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The Kid with the Remote Control
Large and in charge (respectively).
"Wow, my own giant robot! I am now the luckiest kid in America! This must be the biggest discovery since, I don't know, television or something!"
A child — usually a young boy — who has sole control over some fearsome creature or robot and uses it wisely, despite advice from all the well-meaning but fundamentally clueless adults around him.
Sometimes the remote control is literal — as in the watch used in Giant Robo by Johnny Sokko/Daisaku Kusama to transmit orders to Giant Robo. Sometimes it is figurative or metaphorical, in the sense that the mecha or creature considers the child its sole master and obeys only him. Helping said creatures or raising them from birth are reliable ways to recruit the free-willed variants.
It can sometimes be difficult to tell whether the kid is his partner's sidekick or vice versa (especially if the partner is capable of human speech), but if they are main characters one is probably the Deuteragonist and the other the Protagonist. The trope originated in dawn-time Anime and Manga and is still strongest in those genres.
If the partner is an Anti-Hero or even Token Evil Teammate this trope becomes the Kid with the Leash.
See also Guardian Entity and Villain Holds the Leash.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
Comic Books
- This trope was very popular in British comics of the mid-20th Century; aside from General Jumbo, mentioned below, there was Robot Archie (a crime-fighting robot controlled by the professor who built him), the Steel Commando (a WWII-era robot embedded with a commando unit), Danny's Tranny (about a transistor with near-magical properties and an unfortunate nickname), The Team Terry Kept in a Box (in which a series of pictures of football players are accidentally brought to life by a boy using his grandfather's magical stereoscopic viewer and soon agree to join him in the line-up of fourth-division Anstey Albion), and many others.
- The Beano:
- General Jumbo: Jumbo was the eponymous hero of a long-running story appearing intermittently in The Beano, in command of a sizeable army (and occasionally navy and air force) built by his friend Professor Carter. A low-achieving hero by modern standards, he mainly foiled minor nuisances and petty criminals, but since even this entailed independently controlling dozens of models using a wrist controller with only a few buttons, it would be churlish to deride his efforts.
- Jumbo still frequently shows up in the annuals. In one story, one of his toy soldiers becomes both self-aware and malevolent, and tries to take control of him. In another, Dennis takes over and uses Jumbo's army to cause chaos.
- His Viz spoof counterpart had an army of Jehovah's Witnesses. They foiled un-christian activities and then handed out leaflets. Another parody was "Drill Sergeant Jumbo", who ignores a crisis in favour of berating one of his tropps.
- Gearz: The heroine, after receiving a coterie of robot bodyguards due to a postal error. As a Genre Savvy pop culture junkie, she specifically compares herself to Johnny Sokko (Daisaku Kusama's name in the English version of the live-action Giant Robo show called Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot.)
- The Incredible Hulk: For one or two issues of The Incredible Hulk (1962), Rick Jones became mentally connected to the Hulk, who would mindlessly do Rick's bidding. But when Rick was asleep the Hulk could do what he wanted, so he just left.
- Jason And The Argobots: Jason from the short-lived Oni Press series.
- Justice Society of America: Johnny Thunder and his successor Jakeem Thunder, both from the Justice Society, each controlled an omnipotent genie who's only limit was that he used his power exactly the way he was told.
- Runaways: Gert (and later Chase). She has a telepathic link to a genetically engineered deinonychus from the 87th century called "Old Lace".
- Sentinel: As the series is intentionally based off the Gigantor/Giant Robo style, Juston Seyfert is this to the titular Sentinel. Mostly, Juston commands it from outside, but there is a cockpit they built together.
- Venom: Timely Comics character Flexo the Rubber Man was, in his original stories, a robot controlled by the two brothers who made him via remote. His reintroduction in 2023's [1] changes this. The remote doesn't do anything. The brothers only control Flexo because they feed it, and even then only just. And they're not certain what might happen if someone else got their hands on him...
- X-Men: Tom Skylark from the "Here Comes Tomorrow" arc of New X-Men is a grown-up version of this. He appears to be modeled after Juston Seyfert.
Fan Works
- A Crown of Stars: Shinji and Asuka could control their giant robots when they were kids because their mothers were locked inside them. After Third Impact they were aware of it, but since their Evas were destroyed or stranded in space that knowledge came too late to be useful. However they were the only people could synch with the MP-Evas, so that the dictators ruling the post-apocalyptic ravaged world kept them alive because they had an use for both mind-broken teenagers.
- Advice and Trust: After finding out about each other's past Shinji and Asuka often argue it can not be a coincidence that the only people capable to pilot an Evangelion are mind-broken orphan kids whose mothers died while testing the Evas. After Hikari gets selected as pilot their doubts increase and finally they figure out the truth: they can control their robots because their mothers are stuck inside.
- The Child of Love: In the final chapter Shinji learns why he and Asuka are the only ones can control their giant robots despite of being only kids –and him having no previous training-: their mothers' souls got stuck inside them.
- Children of an Elder God: Only Shinji, Asuka, Rei and few other children can pilot an Evangelion. Other candidates are driven to madness when they try. This is because the Children are protected by their mothers' souls inside the robots.
- Doing It Right This Time: In the original timeline neither Shinji nor Asuka really knew why they were chosen as Evangelion pilots. Now they and Rei know it is because their "giant robot moms"; and thanks to that they can synchronize better with their Units.
- Downplayed in Fate/Starry Night. Ritsuka is a poor mage, so he can't do much of anything to a Servant besides summoning Shadow Servants. But against weaker threats like Dragon Tooth Warriors, Ritsuka can handle them himself with martial arts. Lampshaded by Ritsuka, who tells Shinji that he's not some hotshot magus and needed a lot of help to save the world.
Ritsuka: What, you think I saved the world with just raw grit and determination? With my pitiful one circuit and my magical potential laying face first in the dirt, dead on arrival? [shakes his head] Really man, where did you get the idea I'm some hotshot magus?
- HERZ: All Evangelions were piloted by children because only they could synch with the souls stored inside.
- After the battle of 2015 Asuka discovered she could pilot Unit 02 because her mother was inside… and she had become unable to synch with it because she could not open up due to her mental trauma increasing during the Angel War.
- When SEELE attacked in 2027 Rei was able to control the new MP-Evas because their dummy plugs were an extension from her.
- Higher Learning: Evangelions can only be piloted by kids can synch with the souls trapped inside the robots. Shinji, Asuka and Touji could synch with their Evas because their mother's souls were inside, although neither of them found out during the War. Rei could -barely- activate Unit 00 because a piece of her soul was inside it. Kaoru is a strange case because he could pilot Unit 04, despite of being unrelated to the soul within.
- Last Child of Krypton: Evangelions can only be controlled by children because the pilot needs being somehow connected to the soul within the robot. That is because Rei has such a hard time riding Unit 00 –the soul locked inside it hates her- and this is because Asuka can pilot Unit 01 -Yui likes her-.
- The One I Love Is...: After being absorbed into Unit 01 and being told about Rei's origins Shinji realizes he was the only could pilot Unit 01 despite being a teen with no training because his mother is inside the giant robot.
- Scar Tissue: After the resurfacing of the secret organization SEELE in the post-apocalyptic world many politicians and military men want to force to Asuka -and Shinji, and even Rei- to pilot again the last Evangelion NERV has left because they are the only ones can activate it, even though they are utterly broken in body and mind.
- The Second Try: One of the consequences of being stuck in the past is Shinji and Asuka know now they were selected to be Evangelion pilots -even if they were children- because their mothers' souls are locked inside their robots. That knowledge should allow them a better synch with their machines, but they can not display it because they do not want people finding out about the time-travelling bit.
- Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: Asuka was the only one could pilot Unit-02 because her mother's soul was locked inside and could synch with her. For a long time Asuka clung to that fact to convince herself she was special and unique and worth of something, and so boosting her very fragile self-esteem. Throughout the story, though, she gradually loses her capability to synch with her robot, and piloting gradually feels less important or special than being Supergirl.
- Thousand Shinji: After the debacle with Units 03 and 04 where one of their friends died and another got crippled Shinji sets to find out because only children can pilot Evangelions. When he discovers that their mothers are inside their robots he does not take it well.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide: Shinji, Asuka and Rei are teenagers but they're the only ones capable of piloting an Evangelion. Unit-01 will only obey Shinji and Rei because their mother is inside, and Unit-02 doesn't acknowledge anyone other than Asuka. Later on, Keiko is recruited because she's the only one capable of activating Unit-08.
- Invoked in Once More with Feeling, when Kaji talks to Ritsuko and states that Shinji, Asuka and Rei are -sadly- the only ones able to pilot an Evangelion in spite of being only fourteen because their war mechas will only obey those three kids.
Films — Animation
- In The Iron Giant, the titular robot becomes something of a pet for Hogarth Hughes (albeit a fifty-foot-tall pet that eats metal). The bond the two develop become powerful enough that when the Giant snaps and turns into a Killer Robot, Hogarth is able to talk him out of it.
- Hiro is this to Baymax in Big Hero 6, though the only control he has is Baymax's programmer prerogative to look after Hiro's well-being. It's unclear if there was a way for someone else to have overridden Hiro's control.
Films — Live-Action
- Timmie and his pet robot in The Invisible Boy.
- In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a young John Connor plays around with the T-800 for a bit after learning it has to obey his commands, but later on, he uses his power over the machine for more serious purposes - most importantly, telling it Thou Shalt Not Kill.
- General Grievous in Star Wars was almost this, as concept art had him originally be a small child in a hoverchair flanked by completely controlled IG-88 droids. Lucas thought the concept wouldn't work and declined the pitch.
Literature
Live-Action TV
- Game of Thrones:
- Bran has control over Summer and Hodor, too. Later taken to its logical extreme when Robb leaves for war and Bran becomes the acting lord of Winterfell.
- Daenerys herself is pretty much harmless, but she has three fire-breathing dragons who follow her every command. As of Season 3, we can add eight thousand undyingly loyal elite foot soldiers to that list.
- Doctor Who
- Charlotte Abigail Lux in "Silence in the Library"/"The Forest of the Dead" has control of a planet-sized library (and a data-checking device the size of a moon) via a literal TV remote.
- In "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances", Jamie has control over an entire army.
- Ambassador Magma: Mamoru summons Magma and his family with a whistle.
- Daitetsujin 17: In the first episode, 17 gives Saburo a helmet that lets Saburo communicate via brain waves with him.
Video Games
- Robot Alchemic Drive: The player character controls a Humongous Mecha by remote control.
- Drakengard: Seere, whose pact-partner is Golem, a giant stone construct with very dim intelligence.
- Twisted Metal: Black: Literally a kid with a remote control; picking the vehicle Yellow Jacket sees the player controlling the corpse of Charlie Kane, who in turn is being controlled by his autistic son, who constructed a device to reanimate his murdered father. In his ending, Calypso breaks the remote control and adopts the boy, as he needs an heir. He would have used the boy's brother, Needles, but he was killed in the contest.
- The character Lymle in Star Ocean: The Last Hope has control over a giant hell-hound she calls 'Doggy'. Precis of Star Ocean: The Second Story, was literally this, using a robotic backpack for combat.
- Alice and Ape III are the next to last opponent in Nintendo's Arm Wrestling arcade game. You beat them by sticking a magnet against Ape III's head...
- Yuna from Final Fantasy X, in the past in the series the "summons" have been simply really impressive magic spells, Yuna actually calls down whatever the magic creature of the day is and directly controls the dragon/devil/half-naked ice-woman in battle.
- Granblue Fantasy: Sara herself is a fairly harmless nine years old girl, if a very mature one. Graphos, on the other hand, is a giant sand castle with large fists and a fiercely protective streak who does all the fighting for her, under her commands, of course.
- Scribblenauts: The player has the power to summon anything in the in-game dictionary (which is incredibly huge), thus by extension Maxwell holds this power as well.
- BlazBlue has Carl Clover and Nirvana/Ada, his Magitek Forgotten Superweapon/big sister.
- Darkstalkers: The video game series features a robot named Huitzil (known as Phobos in Japan.) Though originally programmed to destroy all life on earth, a malfunction changes his prime directive to protect a little boy named Cecil. In his ending, he also changes the directives of all other huitzil units so that they protect Cecil as well...to the detriment of everyone else on the planet.
- Any Mon games including Pokémon, Demikids, Dragon Quest Monsters, etc... especially since the heroes of these games are kids, yet they have ability to control, raise, and breed monsters that are as tall as or even taller than them. Especially because in Pokémon you can capture Arceus, the creator of the universe.
- Zig-zagged in Fallout: New Vegas. In Freeside there's a boy that runs around playing with what appears to be a toy gun, but unbeknownst to him it's actually the range finder of Archimedes II, a very destructive Kill Sat. If you acquire it from him during a certain quest, one of your companions will even comment that luckly the safety lock was on or Freeside would have been reduced to a crater.
- In Fallout 4, you can come across a young girl named Kat, wandering around the wasteland as a merchant with a huge Sentry Bot in tow. For those not in the know, a Sentry Bot is a 9-foot-tall tripodal Killer Robot with a gatling gun, a repeating missile launcher, and two shoulder-mounted mortars. Here's a pic. It's never elaborated on how Kat got control of this thing, nor where her parents are or why she travels the Commonwealth alone, but you can bet that she's not coming into harm any-time soon.
- Overwatch character Orisa is this, being a guardian robot built by an 11-year-old tech whiz.
- Personas in Persona are Guardian Entities which are almost fully under the control of their summoners. They generally only manifest when called, and most often appear when the user is a teenager (though the age has been known to go as low as six and as high as over fourty). The Persona is an aspect of someone's inner self, but they sometimes express a mind of their own, and focus is needed to keep control of the remote. Losing the remote can end extremely badly, as Takahisa Kandori, Jun Kurosu and Shinjiro Aragaki all learn the hard way.
- In Panic!, Slap (and his dog, Stick) are tasked with many, many remotes to destroy the virus. Unfortunately, their remotes aren't labelled, and more often than not the buttons aren't exactly helpful to their goal. Hilarity Ensues.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Rex is the remote-holder for the Aegis, an incredibly powerful Blade that destroyed three continents during the Great Offscreen War. Several of his party members admit that they're following him around not for anything as high-minded as ideology or loyalty, but because Rex is a naïve, sheltered, Horrible Judge of Character and letting him wander around with a superweapon unsupervised is asking for trouble.
Western Animation
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