Jimmy Neutron pointed out in O:RJF that weak minds are always susceptible to cheap theatrics.?? Hypnosis is just a way of implanting??a strong message into a subjects subconscious.?? This message can can be so strong that it ends up governing the persons actions after the procedure is complete.?? There are many??types of hypnosis from the technique used by hypno-therapists to subliminal advertising which is now illegal in most democratic countries.?? The Gestapo-like police force in Ba Sing Se appear to have great knowledge about the human psyche and they're able to use it to great effect on Jet and the soul-less tour guides.

Oh, and the police force in Ba Sing Se is called the Dy Lee.

Let's assume no magic was involved. Hypnosis and brainwashing are both possible in the real world without magic, but they are two very different things.

Hypnosis: No one can be hypnotized against their will. People with a strong will are more easily hypnotized, not people with a weak will, which??I would assume links to how you can only be hypnotized willingly. It's normally used to help people break bad habits, remember things forgotten relating to crimes (but not to coerce confessions), or for entertainment.

Brainwashing: Not controlling will, but changing will. Breaking a person's spirit. Personality makeover. In the real world, I've heard it takes a minimum of 72 hours, but it usually takes less than 72 seconds in anime. It requires 4 steps:
- Traumatic Shock (i.e. rape, kidnapping, killing a loved one; in Jet's case, maybe it would be being abandoned by his followers,??his near-death experience of nearly getting his head sliced off, and being carted away to prison)
- Isolation (in this case, being locked up alone in near darkness and completely restrained counts)
- Indoctrination ("There is no war" ... "You are safe")
- Promise of Reward (Believe it, or die ... or never escape ... or never find salvation/power/safety, etc.; succumbing to brainwashing is partly a defense mechanism- reality becomes too stressful too deal with, so you cling to a safer??belief, like your captor is your friend even??if they're threatening to kill you, or your cult holds the true path no matter what crimes they commit. Your subconscious instinct tells you to believe to survive.)

What happened to Jet was clearly against his will, so it was brainwashing, not hypnosis (unless it was magic). C.S. Lewis says something about a character in a scene from The Silver Chair who's being a cross between magically hypnotized and brainwashed that??I think applies in any case: "The fact that she could still feel it proved it had not yet fully worked." As long as a character knows someone's messing with their head and consciously tries to resist, they're still in control. The truly enchanted don't believe they're under a spell; the throughly brainwashed don't believe they've been brainwashed.

I imagine as the Dai Li were forcing their lies about no war and the perfection and safety of Ba Sing Se at Jet, what would cause him to break would be??the human survival mechanism. Wouldn't it be wonderful if it was true, if there was no war, if his parents hadn't been killed, if he hadn't made so many mistakes as a vigilante, if all the pain the war caused him hadn't happened? The things about the war are the kind of things I'd like to forget if I was Jet. Brainwashing may not be mind control, but it still requires either some cooperation or weakness on the victim's part (guilt, age, naivete, maybe making them disoriented through food/water deprivation).

*points here* Ask A Question, Get An Answer II Thread??Please use this thread for questions. This could possibly go in the Spoilers and Speculations thread, too.