A technique to convince everyone?

Over the last few months I have created a fictional character who is very rough and dominant. One of his specialities is to stare down rivals, and hide his own feelings.

I wanted to give him a special (maybe unique) psychological ability: He should be able to convince everybody to do whatever he likes with a high success rate. The people he convinces will most likely realize it too late and probably regret it.

Until yet, I had 7 ideas in my mind, but they are not optimal for me:

1. Lie to them: In most situations, it might be enough to simply lie to them, so they have no idea what they were in for. Of course, lying without anybody noticing it, is an ability, too. But I think it might not work for some scenarios, so there needs to be a "Plan B".

2. Frighten or threaten them: While this seems to be promising, the side effect is that they will recognize that they are being forced from the beginning, and would fight back and/or would try to flee at the next opportunity.

3. Being an authority or the boss of someone: This doesn't work for this character, because he has no connection to the people he wants to convince.

4. Blackmail them: This is not an universal tactic, because it only works if he knows the target very well.

5. Set them on drugs: This does NOT count to my personal definition of "convince".

6. Hypnosis: This solution is not unlogical, but I kinda don't like it.

7. Provoking in combination with reverse psychology: The success of that tactic would be highly dependent on the situation.

I would be glad for every additional idea. The world is realistic (*) and things like a "convince-me" ray gun do not exist, so I do know that this setting does not allow a tactic with a 100% success rate. But it would be nice to find a solution which is mostly universal with a high success rate.

(*) Context: The setting of the world is nearly a clone of the real world, but with re-written history, different countries and different cultures. The prevailing species is human-like. The technological progress is similar to the real world's 1980s. Although everything should be logical and rational, there can be still fantasy elements included, as long as they are explainable, feasible and not unlogical.

posted almost 9 years ago

Daniel Marschall‭

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