly different from a case where Person B is responsible for the mental state of Person A.

If you turn someone into Mr. Hyde knowing that Mr. Hyde is a monster who kills people, then you're to blame for the results of that, whether you transform yourself or someone else. Mr. Hyde is also to blame, but an innocent victim who you turned into Mr. Hyde really doesn't deserve any blame as far as I can see.

But controlling someone else's behavior isn't even the main issue here. Forcibly altering a mind without consent is unethical in itself. Like messing with someone's body without consent, but even more so.

[Fyraltari]

Now Isaac Asimov (I think - it could have been Arthur C Clarke) theorised that Gilbert wanted to have the ending that they all got married, the potion stops working so then those who are happy remain married while those who are not get divorced, but prejudice against divorce was still too strong for this ending.

It's Asimov, he wrote a short story about a professor creating something like a love potion and he and a couple student intentionally recreating the play but with that ending. I can't rememberbthe nameof the story or the anthology in which I read it however. I recall it clearly because having never heard of Gilbert and Sullivan (I think Asimov wrote one or two other stories centered on their plays) before reading it, I was quite confused.

As for fixing the love potion you could have it shedaway any illusion you might have and point you toward the person you truly love instead of theone you may only believe you love for X or Y reasons.

[Frozen_Feet]

Mr. Hyde analogy does not work because neither alcohol nor love potions typically turn someone into a different person.

As far as the alcohol comparion goes, yes, it's immoral to try to get someone drunk covertly or with sinister motives... yet at the same time, people accept and even demand open offers of alcohol, especially in context of courtship. And they do those things despite knowing it will impair their self-control and make them likelier to do something they regret. Applying such standards to love potions doesn't necessarily "fix" anything, but it will paint a bigger picture than narrow comparisons to, say, spiking someone's drink with eyedrops.

As for "forcibly altering someone's mind"... people are not masters of their thoughts and emotions. Me simply walking into your field of vision or using a perfume where you can smell it will alter your internal state in ways you have no control over. Human mind plain and simple does not work under modern conceits and conceptions of consent: that is why things like love have been likened to external forces and described in terms of fate or insanity. Because you do not consent to love. You do not consent to arousal. These and several other emotions lie outside the domain of conscious thought and whatever free will you think you have has very limited impact on them.

[Devils_Advocate]

Mr. Hyde analogy does not work because neither alcohol nor love potions typically turn someone into a different person.
First off, I'm not sure that you understand what an analogy is. To call things analogous to each other is to claim that they're in some way similar but also implies that they're different. For example, I wouldn't describe getting people to drink love potions without their knowledge as analogous to drugging people, because it is drugging people. (If the love potion is magic, that just makes it a magic drug, not something other than a drug.)

Secondly, of course mind-altering substances make minds different. They alter minds; it's right there in the phrase.


As far as the alcohol comparion goes, yes, it's immoral to try to get someone drunk covertly or with sinister motives... yet at the same time, people accept and even demand open offers of alcohol, especially in context of courtship. And they do those things despite knowing it will impair their self-control and make them likelier to do something they regret. Applying such standards to love potions doesn't necessarily "fix" anything, but it will paint a bigger picture than narrow comparisons to, say, spiking someone's drink with eyedrops.
Comparing spiking someone's drink with a love potion to spiking someone's drink with alcohol seems to serve to illustrate problems rather than remove them. Comparing knowingly ingesting a love potion to knowingly ingesting alcohol doesn't seem to address most of the problems with unknowing ingestion of love potions. Comparing spiking someone's drink with a love potion to deliberate consumption of alcohol by that person ignores the issue of consent and frankly raises questions about what the hell is wrong with you.

It's unclear which of those comparisons you're even trying to make.

To paraphrase you, alcohol analogy does not work because alcohol is not typically taken unknowingly.


As for "forcibly altering someone's mind"... people are not masters of their thoughts and emotions. Me simply walking into your field of vision or using a perfume where you can smell it will alter your internal state in ways you have no control over. Human mind plain and simple does not work under modern conceits and conceptions of consent: that is why things like love have been likened to external forces and described in terms of fate or insanity. Because you do not consent to love. You do not consent to arousal. These and several other emotions lie outside the domain of conscious thought and whatever free will you think you have has very limited impact on them.
People have far from total control over what their bodies do, too, yet there's a rather pervasive idea that it's not therefore okay to do whatever you want to someone else's body. It's even possible to die without agreeing to die; indeed, this rather seems to be typical. But even though that's already the case, killing a person generally seems to be regarded as a pretty big deal and unethical under most circumstances.

What you've nicely illustrated is the point that not everything that has any sort of impact on someone is considered "forcible". I'll admit that the concept of "force" is rather vague, and one could perhaps argue to the effect that e.g. injecting someone with something in their sleep is significantly worse in some meaningful way from tricking someone into taking a drug. But arguing that the latter is perfectly fine still raises questions re: what the hell is wrong with you.

[NovenFromTheSun]

I had an idea for making it a bad thing, but in a different way: all emotion based magic works on opposites, a love spell or potion can only be delivered by someone who truely and utterly despises that target. It's not a tool for getting with them, it's a tool for delivering heartache and financial ruin to the victim purely for spite.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I had an idea for making it a bad thing, but in a different way: all emotion based magic works on opposites, a love spell or potion can only be delivered by someone who truely and utterly despises that target. It's not a tool for getting with them, it's a tool for delivering heartache and financial ruin to the victim purely for spite.

But that's also one of the easiest version to find an (admittedly still farfetched and rare) legitimately good use for. The leaders of two warring factions, knowing that this has to end, give each other the potion.

(Then they both switch the potion the other will give them with water and the war just starts up again.)

[Eldan]

One idea I liked is to have the love potion be similar to a luck potion, except aimed at romantic fortune. The potion creates the circumstances via tweaking probabilities to find your True Love. Possibly with a Monkey's Paw effect, as it would ignore your financial or physical well-being when altering your fate to manifest that one in a million possible future where that particular pairing comes to pass.

That idea I like. Or perhaps something more along the lines of divination. You can see if you would have a chance if you confessed to someone.

[Eldan]

Tristan and Isold's story of accidentally drinking a love potion that forced them to fall in love while she was promised to Tristan's king has always been a strong tragedic tale. While both individuals had their feelings somewhat violated, no malice actually caused the event.

I wonder why people never think of the single best love potion utility: for a failing marriage/relationship. Ya know, both individuals voluntarily drink a love potion to jump-start the emotions that were once vivid.

The thing is, "Love Potion" is a horrible thing only and if only it is taken against one's will. And the question would then be: "in what circumstances would someone willingly drink a love potion? If they want to fall in love, what's stopping them?" Hence failing marriages.

That said, I could see an entirely different direction for this one where nobility in a political marriage would drink one as part of a wedding ceremony.

[Ibrinar]

Tristan and Isold's story of accidentally drinking a love potion that forced them to fall in love while she was promised to Tristan's king has always been a strong tragedic tale. While both individuals had their feelings somewhat violated, no malice actually caused the event.

I wonder why people never think of the single best love potion utility: for a failing marriage/relationship. Ya know, both individuals voluntarily drink a love potion to jump-start the emotions that were once vivid.

The thing is, "Love Potion" is a horrible thing only and if only it is taken against one's will. And the question would then be: "in what circumstances would someone willingly drink a love potion? If they want to fall in love, what's stopping them?" Hence failing marriages.
Cue societal pressure not to end relationships but to artificially alter your mind. Could make a nice distopia if you expand it to wider mind alterations don't like your job? Be expected to get a fix so that you find the job fun. Hate someone for something they did? Now, now hate is bad, you should get a mind alteration... Of course mention plenty alterations people would find useful like not procrastinating, removing fears and trauma etc.

[Frozen_Feet]

First off, I'm not sure that you understand what an analogy is. To call things analogous to each other is to claim that they're in some way similar but also implies that they're different. For example, I wouldn't describe getting people to drink love potions without their knowledge as analogous to drugging people, because it is drugging people. (If the love potion is magic, that just makes it a magic drug, not something other than a drug.)

Substanceless ad hominem; you gave no additional reasons for why the Mr. Hyde comparison is an apt analogy. Your bit about mundane and magic drugs is an additional homologue that doesn't actually address my complaint.


Secondly, of course mind-altering substances make minds different. They alter minds; it's right there in the phrase.

Altering minds =/= making someone into a different person. You're committing both fallacy of the beard (treating different quantities of mind-alteration as equivalent) and equivocation (person as conscious mind versus person as culpable entity), as well as failing principle of generosity (failing to read my argument in its strongest form).

To wit, the strongest interpretation is: neither alcohol nor love potions create an independent second persona which could be blamed for actions under the influence so that the subject is completely absolved.

If you want the analogy to hold, we can go back to the original story by Stevenson, instead of the popular misconception. You see, the "Mr. Hyde" formula offers no absolutiom either. Mr. Hyde is awfull because Jekyl is awfull; his acts are what an outwardly upstanding person would do if granted the shroud of anonymity. The corollary to that is that Jekyl is ultimately responsible for what Hyde does, and this would not change even if we changed the premise so that Jekyl was given the formula by accident or force. We would just change the story from personal flaws leading to tragedy, to tragedy leading to revelation of personal flaws.



To paraphrase you, alcohol analogy does not work because alcohol is not typically taken unknowingly.

That's because what I said in my last post is not an analogy, it's an action plan. I stated that by applying the same standards to love potions as what people apply to alcohol, you broach a broader topic and allow for more nuanced portrayal than "spiking someone's drink is bad". Apply X, get Y. You seem to agree, but didn't actually say anything usefull about it. No discussion, for example, about how willingly consuming love potions in company you know to have ulterior motives is still suspect and leads to pretty much the same bad results as being tricked to consume them. Or how, in the real world, the same fact about alcohol reveals many cultural habits around it as deeply hypocritical and full of double standards.


People have far from total control over what their bodies do, too, yet there's a rather pervasive idea that it's not therefore okay to do whatever you want to someone else's body. It's even possible to die without agreeing to die; indeed, this rather seems to be typical. But even though that's already the case, killing a person generally seems to be regarded as a pretty big deal and unethical under most circumstances.

If we actually examined any of those other issues, you'd rapidly find out that consent isn't the be-all-end-all there either. For example, you mentioned you can die without agreeing to, but failed to mention that in great many moral and legal systems you can never agree to die. The concern for life overrides your right to do what you want with your body and other people have right, and occasionally an obligation, to use force to stop you from dying, even if it's against your will. Incidentally, it even allows for injecting drugs into your unconscious body against your will.

If you find that distastefull and want to try and establish a framework where consent is top moral priority, go ahead. But anything less is pretty feeble rebuttal to my criticism of treating consent as crux of a matter that ultimately is pretty ignorant of it. For added hilarity, try applying consent-based morality to a fantasy setting where love really is decided by fate.


What you've nicely illustrated is the point that not everything that has any sort of impact on someone is considered "forcible". I'll admit that the concept of "force" is rather vague, and one could perhaps argue to the effect that e.g. injecting someone with something in their sleep is significantly worse in some meaningful way from tricking someone into taking a drug.

Getting you to admit that was pretty much the point, because people on these boards have arbitrary and petty definitions of force, especially when it comes to "mind alteration". Go to the RPG subforums and see all the people who equate teaching someone something with games to brainwashing. But your admittance did not lead to anything usefull, such as actually establishing a line where trying to influence someone crosses into forcible mind alteration.


But arguing that the latter is perfectly fine still raises questions re: what the hell is wrong with you.

What's wrong with you is that you're trying to make this about my person instead of anything you're qualified to talk about.

[Psyren]

I'd just make them a pure villain thing and have the hero be all about earning their affection the right way. no need for anything fancy, just make it clear: "love" potions are one sided relationship makers, wrong and a violation of the victims rights, leading to an unhealthy dynamic, and the hero should be all about earning that love, not taking that evil shortcut.

make drinking the love potion outright disturbing. make the drinker contort and scream and struggle trying to fight against the effects before suddenly straightening up and putting on an unnatural smile, make the "love" as fake and unnatural as possible, make it clear that what gives you is a lie, a poorly stitched together creepy parody that would never truly satisfy anyone sane. make it something the hero has to protect people against and cure.

thats what I'd do: just show how WRONG it is. embrace the implications and make them intended, disturbing and evil as shown as it is when you think about it.


I prefer portraying love potions/love spells as something you don’t want to use under any circumstances because it creates a violent obsession, not love.

This. It's pretty clearly nonconsensual (otherwise you wouldn't need a potion for the person) and should be portrayed as darkly as it is implied.

Having said that...


One idea I liked is to have the love potion be similar to a luck potion, except aimed at romantic fortune. The potion creates the circumstances via tweaking probabilities to find your True Love. Possibly with a Monkey's Paw effect, as it would ignore your financial or physical well-being when altering your fate to manifest that one in a million possible future where that particular pairing comes to pass.

I like this as a potentially positive portrayal - i.e. it's less about forcing someone to think a certain way and more about helping you to put your best foot forward. Even then though, I would just call it a Luck Potion and have the imbiber state they are looking for romance to avoid any kind of creepy connotations entirely.

[Telonius]

Hmm, interesting thoughts on it so far. Here's another possible "good" use along with the "failing marriage" thing: as a treatment for a psychopath, sociopath, or somebody else who's for whatever reason incapable of feeling empathy or what most people would call "love." Lots of great narrative possibilities there, too. (Does it "turn on a switch" and let them develop more empathy, or does it just cause an obsession? Does it need to be taken regularly, or does it revert a la Flowers for Algernon? Is what he's feeling still "real" since he chose it, or not since it didn't come from the heart to begin with? Is it reciprocated or not?)

For a bit of a "tweaked" take, maybe have it be something like Shallow Hal - the potion alters/sharpens your own perceptions of what is and isn't desirable. Or it's more of a fate-shortcut; it attracts the person you're "meant" to be with, however that's defined.

[Cikomyr]

Cue societal pressure not to end relationships but to artificially alter your mind. Could make a nice distopia if you expand it to wider mind alterations don't like your job? Be expected to get a fix so that you find the job fun. Hate someone for something they did? Now, now hate is bad, you should get a mind alteration... Of course mention plenty alterations people would find useful like not procrastinating removing fears and trauma etc.

Oh Jesus i recreated Brave New World..

Love is Mandatory. Because you need to love your spouse to have lots of kids. And you need to love your kids so they are taken care of and grow up well adjusted..

.. thats.. disturbing.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Also sounds a bit like MLP:FIM, although their enforced niceness is because there are monsters waiting in the wings to freeze them and eat them.

Anyway, I had to take a writing class in college, and one of the things we played with was genres. Which included the romance genre. When we had to deal with the subject of someone pining for the oblivious object of their obsession (girl for boy, in this case), every co-ed in the class went immediately to the love potion to solve the issue*. Most of the guys went with random shi--stuff. So I get where the OP is coming from.



*Which resulted in my getting ripped by the professor for wrecking her syllabus after I pointed out the love potion=rohypnol thing.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Secondly, of course mind-altering substances make minds different. They alter minds; it's right there in the phrase.
That gets into all sorts of philosophical questions about identity that seem neither terribly relevant nor likely to be resolved in this thread. So I'd advise that you and Frozen_Feet accept that you're talking about different things when you ask if a person is themselves when under the influence.


If you want the analogy to hold, we can go back to the original story by Stevenson, instead of the popular misconception. -snip-
Which is quite an apt comparison to alcohol. One potion removes your inhibitions, another removes your morality. You could probably write a story on the nature of morality where you compare and contrast the behavior of an angry drunk with that of Jekyl & Hyde.


That's because what I said in my last post is not an analogy, it's an action plan. I stated that by applying the same standards to love potions as what people apply to alcohol, you broach a broader topic and allow for more nuanced portrayal than "spiking someone's drink is bad".
..."Nuance" implies that sometimes it is okay to spike someone's drink, which, no. You might be looking for applicability, which is the idea that you don't want to only specifically say that spiking drinks with love potions is bad, but the human subconscious tends to take care of that. Which is, incidentally, why things like coding and themes are important.


What's wrong with you is that you're trying to make this about my person instead of anything you're qualified to talk about.
Actually, what he did was attempt to distill your logic and point out how horrible that distillation was. If you disagree with his distillation, you can't just shout "ad hominem" and walk away. You have to go into where the flaw in their logic is rather than just complain about their logic.



I had an idea for making it a bad thing, but in a different way: all emotion based magic works on opposites, a love spell or potion can only be delivered by someone who truely and utterly despises that target. It's not a tool for getting with them, it's a tool for delivering heartache and financial ruin to the victim purely for spite.
That's not quite the direction I was expecting you to take this. I was expecting "for each person a potion makes someone love, it makes them hate someone else as much" (or it makes you hate two people half as much, or half a dozen people 17% as much), something equivalent-exchangey. So you'd have a potion that would (for instance) make the drinker fall in "love" with the user, but also drive them away from their support network. You know, like how abusive relationships work, except accelerated to timelines short enough to build a fast-paced plot on.

[Eldan]

Cue societal pressure not to end relationships but to artificially alter your mind. Could make a nice distopia if you expand it to wider mind alterations don't like your job? Be expected to get a fix so that you find the job fun. Hate someone for something they did? Now, now hate is bad, you should get a mind alteration... Of course mention plenty alterations people would find useful like not procrastinating, removing fears and trauma etc.

There's a shade of that in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the story that also inspired Blade Runner. They have "mood organs". Super advanced chemical dispensers that alter your mood to basically anything. Deckard wakes up in the morning and sets it to something like "Cheerful and alert" because he's not a morning person. Of course there's also the much creepier scene where he sets his wife to "Obey your Husband" when she asks him to give her an energy boost.

[Moak]

Hmm, interesting thoughts on it so far. Here's another possible "good" use along with the "failing marriage" thing: as a treatment for a psychopath, sociopath, or somebody else who's for whatever reason incapable of feeling empathy or what most people would call "love." Lots of great narrative possibilities there, too. (Does it "turn on a switch" and let them develop more empathy, or does it just cause an obsession? Does it need to be taken regularly, or does it revert a la Flowers for Algernon? Is what he's feeling still "real" since he chose it, or not since it didn't come from the heart to begin with? Is it reciprocated or not?)

For a bit of a "tweaked" take, maybe have it be something like Shallow Hal - the potion alters/sharpens your own perceptions of what is and isn't desirable. Or it's more of a fate-shortcut; it attracts the person you're "meant" to be with, however that's defined.

Don't this fall in the same moral problems of "Santify the wicked" exalted spell from D&D 3.5?

That is a spell that forcefully transform an Evil (with capital E) creature in a Saint by forcing them to "feel" remorse and be Good. That spell raised a LOT of discussion because forcing your "good" way to be on someone by rewriting their mind don't seem really a good action..

Here is the same: you are taking someone with a different view of the world and are magically compulsing them to be more "in line" with how the society expect them to be (also, I remember a good Ted presentation about how everyone is a sociopath if you squint your eyes enough...).

A very, very interesting premise for a story.

[Starbuck_II]

Is it still around?

I'm 30, and every time I've ever seen a love potion it has;
a) Gone horribly wrong,
b) Been a placebo the entire time, or
c) Wears off and the drinker hates the person who has brainwashed them.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any recent examples where the love potion has worked as intended, permanent (i.e; not option 'c'), and been seen as a good thing.

What about Love Potion #9, the movie.
The potion was more like made the user give off super pheromones- but still it worked out in the end.

[Telonius]

Don't this fall in the same moral problems of "Santify the wicked" exalted spell from D&D 3.5?

That is a spell that forcefully transform an Evil (with capital E) creature in a Saint by forcing them to "feel" remorse and be Good. That spell raised a LOT of discussion because forcing your "good" way to be on someone by rewriting their mind don't seem really a good action..

Here is the same: you are taking someone with a different view of the world and are magically compulsing them to be more "in line" with how the society expect them to be (also, I remember a good Ted presentation about how everyone is a sociopath if you squint your eyes enough...).

A very, very interesting premise for a story.

Yeah, that's why I'm thinking of it more in the lines of a kind of "magical-medical" thing - the person who takes it would have to agree to it. You could also look at it from the angle of, is this giving eyes to a blind person who's asked for them, or is it fundamentally screwing with the way they interface with reality.

[Metahuman1]

So, picture this. Love potion is a form of mind control.

That override's other forms of mind control.



In a world with mind magic using sorcerers and mind flayers and fairies and vampires and whatnot.



It's frequently bough and used as a counter or preventive too these things.


Take it a step further, a love potion key'd to a different person is a way to counter a love potion.

[Psyren]

So, picture this. Love potion is a form of mind control.

That override's other forms of mind control.



In a world with mind magic using sorcerers and mind flayers and fairies and vampires and whatnot.



It's frequently bough and used as a counter or preventive too these things.


Take it a step further, a love potion key'd to a different person is a way to counter a love potion.

These only work if "love" is mutually exclusive. If multiple love potions just mean the person becomes polyamorous, or the subject is able to warp their minds such that love can coincide with other urges (e.g. homicidal) then the potion doesn't help much at all.

[Rogar Demonblud]

The last story I remember reading where a love potion was used well had someone using one on a barbarian leader so she'd 'love' him enough to--something about a treaty. Unfortunately, the barbarian's culture required her to kill whatever she loved as proof of her devotion to the tribe she led as a whole.:smallamused:

I'd like to reread that anthology, so if anyone recognizes that one, let me know please.

[sktarq]

Oh Jesus i recreated Brave New World..

Love is Mandatory. Because you need to love your spouse to have lots of kids. And you need to love your kids so they are taken care of and grow up well adjusted..

.. thats.. disturbing.

This was what Isold was supposed to use the love potion for. To turn her political marraige to the king in a love bond. Tristan was never supposed to touch it.

But yeah if love potions are distilled as a unit (say 1 bottle) and you fall in love with who ever drinks the same bottle as you I could see it being part of every semi well off wedding and poor people using wine to mimic in a society of arranged pair bonds.

[Metahuman1]

These only work if "love" is mutually exclusive. If multiple love potions just mean the person becomes polyamorous, or the subject is able to warp their minds such that love can coincide with other urges (e.g. homicidal) then the potion doesn't help much at all.

Think of it more like this.


Potion takes priority in the Mind Control Totem Pole.


In cases were potion is applied more than once, most recent dose takes priority.



So, Vamp, Fairy, Wizard, Mind Flyer, whatever, doing mind control? Potion them, there not under that mind control anymore, not cause love is stronger, but because the potion get's priority on the controller.

Potion of person 1 in the divers seat? Redose, now potion 2 get's priority and get's to run the show.

[GreatWyrmGold]

In such a system, I could see people who didn't want to potion themselves into such commitments and yet feared mind control periodically drinking love potions of themselves to wipe any mind-control effects without unwanted attachments.
Of course, each time they drink a love potion, they become a little more narcissistic...a little more prideful and vain...a little more willing to sacrifice others for their own gain...a little farther from the upstanding (if paranoid) person they once were. And thus, a potential villain is born, ready to start planning evil vengeance the moment their increasingly-fragile self-image is shattered (or that their paranoia is proven proper).

[Reddish Mage]

Is it still around?

I'm 30, and every time I've ever seen a love potion it has;
a) Gone horribly wrong,
b) Been a placebo the entire time, or
c) Wears off and the drinker hates the person who has brainwashed them.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any recent examples where the love potion has worked as intended, permanent (i.e; not option 'c'), and been seen as a good thing.

I think you’ve given the entire range of the love potion story.

Love potions have always been in stories to create drama. I think the number of stories where they work as intended are few to none.

Most classic stories have them mixed up.

The existence of love potion suggest love is the sort of random desire that can just come about.

The more modern take where they just don’t work and lust and obsession is substituted comes from a very different modern Hollywoodesqe romantic take on love. True love is a high ideal to achieve...of course it can’t be magicked! Odd such love still comes about often at first sight between two conventionally attractive young people...

Love potions have been going wrong long before the consensual relationship ideal and concerns about all forms of sexual coercion has reached the forefront.



Love potions are a trope as old as time. For as long as hominids have been able to comprehend romantic love as an emotion separate from other positive emotions, we've surely wished it was easier to get. The love potion is a plot device that can make two characters fall in love, easy as spiking her drink!
Of course, as our society came to view consent as something that, you know, mattered, the concept of a love potion became more...problematic.



Recontextualize it. they're a concoction used like poison by schemers, or else coveted by self-proclaimed "Nice Guys"
Tweak it.
Move it from "plot device" to "MacGuffin".



So I’m not sure about the premise here. In the real world purported love potions and charms have been selling for centuries but in fiction they’ve always been about causing trouble.

Classically, there wasn’t considered to be any trouble with the idea that love can be sparked with a few chemicals or a bit of magic...except messing with that stuff always went wrong. In Arthurian and a lot of medieval romances love often occurs between inappropriate mates and is painful and something that couldn’t be consumated.

The modern take, the stuff doesn’t work right. It’s already been tweaked.

The other entries are MacGuffin which sounds like a highly specific story that I’m pretty sure I’ve seen from time to time.

Finally there’s the recontextualizaton as a date rape drug. I’m sure this story has been told, after all there is the “temporary love potion” out there but I’m not sure I’ve read a straightforward use of this plot.

There’s a reason the explicit disturbing analogy isn’t a go to story. Rape stories aren’t so much fun. The use of love potions have always been to suggest love can’t be controlled (even if you could bottle it).

The love potion is the trope (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovePotion) it is because of the ancient and modern classic stories that treat the potions as a metaphor.

In your case you want to use love potions as a way to tell a rather simple morality lesson about creepy guys. However something that causes love just doesn’t work like a date rape drug. It’s meant for stories that say things about consent much more profoundly and indirectly.

The love created is going to be wrong one way or another. Either because it’s not love, or it is mistargeted, or it doesn’t satisfy to acquire love in this manner.

Now victims of the potion have often been driven to great extremes and suffering due to the affects, but I’m not sure using potions to express rape trauma is the best use of a fictional device that is supposed to work on the mind like a seduction and not a numbing agent.

[Rodin]

Finally there’s the recontextualizaton as a date rape drug. I’m sure this story has been told, after all there is the “temporary love potion” out there but I’m not sure I’ve read a straightforward use of this plot.


There was a fairly nasty version in the Deed of Paksenarrion novels. A soldier has a love potion that's more akin to an aphrodisiac - it spices up the sex life with his missus. To cause chaos, a villainous person mixes the love potion with something more potent, then gets the soldier to drink it date-rape style by slipping it into his ale. He goes nuts and immediately attempts a rape, then wakes up the following day with no memory of what happened. It takes a significant criminal investigation to work out what happened, and the full story doesn't come out for until the third book.

[Prime32]

Invaders of the Rokujouma?! had a weird take on this kind of thing:

In one book the protagonist is forced to work together with a villain with mind-influencing powers, who thinks everyone is an ******* and has never trusted anyone in her life. She gets mortally wounded, he heals her with a magic sword, and she can see enough of his mind to tell that his motivations are completely genuine and he has no way to deceive her. They then proceed to work together in perfect sync, to the point of finishing each others' sentences. This results in her opening up as a person and switching sides, becoming a mole in the villain faction who feeds them false information.

In a later book she learns that there's some kind of magic contract binding them together, and becomes convinced that he was just screwing with her mind all along. Except he has no idea this contract exists (he didn't control exactly what the sword did when it was healing her, it just responded to his desire to save her) and it's implied to be influencing his mind as well.

When the contract is broken... they still feel just as close, having become genuine friends in the time they spent together since then. In fact, they feel exactly like they did after the villain was healed, and realise that the sword actually sent their friendship from this moment into the past.

[arimareiji]

If you want a sympathetic use for them, something to justify them not being entirely illegal, perhaps couples trapped in loveless marriages use them to feel less miserable together.

How about: Alice and Bob love each other. They have some notion of this fact, but aren't really aware of how strongly the other feels. Chad wants Alice, and has found a Reason to force her to marry Chad. Alice tells this to Bob, then asks him to get her an LP (plot device with the effect of a love potion) so she won't be quite as miserable. Bob cares about Alice's happiness so much that he does.

Darla (who loves Chad for being as awful as her, and is jealous of Alice who she thinks "tricked" Chad) steals it to use on Chad. Chad gives up his Reason to make Alice marry him. When Alice uses the fake LP Darla substituted, by accident Bob is the first person she sees.

Because I have streaks of Evil that I'll probably never manage to wash out: Somehow Bob learns of the trickery -- and that the LP will wear off in a month. He tells Alice, and they realize they loved each other all along. The LP wears off while Chad and Darla are on their honeymoon. When they return, Alice and Bob are long-gone. :amused:

[Psyren]

Alice tells this to Bob, then asks him to get her an LP (plot device with the effect of a love potion) so she won't be quite as miserable. Bob cares about Alice's happiness so much that he does.

Right about... there is where you started to lose me. "Please go get me a potion that will make me okay with Chad raping me" is just not media I would have any desire to consume, both for being tortuously contrived and for being squicky. Such a potion would undoubtedly rob Alice of any will or even agency to escape her circumstances, and Bob agreeing to facilitate that is very much at odds with "caring about her happiness."

[Anymage]

I'm a little curious just how far people are okay with a substance designed to make somebody more appealing to their paramour, to inspire a mood without mandating it, or to arrange coincidence towards an end without applying a whole new magical mental state. Keep in mind that two of the three are commonly done in our magic-less world, and the third only fails to work due to said lack of magic.

I don't know that I see "I want to like X, and I will take a plot-device aid towards that end" as rape, because it's something that a person voluntarily steps up to. (They may be socially pressured, but people are socially pressured into all sorts of things in our world and that's not some sinister force.) But if you want something safer, think about something that a person could self-administer to improve their own chances instead of something they dose the other person with.

[Rogar Demonblud]

You're basically talking about an Old School philter of beauty. Same problem with that as potions--it is an artificial compulsion effect. And when it wears off...well, that's pretty much the inciting incident for the Harry Potter series.

[Saintheart]

One interesting take on the idea of the love potion - subverted somewhat - is Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Some idiot called it a science fiction film, which it isn't; what it really does is just make the love potion work in a different way. It takes two people who have been in a relationship already and erases their memories of that relationship, which results in the film's protagonist (re?)discovering why he fell in love with his partner all over again; it's basically a reset.

(We could comment here about how this approach is to be expected from Hollywood and the mainstream media because the only relationship the entertainment industry understands/can credibly portray is that relationship's first week -- and thus to some extent explain why so many marriages do actually fail -- but we'll leave that to one side.)

Historically, there have also been different types of love potions. The form we've mainly been discussing here has been the Renaissance form of the love potion, exemplified by the Tristan/Isolde myth, but in the Hellenistic period, there were different forms for men and women. Men had eros potions to attempt to induce lust in their partners; women had philia potions to attempt to hold their men faithful and retain their femininity. In our modern period, these potions are known as cologne and plastic surgery, respectively.

[Anymage]

You're basically talking about an Old School philter of beauty. Same problem with that as potions--it is an artificial compulsion effect. And when it wears off...well, that's pretty much the inciting incident for the Harry Potter series.

Is it still bad if you just put on a Cloak of Charisma and a Circlet of Persuasion before going out to woo your sweetie?

[Psyren]

I don't know that I see "I want to like X, and I will take a plot-device aid towards that end" as rape, because it's something that a person voluntarily steps up to.

My use of rape in my previous post was referring specifically to "I of free will and sound mind have absolutely no desire to be with X, but X is coercing me to be with them, so I would like to brainwash myself so that the prospect does not make me suicidal." I wasn't applying it to every scenario in this thread (though a couple of the others are just as bad if I recall) but definitely to that one.

[Liquor Box]

What do people think about a love potion you drink yourself to make your self irresistible (or less resistible)?

I am thinking of a couple of shows I have seen where characters have inadvertently or deliberately applied a scent to themselves that triggers sexual pheromones in the opposite sex. The person wearing the scent may be usually quite unattractive, but the use of the scent causes people of the opposite sex to desire and have sex with the character.

How does that relate to consent? I think it is ok. The people affected by the scent want to have sex with the character who has applied the scent because they find that character so attractive because of the scent. It seems to me to be only different in degree from doing other things (like dressing a certain way etc) to inspire desire in the opposite sex.

A love potion could work in that way - you drink it your self to make people desire you sexually. I think it is much less sinister than tricking the object of your affections into drinking it.

Do we think it is different if the love potion/scent can be tuned to target a specific person?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

How does that relate to consent? I think it is ok. The people affected by the scent want to have sex with the character who has applied the scent because they find that character so attractive because of the scent. It seems to me to be only different in degree from doing other things (like dressing a certain way etc) to inspire desire in the opposite sex.

But isn't that pretty much the same as the person affected wanting to have sex with a character because of what they put in their drink?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yup. Still an external coercion/compulsion.

This getting into why blind dates became a thing. I mean real blind dates, not getting set up by a mutual friend. That's matchmaking.

[Liquor Box]

But isn't that pretty much the same as the person affected wanting to have sex with a character because of what they put in their drink?

Why?

In one case you are tricking another person into imbibing something that diminishes their ability to make decisions.

In the other you are doing something to make yourself far more desirable. How is it different (except for being more effective) than other things people do to make themselves more attractive and to trigger subconscious reaction from (usually) the opposite sex, other than being much more effective? I mean people already wear perfumes designed to subtly trigger subconscious attraction.

I have no doubt it would not

[Anymage]

Magically irresistible pheromones are a problem because they're magically irresistible. In fact, one could argue that the pheromones are the "potion" and what you drank is just some device towards that end. It still completely removes the subject's ability to chose for themselves.

On the other end of the spectrum, very few people would get upset about drinking a shapeshifting potion that made you look more attractive, so long as you weren't trying to masquerade as any specific individual. That's entirely internal, and the influence you have over others from being good looking doesn't get too many people upset.

Resistible pheromones, that opens up a rabbit hole. If they're only technically resistible - if it takes a major effort of will to do anything but go along - I'd argue that allowing a saving throw against an effect doesn't make it any more moral. For things that are effective but not magically effective - closer to what a normally attractive, charismatic person can bring to bear just by being themselves - you'll get less pushback. Of course, most of the examples of the latter effect that come to mind are real life seduction pointers, and you'll find plenty of people with strong opinions on that.

[Reddish Mage]

How about: Alice and Bob love each other. They have some notion of this fact, but aren't really aware of how strongly the other feels. Chad wants Alice, and has found a Reason to force her to marry Chad. Alice tells this to Bob, then asks him to get her an LP (plot device with the effect of a love potion) so she won't be quite as miserable. Bob cares about Alice's happiness so much that he does.

Darla (who loves Chad for being as awful as her, and is jealous of Alice who she thinks "tricked" Chad) steals it to use on Chad. Chad gives up his Reason to make Alice marry him. When Alice uses the fake LP Darla substituted, by accident Bob is the first person she sees.

Because I have streaks of Evil that I'll probably never manage to wash out: Somehow Bob learns of the trickery -- and that the LP will wear off in a month. He tells Alice, and they realize they loved each other all along. The LP wears off while Chad and Darla are on their honeymoon. When they return, Alice and Bob are long-gone. :amused:

This sounds like the sort of convoluted plot a love potion would get inserted in. I don’t think it’s any different from how they are commonly used in fiction.

Also I think you are channeling ideas from romance literature.:smallamused:

[Liquor Box]

Magically irresistible pheromones are a problem because they're magically irresistible. In fact, one could argue that the pheromones are the "potion" and what you drank is just some device towards that end. It still completely removes the subject's ability to chose for themselves.

On the other end of the spectrum, very few people would get upset about drinking a shapeshifting potion that made you look more attractive, so long as you weren't trying to masquerade as any specific individual. That's entirely internal, and the influence you have over others from being good looking doesn't get too many people upset.

Resistible pheromones, that opens up a rabbit hole. If they're only technically resistible - if it takes a major effort of will to do anything but go along - I'd argue that allowing a saving throw against an effect doesn't make it any more moral. For things that are effective but not magically effective - closer to what a normally attractive, charismatic person can bring to bear just by being themselves - you'll get less pushback. Of course, most of the examples of the latter effect that come to mind are real life seduction pointers, and you'll find plenty of people with strong opinions on that.

Is it the magical element you object to? If some scents caused an pheromone release in the opposite sex naturally (non-magically) would that be different? Certainly when I saw it on TV, it was not magical, but just a scent developed by a company that triggered a reaction from a particular sex.

In terms of the degree of irresistability, that's why I said "irresistable or less resisitable"?

I don't think there's at all a clear line here. If you see an ugly person who you find completely unnatractive it is easy to resist. If you meet someone who is really charming, super hot and makes you feel the way you want a person to make you feel, that is very difficult to resist. People who may, while outside the spell of that hot and charming person, never want to sleep with them may do so while under that spell. That is, at least in part because of unconscious physical tirggers we have which draw us to people sexually.

So if the scent made the fat, ugly, boring, nasty person in the corner as difficult to resist as the smoking hot person of your dreams, is that ok? I mean you can still resist the very hot person (and will have to if they are not into you), so you have a choice. It's just that the hot person is triggering your desire the conventional way, and the unnattractive person with the scent is triggering your desires with the scent.

[Anymage]

There isn't a clear line. Look up people's opinions on the seduction community - basically defined as "using psychological tricks to garner an advantage, but incapable of actual mind control" - to see just how diverse people's opinions on what's okay and what isn't can be. For bonus points, watch to see if their opinion on where that line should be drawn tends to shift based on who's actually using what tricks.

Unfortunately for this topic, the seduction community is one of those things that tends to cause very heated debate. And since trying to determine exactly where the line gets drawn would require invoking a lot of the same issues, I'm going to have to bow out.

[Psyren]

I'm very glad the "seduction community" has no access to magic love potions of any variety.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Why?

In one case you are tricking another person into imbibing something that diminishes their ability to make decisions.

In the other you are doing something to make yourself far more desirable. How is it different (except for being more effective) than other things people do to make themselves more attractive and to trigger subconscious reaction from (usually) the opposite sex, other than being much more effective? I mean people already wear perfumes designed to subtly trigger subconscious attraction.

I have no doubt it would not

Or, rephrased, in the other case you are tricking someone into breathing something that diminishes their ability to make decisions. You've just opened up the option to target more people at the same time. Which is not better.

I agree there are parallels to other non-magical ways in which you can make yourself more attractive. But those parallels apply to the other kind of potion as well.

[Themrys]

I've only ever considered love potions a date rape drug. It's what they are used for in 90 percent of stories where they appear. Most of the other 10 percent seems to be "pranks". (I'd argue it is still rape if you make two people rape each other, so there's that)
You could in theory use them to make arranged marriages happier, but other than Tristan and Isolde, I know of no example in literature where this was attempted.

Their use in Harry Potter is deeply disturbing. There's never any mention of Molly Weasley regretting her love-potion brewing (I'd be happy if she'd just brewed Amortentia to see if it smells like Arthur to her, then put it into the potion classroom's wastebin. (Pouring it down the drain wouldn't have been a good idea ...) But really, how likely is that?

There's never any mention of Romilda Vane getting to feel any consequences of her attempt to coerce Harry Potter to go on a date with her, and her possible intention to date rape him. (I am being generous here, Ron doesn't seem to lust after her, so perhaps that wasn't what she was after?)

And Fred and George never seem to get into trouble with the authorities over their selling of a date rape drug.


@Psyren: By seduction community, you mean those men who think if they insult women enough, the women's self-esteem will sink so low that they'll agree to have sex with horrid, unattractive males? (Something I hope doesn't work, but they seem convinced it does) Yeah, I am sure glad they don't have access to love potions. Bad enough they have access to normal date rape drugs.

[Doorhandle]

Honestly, the best use for a love potion would be something like this gag: Using them as an immensely cheap substitute for therapy. (http://www.twogag.com/archives/1805)

[Liquor Box]

Or, rephrased, in the other case you are tricking someone into breathing something that diminishes their ability to make decisions. You've just opened up the option to target more people at the same time. Which is not better.

No, i don't think that rephrasing is fair because of the word 'tricking'. Making yourself smell a certain way and allowing people to smell you knowing it will make you very desirable to them is no more 'tricking' them than making yourself look nice and allowing people to see you knowing it will make you desirable to them.


I agree there are parallels to other non-magical ways in which you can make yourself more attractive. But those parallels apply to the other kind of potion as well.

No, the parallels that apply are different.

The parallels that apply to the traditional love potion (that you trick or force the person you want to desire you to drink) are things like date rape drugs. Things that most people would agree are wrong.

The parallel with a love potion you take yourself to make people desire you is buying a really sexy dress, doing your make up in an enticing way, spending hours at the gym, etc. Things that are not clearly wrong.

The difference is that in one case you are applying the magic or mundane method to someone else, usually by force or trickery. In the other scenario you are applying the magic or mundane method to yourself.

[zimmerwald1915]

I'd just make them a pure villain thing and have the hero be all about earning their affection the right way.
There is no earning affection. It's purely a matter of luck.

[Liquor Box]

There is no earning affection. It's purely a matter of luck.

There is a luck element, in terms of whether two people happen to be in each others lives, but if they are in each other's lives it is not primarily luck that determines whether affection develops.

Although, I agree that affection is not primarily earned either.

Where people are in each other's lives, whether affection (particularly romantic/sexual affection as discussed in this thread) develops depends on whether each person has the type of qualities and quirks that the other finds attractive.

[Reddish Mage]

The parallels that apply to the traditional love potion (that you trick or force the person you want to desire you to drink) are things like date rape drugs. Things that most people would agree are wrong.

The premise of a lot of the conversation, is as if love potions were always dealt with as date rape drugs.

Themrys claimed that's how it appears in "90%" of the shows.

This is just not true. Love potions can pop up in any show that has magic (and occasionally sci-fi, like a recent Orville episode) and is generally played for camp. The intended target usually doesn't end up drinking the potion, or falling in love with the right person. Things get funny, and everything gets reversed in the end of the episode. Sex rarely happens.

Orville actually swerves this by just having an alien be the love potion, and his pheromones end up getting transferred with what is supposed to be hilarious results (also a lot of sex).

I found the Orville version offensive in how innocuous it portrays it, but the typical portrayal (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovePotion) as in Harry Potter, makes them seem innocent.

That may be objectionable from a moral standpoint but that's the situation. The notion that love potions are date rape drug is just not born out by TV or contemporary literature on the subject.

[zimmerwald1915]

whether each person has the type of qualities and quirks that the other finds attractive.
Which is a matter of luck.

[Lord Raziere]

The premise of a lot of the conversation, is as if love potions were always dealt with as date rape drugs.

Themrys claimed that's how it appears in "90%" of the shows.

This is just not true. Love potions can pop up in any show that has magic (and occasionally sci-fi, like a recent Orville episode) and is generally played for camp. The intended target usually doesn't end up drinking the potion, or falling in love with the right person. Things get funny, and everything gets reversed in the end of the episode. Sex rarely happens.

Orville actually swerves this by just having an alien be the love potion, and his pheromones end up getting transferred with what is supposed to be hilarious results (also a lot of sex).

I found the Orville version offensive in how innocuous it portrays it, but the typical portrayal (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovePotion) as in Harry Potter, makes them seem innocent.

That may be objectionable from a moral standpoint but that's the situation. The notion that love potions are date rape drug is just not born out by TV or contemporary literature on the subject.

As always, you confuse the tone of portrayal with how it actually functions and ignore the implications and acting as if thats an argument.

How the show acts as if something happens doesn't change the actual implications and functions of it happening.

[Reddish Mage]

As always, you confuse the tone of portrayal with how it actually functions and ignore the implications and acting as if thats an argument.

How the show acts as if something happens doesn't change the actual implications and functions of it happening.

I understand quite well the difference between what a show implies what's going on and what actually is. That's why I can dislike the disturbing implications of the Orville episode precisely because the episode portrays the use of an aphrodisiac so cavalierly (the alien says "what's the worse that happens we all have great sex").

On the other hand, there is a distinction to be had between the intent and the implications. There's also situations where a show just stirs ideas in your head but you're just making random associations.

In this case, there's some basis for making the association between love potions and real life substances (similar effects, intent, or just moral equivalence). I'm just pointing out that, contrary to what's being stated, the shows are not actually intending to tell stories about rape and attempted rape experiences.

[Liquor Box]

The premise of a lot of the conversation, is as if love potions were always dealt with as date rape drugs.

Themrys claimed that's how it appears in "90%" of the shows.

This is just not true. Love potions can pop up in any show that has magic (and occasionally sci-fi, like a recent Orville episode) and is generally played for camp. The intended target usually doesn't end up drinking the potion, or falling in love with the right person. Things get funny, and everything gets reversed in the end of the episode. Sex rarely happens.

Orville actually swerves this by just having an alien be the love potion, and his pheromones end up getting transferred with what is supposed to be hilarious results (also a lot of sex).

I found the Orville version offensive in how innocuous it portrays it, but the typical portrayal (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovePotion) as in Harry Potter, makes them seem innocent.

That may be objectionable from a moral standpoint but that's the situation. The notion that love potions are date rape drug is just not born out by TV or contemporary literature on the subject.

I don't know what you mean by "dealt with as date rape drugs". You seem to be saying that, because things do not turn out as intended in most cases, they are not presented as similar to date rape drugs.

That may be, I don't know. But the intended consequence of the classic love potion is that one person designs it so that another person imbibes the potion. The potion then overrides the will of the person who imbibes it and causes them to fall in love with someone - usually the person by whose design they drank it.

It may not always play out in a similar way to a date rape drug, but it sounds like that is not because the love potion itself is not analogous, but because it does not work as intended (often because of a mistake made in its application).

Edit:
I see you addressed this in a later post.
I take it we are agreed that:
- love potions (as usually portrayed) are analogous to date rape drugs; and
- the manner in which things usually play out means that the shows do not intend to show a story about rape?

[Liquor Box]

Which is a matter of luck.

No. It is a matter of whether we go to the gym, have a good sense of humor, have bit tits or a strong jawline, come accross as kind, or are simply daring enough to ask.

Those are not matters of luck. Even those few points that are mostly determined by our genetics are not luck, any more than Bolt is lucky to be the fastest man in the world.

[Bucky]

The only true answer to the agency problem is "it only works properly if consumed willingly by someone who knows what it does."

Working *improperly* might have some effect but should *not* result in sex.

[Reddish Mage]

- love potions (as usually portrayed) are analogous to date rape drugs; and
- the manner in which things usually play out means that the shows do not intend to show a story about rape?

My point is to say that love potions re analogous to date rape drugs, is a form of eisgesis (reading INTO a work, as opposed to extracting something from the text). You are taking your own ideology, values, and perhaps understanding about biology, chemistry and the real world to make that analogy and claim their relevance.

Now I might share that views, but I’m pointing out that the authors of these stories don’t, the stories themselves are often played for fun or camp and you can see the trope often in shows targeted at kids or young teens (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d8D84nkD53o). Date rape drugs, on the other hand, when they do appear in stories, have very different and very specific meaning and will never appear in kid shows.

It’s a fairly trivial point, but from the fact that I have to explain it myself and so much has been written from the point of view that these all date rape stories (and that’s what has to change), I thought I should come in.

As a corollary, if something is not a date rape story to begin with, you cannot “correct” the problem just by introducing a mechanism that avoids the story having that connotation to you. Already the authors don’t see love potion as being about rape. You can tell stories about consensual use of love potions, but other than that, the template story is where some people induce strong emotions in other people through magic and chemistry without their knowledge or consent and it will be passed off as fun and harmless.

[Lord Raziere]

My point is to say that love potions re analogous to date rape drugs, is a form of eisgesis (reading INTO a work, as opposed to extracting something from the text). You are taking your own ideology, values, and perhaps understanding about biology, chemistry and the real world to make that analogy and claim their relevance.

Now I might share that views, but I’m pointing out that the authors of these stories don’t, the stories themselves are often played for fun or camp and you can see the trope often in shows targeted at kids or young teens (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d8D84nkD53o). Date rape drugs, on the other hand, when they do appear in stories, have very different and very specific meaning and will never appear in kid shows.

It’s a fairly trivial point, but from the fact that I have to explain it myself and so much has been written from the point of view that these all date rape stories (and that’s what has to change), I thought I should come in.

As a corollary, if something is not a date rape story to begin with, you cannot “correct” the problem just by introducing a mechanism that avoids the story having that connotation to you. Already the authors don’t see love potion as being about rape. You can tell stories about consensual use of love potions, but other than that, the template story is where some people induce strong emotions in other people through magic and chemistry without their knowledge or consent and it will be passed off as fun and harmless.

Too bad, cause if your angry about people reading this into things, then let welcome you to the rest of the internet. eisgesis is in style, and never going out.

if its passed off as fun and harmless, they're simply wrong. there is no progress without looking back on whats been made and going "yeah thats screwed up" in retrospect. if we find it wrong now, its wrong. we've moved on from being ignorant enough to think it could be harmless, and are all the better for it. its called growth. if the template is wrong, its wrong, if people were mistaken about things, then they were mistaken thats all there is to it. hindsight is 20/20 and that is a good thing. helps us not make the same mistakes.

If we all do not like it and criticize it, that can only be a good thing. there is no point to defending it. if the authors didn't intend such things, they didn't think it through, and honestly if you don't think through your stories, your not a good writer and should either learn or stop writing. the only value of the past is to learn from it and do better.

I extract from the text that the author didn't think this through, that they think forcing people into things like that is somehow fun and harmless, and that this is uncomfortably close to date rape drugs. its not intended but that does not save it, because the ignorance and thoughtlessness of such a view is just as bad. we do not look upon these things to go "oh its harmless lets do nothing." we look at them to examine these things and learn a lesson, and that lesson is "love potions are looking more and more like date rape drugs and thus should be discarded."

[Cazero]

No. It is a matter of whether we go to the gym, have a good sense of humor, have bit tits or a strong jawline, come accross as kind, or are simply daring enough to ask.

Those are not matters of luck. Even those few points that are mostly determined by our genetics are not luck, any more than Bolt is lucky to be the fastest man in the world.
The matter of luck is wether or not any of those traits will be found pleasant. This might come as quite a shock to you, but different people like different things.

[Psyren]

The only true answer to the agency problem is "it only works properly if consumed willingly by someone who knows what it does."

Working *improperly* might have some effect but should *not* result in sex.

Which leads to the obvious problem - if both parties are willing, why do you need a potion? And if both parties are not willing, well... see the rest of the thread.

[Themrys]

This is just not true. Love potions can pop up in any show that has magic (and occasionally sci-fi, like a recent Orville episode) and is generally played for camp. The intended target usually doesn't end up drinking the potion, or falling in love with the right person. Things get funny, and everything gets reversed in the end of the episode. Sex rarely happens.


So what?

I could also write a story about a date rape drug where the target's boyfriend drinks the date rape drug instead, where the rapist drinks the date rape drug instead, where the friends of the date rape drug victim carry her home after she's drugged so the rapist can't rape her.

Doesn't mean that date rape drugs are harmless, just means that the story avoids the horrible consequences. The intent to rape is there, just as with the failed love potions.

And frankly, if you don't know stories where love potions are used in exactly the same way as date rape drugs (just with the advantage that the victim stays conscious and thus others don't notice anything amiss), you don't read enough. The ingredients, more often than not, hint at sexual intentions.
There's even a story where a soldier, having unsuccessfully tried to seduce a local woman, put a spell on her so she'd have to run after him. That was it. She had to run after him, which would then have enabled him to rape her. Luckily, the soldier had to leave before the spell took effect, and thus the woman noticed that she was compelled to run through the fields, direct way to where the soldier was, and after a while figured out that the spell was in her apron, tied the apron to a pig and went home. Nothing romantic there at all. Just brute force.

[zimmerwald1915]

No. It is a matter of whether we go to the gym, have a good sense of humor, have bit tits or a strong jawline, come accross as kind, or are simply daring enough to ask.

Those are not matters of luck.
Sure they are. A sense of humor, big tits/strong jawline, and nerve are all innate, and gym/exercise time is a matter of the rest of your obligations aligning to make that possible. Which, unless you can set your own work schedule (read: are fortunate enough to own a large amount of money) is a matter of luck. You can't control your boss.

Whether any of these qualities will actually attract anybody is also a matter of luck. They might be likely to do so, but likelihood is just another way of saying "lucky more often than not."

Really, the whole business is out of our control. Which is the appeal of love potions.

[Reddish Mage]

So what?

I could also write a story about a date rape drug where the target's boyfriend drinks the date rape drug instead, where the rapist drinks the date rape drug instead, where the friends of the date rape drug victim carry her home after she's drugged so the rapist can't rape her.

Doesn't mean that date rape drugs are harmless, just means that the story avoids the horrible consequences. The intent to rape is there, just as with the failed love potions.

And frankly, if you don't know stories where love potions are used in exactly the same way as date rape drugs (just with the advantage that the victim stays conscious and thus others don't notice anything amiss), you don't read enough. The ingredients, more often than not, hint at sexual intentions.

There's even a story where a soldier, having unsuccessfully tried to seduce a local woman, put a spell on her so she'd have to run after him. That was it.


I think your story about date rape drugs getting taken by all the wrong people result in a very different story that reads differently than your earlier story about love potions. The way you are talking its as if you don't see a distinction in how the stories are read. Instead, if there is a "problem" in how love potions are used, I would submit that problem is the problem that they are used innocently in all kinds of context, especially in shows made to appeal to children and families.

Also, I've looked at lists and linked to the TV tropes page (which has links to pages upon pages of examples) so we can have copious references to love potions being used in all sorts of ways across different genres. Among them, I see only rare examples where there is anything explicit or implicit of rape connotations.

Finally, spells and mechanisms that force people to move or behave in certain ways against their will are not the same as love potions. There is a fine distinction between physically forcing a person to move and manipulating them emotionally.

There is a lot to say about the latter, there are analogies to draw between using a mechanism to cause a person to feel or think in certain ways and physically moving them, but the distinction is there to be bridged.

[Liquor Box]

Sure they are. A sense of humor, big tits/strong jawline, and nerve are all innate, and gym/exercise time is a matter of the rest of your obligations aligning to make that possible. Which, unless you can set your own work schedule (read: are fortunate enough to own a large amount of money) is a matter of luck. You can't control your boss.

Whether any of these qualities will actually attract anybody is also a matter of luck. They might be likely to do so, but likelihood is just another way of saying "lucky more often than not."

Really, the whole business is out of our control. Which is the appeal of love potions.

Those points are only partly innate - they are also partly a product of your environment. Even qualities that are innate are due to much more than luck - they are predictable based on the characteristics of the parents.

As for exercise, that is much more about choice than the rest of your obligations aligning - in part because your obligations are a matter of choice. Very few people have so many necessary obligations that exercise (whether it be going for a run before work, or doing yoga in front a youtube instruction after the kids are in bed) is impossible for them. In fact I suspect that over the world population there would be an inverse correlation between people's activity levels and their wealth.

[Liquor Box]

My point is to say that love potions re analogous to date rape drugs, is a form of eisgesis (reading INTO a work, as opposed to extracting something from the text). You are taking your own ideology, values, and perhaps understanding about biology, chemistry and the real world to make that analogy and claim their relevance.

Now I might share that views, but I’m pointing out that the authors of these stories don’t, the stories themselves are often played for fun or camp and you can see the trope often in shows targeted at kids or young teens (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d8D84nkD53o). Date rape drugs, on the other hand, when they do appear in stories, have very different and very specific meaning and will never appear in kid shows.

It’s a fairly trivial point, but from the fact that I have to explain it myself and so much has been written from the point of view that these all date rape stories (and that’s what has to change), I thought I should come in.

As a corollary, if something is not a date rape story to begin with, you cannot “correct” the problem just by introducing a mechanism that avoids the story having that connotation to you. Already the authors don’t see love potion as being about rape. You can tell stories about consensual use of love potions, but other than that, the template story is where some people induce strong emotions in other people through magic and chemistry without their knowledge or consent and it will be passed off as fun and harmless.

Yeah, I think we are talking about different things. You are talking about the story people are trying to tell in most love potion stories. I am talking about the actual implication of using a love potion that works per the label.

[zimmerwald1915]

As for exercise, that is much more about choice than the rest of your obligations aligning - in part because your obligations are a matter of choice. Very few people have so many necessary obligations that exercise (whether it be going for a run before work, or doing yoga in front a youtube instruction after the kids are in bed) is impossible for them.
Who are you that you imagine a less than 12-hour working day exists in the modern world?

[Liquor Box]

Who are you that you imagine a less than 12-hour working day exists in the modern world?

Someone who works less than 12 hours. But putting that aside, how does working 12 hours stop you from exercising in the other 12?

[zimmerwald1915]

Someone who works less than 12 hours. But putting that aside, how does working 12 hours stop you from exercising in the other 12?
Well, you have to sleep for eight, spend one-and-a-half to two eating, and another one-and-a-half to two commuting. That's one hour at most for exercise. If you do nothing else.

Also, screw you and your good fortune.

[Liquor Box]

Well, you have to sleep for eight, spend one-and-a-half to two eating, and another one-and-a-half to two commuting. That's one hour at most for exercise. If you do nothing else.

Also, screw you and your good fortune.

My good fortune? If you have time to post on an internet forum, you have time to exercise. So lets all thank the generous functioning of society for our free time.

[Reddish Mage]

Yeah, I think we are talking about different things. You are talking about the story people are trying to tell in most love potion stories. I am talking about the actual implication of using a love potion that works per the label.

I'm trying to say you (as well as others on the thread) have conflated the two, saying things like "It's what they are used for in 90 percent of stories where they appear" and only the minority "10 percent seems to be "pranks"", or telling stories that don't necessarily show how they swerve the narrative.

If you wanted to attack the "love interest getting kidnapped or fridge" and turn it into something else you can do in several ways. One would be to show how the narrative affects the image of the character in question explicitly (note this isn't necessarily a swerve there is several ways it can be done). Another would be to tell a story about the female character rescuing herself.

So telling a story that makes it obvious how love potions ARE rape is one simple way. Another would be to come up with alternative uses of love potion that avoid the problem, but in this case, you also have to call attention to the fact that there is a problem to avoid. Love potions are so common they are mainstream tropes. The problem was grasped early in the thread but apparently not by audiences. Make it clear in the narrative if that's the problem, and make it clear that the fact that the writers DON'T see it that way is the problem.

[Liquor Box]

I'm trying to say you (as well as others on the thread) have conflated the two, saying things like "It's what they are used for in 90 percent of stories where they appear" and only the minority "10 percent seems to be "pranks"", or telling stories that don't necessarily show how they swerve the narrative.

If you wanted to attack the "love interest getting kidnapped or fridge" and turn it into something else you can do in several ways. One would be to show how the narrative affects the image of the character in question explicitly (note this isn't necessarily a swerve there is several ways it can be done). Another would be to tell a story about the female character rescuing herself.

So telling a story that makes it obvious how love potions ARE rape is one simple way. Another would be to come up with alternative uses of love potion that avoid the problem, but in this case, you also have to call attention to the fact that there is a problem to avoid. Love potions are so common they are mainstream tropes. The problem was grasped early in the thread but apparently not by audiences. Make it clear in the narrative if that's the problem, and make it clear that the fact that the writers DON'T see it that way is the problem.

No, I am not conflating those things at all. I am not saying anything at all about the narrative whatsoever - I'm not all that interested what stories are usually told about them. All I am saying is that love potions, where they function to over-ride the free will of the person why drinks them, are analogous to date rape drugs. I'm sure you can (and people have) told several different stories around that, but that doesn't change that the properties of the potion themselves have analogous effects to date rape drugs.

[veti]

I'd like to point out that many, many people take mind-altering substances pretty much all the time. Quite knowingly. In some cases they pay ridiculous prices and risk severe penalties for the privilege.

The reasons vary, of course, but in general I believe it's commonly done simply because the altered mental state "feels better".

What makes a love potion different from any other drug? Well, if it creates an irresistible compulsion, sure, that would be different. But does it have to? What if it just makes you feel better - about where you are, what you're doing and who you're doing it with? I can imagine that potion selling very well, and being taken voluntarily on a nightly basis.

Of course, applying it to an unknowing or unwilling subject would still be a violation. But there's room for some huge grey areas here. (On the lines of, when does "persuasion" become "coercion"? When does "choice" become "addiction"?) Lots of stories live on those boundaries.

[Ibrinar]

Mind altering in the sense that they for a while alter how the mind works not really who or what you like or anything. A drug that makes everything fun or just makes you happy in genaral might improve your chances of getting them to like you and might be taken willingly, but would that still be called a love potion?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Because it gives you the warm fuzzy blissed out feeling of being loved unconditionally.

Yeah, no addiction risk with that at all.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

No, i don't think that rephrasing is fair because of the word 'tricking'. Making yourself smell a certain way and allowing people to smell you knowing it will make you very desirable to them is no more 'tricking' them than making yourself look nice and allowing people to see you knowing it will make you desirable to them.

Or then making a drink you poor taste so awesome it will make the person who mixed it seem desirable.

It's not a thing that would ever happen outside of a setting with love potions or that one Tom Cruise Cocktail movie, but I honestly don't see that much of a difference between magically making someone love you by wearing magic perfume and magically making someone love you by giving them a magic drink. They both have some qualities comparable to normal everyday substances we don't think are bad, and they both have some analogues to rape drugs and fictional mind control measures.

For a way too out of context real world comparison: If I wore a perfume that had the same effect on everybody close to me as if I had put GHB in their drinks I would not be welcome in the club.

[tomandtish]

Or then making a drink you poor taste so awesome it will make the person who mixed it seem desirable.

It's not a thing that would ever happen outside of a setting with love potions or that one Tom Cruise Cocktail movie, but I honestly don't see that much of a difference between magically making someone love you by wearing magic perfume and magically making someone love you by giving them a magic drink. They both have some qualities comparable to normal everyday substances we don't think are bad, and they both have some analogues to rape drugs and fictional mind control measures.

For a way too out of context real world comparison: If I wore a perfume that had the same effect on everybody close to me as if I had put GHB in their drinks I would not be welcome in the club.

It isn't. There's a legal condition called involuntary intoxication, where a person is intoxicated unwittingly/unwillingly as a result of the actions of someone else. It IS a valid defense to crimes (if you can prove it).

Law and the Multiverse (http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2016/01/08/defending-kilgrave/) has a few posts (http://lawandthemultiverse.com/2010/12/30/mind-control-made-me-do-it/) on the subject....

[Reddish Mage]

No, I am not conflating those things at all. I am not saying anything at all about the narrative whatsoever - I'm not all that interested what stories are usually told about them. All I am saying is that love potions, where they function to over-ride the free will of the person why drinks them, are analogous to date rape drugs. I'm sure you can (and people have) told several different stories around that, but that doesn't change that the properties of the potion themselves have analogous effects to date rape drugs.

If your not interested in commenting on the stories, you are either making a moral or a scientific statement about love potions and date rape drugs. This forum is about media analysis so I presume your statements are meant to be read that way, as either analyzing media or promoting your own stories.

If that's not what you want to talk about, the mad science forum is two doors down and is a fun place, watch out for the killer robots. The forum for morality discussions untethered from media analysis is not hosted by this website.

I am saying that when I look at the media being analyzed, I see that the issue is exactly the innocent attitude towards love potion. The fix then, is to promote stories that recognize the problem of the love potion.


Of course, applying it to an unknowing or unwilling subject would still be a violation. But there's room for some huge grey areas here. (On the lines of, when does "persuasion" become "coercion"? When does "choice" become "addiction"?) Lots of stories live on those boundaries.

Writing on the grey areas is a very adult take on the subject. However the idea of weakening the love potion itself somehow weakens the moral problem, if you have been thinking along the line, doesn't work. I don't see how slipping a foreign substance to someone ever becomes more okay because that substance doesn't work so well but its a story forum so I'm willing to hear one.