In stories that feature characters being physically transformed in some way, it's quite common for these characters to be restored to normal before the story's over, especially if it was a Forced Transformation, doubly so in more episodic works where Status Quo Is God.
However, regardless of whether the victim was turned into an animal, shrunk to doll-size or expanded into a giant, regressed to infancy or aged to senescence, made mortal or immortal, human or inhuman, or just plain Brought Down to Normal, the reversion almost always happens in the final chapters of the story for maximum drama.
There are a few variations on the theme, though: in some stories, the reversion will happen during the climax, perhaps following the defeat of the villain, an aggressive search for a cure, or something similar. In others, the reversion can occur after the action's over and the healing of the story has begun. Don't be surprised if a Curse Escape Clause is involved somehow.
However, the end result is essentially the same: the character has been restored, ending the story on a happy note. However, don't be surprised if they're Not Quite Back to Normal.
Please note that this only occasionally applies to true shapeshifters, given that most examples across fiction can already revert at will. The two notable exceptions to this rule involve reversions from a Shapeshifter Mode Lock or from being Brought Down to Normal, which usually have more drama attached.
Surprisingly rarely overlaps with A Rotten Time to Revert. However, it does overlap with Literal Transformative Experience, depending on the circumstances, and the Baby Morph Episode.
Compare "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome. Contrast Transformed Ever After, in which demorphing is impossible and the story ends with the character permanently transformed.
WARNING: As this is an ending trope, spoilers below remain unmarked.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: Kusuri’s introduction to the harem has her inadvertently drugging the other girls with a drug she planned to use on Rentarou to get him to kiss her. The drug turns the girls into kissing zombies, leading Rentarou and Kusuri to try and create enough antidote for the other girls before the drug circulates through their bodies. They successfully restore everyone to normal by the end of the arc.
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Tanjiro's younger sister is turned into a demon by the Big Bad, Muzan Kibitsuji, and he trains as a Demon Slayer both to restore his sister's humanity and to avenge his family by killing Muzan. Nezuko is successfully turned back into a human before the final battle begins and manages to make it just in time to see her brother has been turned into a demon by Muzan, keeping him busy long enough for Kanao to inject the cure and turn him back into a human. The story ends with the now-human Kamado siblings returning to their home alongside the friends they made becoming part of their family.
- Fullmetal Alchemist:
- The Dwarf in the Flask upgrades himself from a black blob in a bottle to a clone of Hohenheim after sacrificing the people of Xerxes and absorbing half of their souls for power. Near the finale, he transforms into a sort of hybrid of his previous two forms before becoming a young man resembling Hohenheim's younger self after consuming Truth for ultimate power. Upon his defeat and return to Truth, he reverts to the blob that he really is as he is sucked through the gate, highlighting how pathetic he really is.
- Alphonse loses his body as the price for performing human transmutation, with his brother Edward being forced to sacrifice his arm to bind Al's soul to a suit of armor. Al would eventually undo this transmutation to return Ed's arm so he'll have a chance to free himself and fight Father. After Father is defeated, Ed sacrifices his ability to do alchemy to get his brother back, with Al finally allowed to return to his human body.
- Ling Yao becomes a host to the homunculus Greed, his body becoming a homunculus in the process. The two become willing to share Ling's body as they join the heroes in the fight against Father. Father forcefully absorbs Greed and his Philosopher's Stone from Ling's body, with Greed sacrificing himself to ensure Ling's soul doesn't get dragged with him, turning Ling back into a human as signified by the Ouroboros tattoo disappearing from his hand.
- Usagi-chan de Cue!!: In the first chapter, asocial loner Inaba Mikami gets "merged" with a hutch rabbit, becoming the Little Bit Beastly bunny-girl Mimika. During the climax, Mimika is able to make a superhuman leap to save Haru and Miku from plummeting to their doom. This selfless act triggers a pink flash, which separates Inaba from the rabbit, restoring both to normal. Haru regains his pet rabbit, and Inaba is welcomed into Haru and Miku's social circle.
Audio Plays
- Big Finish Doctor Who:
- In "Shadow of the Scourge", numerous characters across the hotel — including the Doctor — are possessed by members of the Scourge and transformed to match their true forms, sprouting multiple arms and insectoid features. However, after just barely managing to win the clash with the Scourge soldier attempting to seize control of his brain thanks to a little help from Bernice, the Doctor is able to exorcise himself in the climax, allowing him to cut the Scourge off from their dimension and exorcize the remaining possessed characters during the final confrontation, until finally returning the hotel to reality. As soon as this is complete, the transformations are immediately reversed.
- Over the course of "Singularity," individuals recruited by the Somnus Foundation have their bodies stolen by the cult's masters, leaving their minds trapped in the cult leadership's decaying original bodies in a Deadly Environment Prison at the Natural End of Time. However, after being subjected to the same fate in the climax, Turlough is able to resist the Somnus guard long enough to damage the power core for their psi-gate, causing so much trouble for the Somnus back on Earth that the Doctor takes advantage of their distraction to ruin their plan and reverse the transfers. Consequently, Turlough, Alexei, and the rest of the cult's victims are restored to their original bodies.
- In the climax of "Protect And Survive", the two Elder Gods who have been trapped in the roles of Albert and Peggy Marsden escape from the Prison Dimension with the help of Moloch and resume their true forms. Worse still, Ace and Hex are trapped in their stead, to the point that the two of them physically and mentally change to fit their parts despite their best efforts to resist the "Groundhog Day" Loop — to the point that they even speak with the same accents and aged cadence. However, they eventually realize that the only way to be released is to stop fighting the narrative and act out the parts of Albert and Peggy to the letter, right down to their lonely deaths from radiation sickness in the post-apocalyptic future. Once this is complete, Ace and Hex are restored to normal — and the story ends with the TARDIS arriving to rescue them.
Comic Books
- The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #100-102 feature the famous "Six-Arm Saga": Spider-Man develops a serum intended to remove his powers, but it gives him another four arms. In his mission to find a cure, he crosses paths with vampire Morbius and a returned Lizard. At the end of the story, Curt Connors reverts back from his Lizard alter ego and helps to restore Spider-Man's two arms.
- Asterix: In "Asterix and Obelix: All at Sea", Obelix spends most of the story regressed to childhood after overdosing on the potion, with Asterix and Getafix eventually going so far as to seek out Atlantis in search of a cure. While sailing home in the finale, however, a Roman ship manages to get the drop on them, knocking out Asterix and leaving him at the mercy of the legionnaires for a change. The sight of his friend's life in peril causes Obelix to revert to his true age and full strength, allowing him to single-handedly rescue Asterix.
- Locke & Key: In the climax of "Welcome to Lovecraft", the Well Witch escapes from the wellhouse with Bode's unwilling assistance and uses the Gender key to revert to his true form — namely that of Lucas "Dodge" Caravaggio. The issue ends with Dodge befriending the Lockes, totally unrecognized and ready to begin the next stage of his plan...
Fan Works
- All Assorted Animorphs AUs: The premise of "What if Jake was stuck in morph?" is that Jake became the team's resident nothlit at the end of their first major mission instead of Tobias; worse still, he's stuck in tiger morph, making his situation even harder to manage. Midway through, the Ellimist restores his morphing ability and allows him to temporarily become human again, as was the case with Tobias. Unlike Tobias, since the climax features him successfully saving his parents and Tom from the Yeerks, Jake has no reason to remain a tiger past the end of the war, so in the ending, Jake willingly traps himself in human form so he can go back to a semi-normal life with his family.
- Baby Boom
(based on The Loud House) involves all of the Loud siblings, except for Lincoln, Lisa, and Lily, being turned into babies. It has two endings — in one, they go back to normal, but in the other, they have to grow up the long way.
- In Freaked!, a fanfic based on The Loud House, a Mad Scientist uses a Ray Gun to fuse the whole Loud family together to use as a circus attraction. They eventually are able to separate themselves.
- Night of the Vampurr: Yuki becomes a vampire cat known as the vampurr and steals milk as opposed to blood. In the final chapter, Cure Lillian manages to bring her back to her old self by purifying her with a magic Cooldown Hug.
- Shrinkin' Lincoln focuses on Lincoln being shrunk to doll size from a machine Lisa invented and it ends with him being grown back to normal via the same invention.
- To Serve In Hell: Played with; at the start of the story, Rainbow Dash has been transformed into a bat-winged Thestral as reward for serving Nightmare Moon — something she does out of fear and is deeply self-loathing for. At the end of the story, she gets her feathered wings back but is not turned back into a pegasus. Instead, she becomes an Alicorn.
- Total Eclipse of the Bark: Akane spends most of the story becoming a werewolf during nightfall after Wolfrun bites her. She later gets captured by animal control when they mistake her for a feral dog. In the final chapter, her friends find the Lupinecone that will stop her transformations and give it to her when she's in the dog pound, turning her human for good. Though she still howls when she's excited.
Films — Animated
- Beauty and the Beast (1991): The Beast was once a human prince transformed by a witch's curse, whilst his servants were all transformed into Animate Inanimate Objects, and the only way they can become human again is for the Beast to earn the love of another before the last petal falls from the rose the witch gave him. He achieves this at the very end of the film when Belle makes an Anguished Declaration of Love as he lies dying, simultaneously breaking the spell and bringing him Back from the Dead. In the process, all his servants are reverted to ordinary humans as well.
- Brave: Following the final battle and as the second sunrise approaches, Merida is unable to reverse Elinor's bear transformation with the repaired family tapestry and apologizes for everything she put her through, promising to be a better princess. This is what ultimately "mends the bond torn by pride", restoring Elinor back to human form once mother and daughter have made amends.
- The Cat Returns: Haru saves a cat that turns out to be the prince of the Cat Kingdom. The Cat King has her dragged off to the Cat Kingdom to marry her off to his son, with the world shrinking Haru down to the size of a cat and turning her into one slowly. Once Haru is finally able to make it back to her world, she returns to her normal size, and her humanity is restored.
- Chopper's Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals: During the finale, Battler eats the horns of the Kirin Lion and transforms into a monster, which gives Luffy a run for his money until he breaks the horns on him. As a result, Battler is immediately reverted into an emaciated human... and then he gets hit by Luffy's Gum Gum Bazooka.
- Despicable Me 2: El Macho turns several Minions into aggressive, purple monsters with a formula; Dr. Nefario turns them back during the climax with an antidote he mixed into some bad-tasting jelly.
- The Emperor's New Groove: Emperor Kuzco spends most of the movie transformed into a llama by Yzma's potions; near the end after defeating her in the final battle, Pacha saves the antidote and Kuzco is restored back to his former self upon drinking it.
- FernGully: The Last Rainforest: Zak spends most of the film accidentally shrunken to the size of a fairy by Crysta. However, in the aftermath of the final battle with Hexxus, he decides that he needs to return to civilization and convince the rest of humanity to end logging so that the horrors he witnessed can never happen again. Though Crysta has come to genuinely love him during their time together, she recognizes the importance of this mission, so she uses her fully mastered magic to restore him, and the film ends with Zak walking away from Fern Gully at human size with Tony and Ralph in tow.
- Hotel Transylvania: Transformania: Johnny has himself turned into a monster due to Dracula telling him that he won't receive the hotel because he's human. Dracula ends up accidentally turning himself into a human in his attempts to change Johnny back before Mavis notices, forcing him to go on a journey with Johnny to get a new crystal to power the Monsterfication Ray. The Drac Pack also accidentally turn themselves into humans when they drink punch laced by the ray (with the exception of Blobby, who becomes lifeless jello). After Dracula reconciles with Johnny and proves that he sees him as part of the family, all the transformations are reversed upon getting the crystal.
- Howl's Moving Castle: By the end of the film, all the transformed characters are back to normal. Sophie and the Witch of the Waste return to their true ages, while Howl and the prince are restored to human form after having been turned into a bird creature and a scarecrow, respectively.
- The Little Mermaid (1989): Ursula the Sea-Witch owns an extensive garden of helpless polyps, and over the course of "Poor Unfortunate Souls," it's revealed that these are all former merfolk who were tricked into accepting Ursula's help and transformed as punishment for failing to pay the impossible price demanded. When Ursula is slain in the climax, all the polyps are restored to their true forms and gladly swim away to rejoin their compatriots in Atlantica.
- Megamind: A minor example. Early in the film, Megamind dehydrates a man named Bernard to steal his identity. The Stinger shows him being accidentally re-hydrated.
- My Oni Girl: Yatsuse Hiiragi turns into an Oni in the midway point of the film due to suppressing his emotions. Only by growing more assertive and being true to himself does he turn back into a human at the end of the film, though this also means he can't access Oni Village due to not being an Oni, meaning that Tsumugi has to go to him.
- Operation: Z.E.R.O.: After Grandfather is defeated, everyone he turned into Senior Citizombies and all the treehouses he turned into tapioca pudding factories turn back to normal.
- Penguins of Madagascar: Dave the Big Bad turns all the penguins ugly to get revenge on them for getting more attention than him. Private hooks himself to Dave's ugliness-inducing invention, turning all the penguins back to normal. However, this gives him antlers and polka dots in the process. In The Stinger, the penguins turn him back to normal by hooking Mort up to the machine.
- The Princess and the Frog: Prince Naveen and Tiana spend most of the film as frogs thanks to Dr Facilier, the latter due to a failed attempt to break the spell by kissing Naveen (which doesn't work, as Tiana is not a princess). After Facilier is Dragged Off to Hell in the finale and nothing changes, the two initially think they're stuck as frogs, and decide to get married so they can make the most of their new lives — only to be restored to humanity (complete with sumptuous wedding clothes) the moment Tiana kisses Naveen. It turns out that Tiana's kiss was enough to break the spell this time around becuase marriage to Naveen makes her a princess.
- Shrek 2:
- During the final battle against the Fairy Godmother, Harold protects Fiona and Shrek from a blast of magic from the Fairy Godmother's wand, which returns him to his original form of the frog prince.
- In the finale, as the clock strikes midnight and the effect of the Happily Ever After potion is about to wear off, Shrek asks Fiona to kiss him if she wants them to stay human. However, Fiona decides they're happier as ogres and they let the potion wear off, returning them and Donkey to their original forms.
- Suzume: Sōta Munakata is turned into Suzume's three-legged chair by Dajin so he'll be forced to replace him as the keystone needed to keep the Great Worm sealed. After Suzume frees him in the final battle, he is turned back into a human.
- Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Wallace gets turned into a were-rabbit after a Freak Lab Accident. At the end of the movie, he is restored by being knocked unconscious after a fall from a plane.
Films — Live-Action
- Altered States: After spending most of the film undergoing progressively worse spells of devolution as his experiments spiral out of control, Eddie transforms into a blob of protean matter that threatens to regress out of existence. Worse still, he accidentally spreads his condition to Emily, resulting in her rapidly going the same way. However, at the last minute, Eddie decides to take Emily's advice and wills his transformation out of existence with The Power of Love, then uses the same technique to cure Emily; the film ends with them fully human again, naked and hugging on the floor.
- The Dark Crystal: In the finale, Jen returns the shard to the Dark Crystal, restoring and cleansing it of all darkness. In the process, the Mystics are fused with the Skekses, revealing that the two of them used to be a single species known as the Urskeks before the Crystal cracked and divided them into their passive and aggressive halves; now that it's been repaired, the division is over and the Urskeks have been restored to their rightful forms.
- Freaked: At the end, everyone who eats the macaroons containing the cure for Zygrot-induced mutations returns to their normal form (Worm, Ortiz, and Stuey don't, since they didn't eat any).
- Hollow Man: Downplayed during the climax, in which Sebastian Caine accidentally jams a crowbar into a fusebox during a failed attack on Linda and Matt, nonlethally electrocuting him to the point that he partially reverts to visibility. Consequently, Caine's bones, organs, and muscles are fully visible in the final confrontation with Linda, but not his skin.
- Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The film ends with the kids in question being restored to normal size. Similarly, its two sequels Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, and Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves end with the giant toddler shrunk down to normal and the adult characters enlarged back to normal size (respectively).
- The Invisible Man (1933): In the finale, Jack Griffin is herded out of a burning building and into the snow where the police can easily get a fix on him, resulting in him getting shot in the chest. In hospital, he succumbs to his wounds, dying after sharing his last words with Flora, and as he does so, he returns to visibility — allowing the audience to see his face for the first and last time in the film.
- James and the Giant Peach: Early in the film, James turns into a stop motion character as a result of unknowingly eating one of the magical crocodile tongues. In the climax of the movie, he coughs the tongue out after the Giant Peach crashes into the Empire State Building and turns back into a regular human. The stop-motion giant insects, by contrast, remain their normal size.
- The Sex Trip: Eddie spends the majority of the movie living as a woman following a witch's curse. Over the course of the movie, he gains a much greater perspective on things like sexism and harassment, and generally overcomes his manipulative pick-up artist nature. As a result, he's uncursed at the end of the movie when the witch sees his development, and he wakes up that next morning as his normal self.
- Van Helsing: Halfway through the film, Van Helsing is bitten by a werewolf and condemned to be enslaved to Dracula’s will by the final stroke of midnight on his first full moon. However, he and Anna learn that a werewolf bite is also Dracula’s one weakness, and that he had a cure for the curse made for use against rebellious werewolves, so Anna goes after the cure while Van Helsing battles Dracula with what little time he has left. Immediately after the final battle is over, Anna arrives on the scene with the cure syringe ready, only for a fully transformed Van Helsing to attack her in a frenzy, killing her in the process — but not before she’s able to inject him. Cue Van Helsing letting out a Howl of Sorrow as he reverts to human form, still holding Anna’s body in his arms.
- Werewolf of London: In the finale, Dr Glendon is shot dead by the police just as he's about to kill his wife, and as he lies dying, he begins reverting to human form and regains just enough of his mind to thank his killer before he expires.
- The Witches (1990): The death of the Grand High Witch doesn't restore any of her victims to human form, and for a time, it looks like Luke is going to remain in the form of a mouse for the rest of his life. But in the finale, just as Luke is trying to convince himself that he's happy like this, the redeemed Ms Irving arrives and dramatically restores him to human form with her magic, much to the delight of both Luke and his grandmother. The film ends with the good witch leaving to presumably do the same for Bruno.
- The Wolf Man (1941): In the finale, Lawrence Talbot succumbs to the moon one final time and tries to kill Gwen, only for Sir John to come to the rescue, mortally wounding the werewolf with the silver-headed cane. As Lawrence lies dying, he slowly reverts to human form, leaving Sir John staring in horror as Gwen and Maleva mourn.
Literature
- Animorphs:
- Subverted in the climax of The Change. The Ellimist has seemingly promised to undo the Shapeshifter Mode Lock that’s left Tobias trapped in hawk morph since the end of the first book... but instead, he gives Tobias the ability to morph again, meaning that his Shapeshifter Default Form is still a hawk. At the very end, he sends Tobias back in time to acquire his human body, so Tobias can at least morph his old self.
- In the climax of The Departure, Aftran the Yeerk challenges Cassie to willingly trap herself in caterpillar morph to prove to her that a human would be willing to accept the same weaknesses as a Yeerk for the sake of peace between them. To the Yeerk’s astonishment, she actually goes through with it, prompting Aftran to swear off unwilling hosts and become an ally of the Animorphs from then on. However, in the finale, after the caterpillar undergoes metamorphosis and becomes a butterfly, Ax realizes the natural metamorphosis likely restored her morphing ability, and Cassie is able to demorph.
- A Bad Case of Stripes: A girl named Camilla suffers from an unusual condition that forces her to transform into whatever's said in her presence — for instance, getting stars and stripes patterned on her skin when the Pledge of Allegiance is spoken. An old woman cures her by giving her lima beans, which she had previously been scared to eat due to embarrassment.
- Played with in the Paul Jennings story Burp!. Here, the overweight protagonist discovers a spell that can transfer his weight to other people, and quickly begins abusing the power for the sake of revenge and sadism. However, he finds too late that when the spell finally expires after four years, everything he transferred will be returned. Worse still, the protagonist did a lot of binge-eating to build up the necessary weight before using the spell on his victims of choice — so what he gets back isn't just his original weight, but his original weight with interest . As a result, he grows so fat that he bursts out of his clothes, fills up the entire room, and dies of a heart attack.
- The Frog Prince: The story concerns a prince who was turned into a frog. Depending on the adaptation, the story ends with the princess either throwing him against the wall, kissing him, or both in succession, turning him back into a human.
- Give Yourself Goosebumps: Generally speaking, in the books that feature transformation as the main focus or a narrative complication, the Golden Ending will usually feature the player being restored to normal... if it's even possible.
- Trapped in Bat Wing Hall:
- In the Red Team plotline, you have to complete the scavenger hunt within the allotted time or be transformed into a monster just like the rest of the Horror Club's Red Team. If you can get all the items you're looking for, you not only win a reprieve, but the Red Team are restored to human form — to the point that they don't even remember that they used to be monsters.
- In the Blue Team plotline, you're transformed into a bat due to a curse and have to find a way to undo it. As such, the best endings feature you finding a cure, either with the aid of your friends on the Blue Team or the ghost of Professor Krupnik, earning you some hefty brownie points with the Horror Club; however, one ending adds a nasty twist so that while you're restored to normal, two members of the Blue Team are transformed instead — Martin into a bat, Lara into a frog.
- Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter:
- If you choose to eat the purple peanut butter, you find yourself shrinking. Needless to say, the good endings involve you managing to restore yourself to normal size before you can shrink out of existence or ending up permanently transformed. However, one twist of this involves you growing back to normal size... only to find that you're now a lot stronger and more confident than before.
- If you eat the chocolate cake, you slowly begin growing into a giant. As with the previous story path, most of the good endings feature you finding a cure courtesy of Effy or simply reverting of your own accord before you can be captured by the military... though there's also a bad ending in which you can be restored to normal size while you're cuddling with multiple tigers.
- Trapped in Bat Wing Hall:
- Goosebumps:
- Why I'm Afraid of Bees: Loser protagonist Gary attempts to temporarily swap bodies with a jock by the name of Dirk in exchange for helping Dirk get an A at Math, only to end up accidentally trapped in the body of a bee that got into the machine. In the finale, Gary confronts Dirk, who doesn't want to return the body, and in the heat of the moment, Gary stings him — which kills his bee body and undoes the transfer. As a result, Dirk is returned to a body that flunked Math due to having the mind of a bee, while Gary is returned to his own body with an added confidence boost... though he occasionally feels the urge to stick his nose in flowers.
- My Hairiest Adventure: Throughout the novel, Larry is growing patches of fur, his friends keep vanishing, and the parents in town are behaving oddly. It's not until the end that it turns out that Larry used to be a dog, as did most of the kids in town: his parents had him transformed into a human so they could have kids of their own, but now the treatment has been wearing off, hence the hair and the disappearances. By the final chapter of the novel, Larry has been fully reverted and is back to being a dog, though he's grown to accept it.
- Hagwood: Prior to the final battle in Thorn Ogres of Hagwood, Gamaliel Trumpkin muddles up the samples in his wergle pouch while trying to shapeshift to escape the villains, accidentally transforming himself into a Shapeshifter Mashup. On the upside, this makes him immune to the Thorn Ogres' use of the reversion-inducing spell, but once the fighting's done, it looks like he's stuck this way. However, during the finale, Gamaliel's sister irritably calls him by his full name — instantly restoring him to normal, much to his amusement.
- The Love of Three Oranges: this features in almost all variants of the story, as after the prince releases the maiden from the third fruit (oranges, lemon, citrus, apples, even eggs and reeds), the heroine resumes human form. After he leaves her atop a tree next to a well or spring, a slave or maidservant (false bride) appears to draw water and spots the fruit maiden. Depending on the tale:
- The slave/maidservant sticks a pin in the fruit maiden's head and turns her into a dove. She flies next to the kitchen and is caught by the prince, who removes the pin from the bird's head. The fruit maiden resumes human form.
- The slave/maidservant shoves the fruit maiden in water and she drowns. The fruit maiden goes through a cycle of incarnations: from fish in the well which is caught, cooked and eaten, to a tree species when the fish scales or a drop of blood fall on the ground, to a woodchip when the false bride asks the tree to be cut down. An old woman takes the woodchip home; from the woodchip the fruit maiden emerges, and is found out by the old woman, staying in human form until the end of the tale.
- Heavily downplayed in Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon. The protagonist unlocks his original human body at the end of the story, but it comes with the same limitations as all his other alternate forms; he can only stay in it for a limited time until it wears off and he gets forced back into his default Vending Machine form, and has to wait until it recharges before he can use it again.
- Downplayed in the Torchwood (BBC Books) novel Almost Perfect, where after almost an entire novel of Ianto having been turned into a woman by the Perfection's Device, it ends on him using the device to reset things. However, the change isn't instant, although he is aware that he is due to turn back into a man the next day and is already beginning to show stubble, and the novel instead ends with him and Jack deciding to make the most of the transformation whilst he still can.
Live-Action TV
- Bewitched: One episode is all about a frog named Fergus who was turned into a man in an inversion of Bewitched Amphibians. By the end of the episode, he gets turned back into a frog.
- Doctor Who: In the climax of "The Doctor Dances", after spending the last few weeks as a superpowered gas-masked Undead Child, the Empty Child is restored when Nancy hugs him — allowing the nanogenes infecting him to recognize his mother's DNA and undo the mistake they made when they resurrected him; when the Doctor removes the Child's gas mask a moment later, he finds Nancy's son Jamie underneath. For good measure, the Doctor follows up by reprogramming the nanogenes to cure all the people Jamie infected, finally ending the plague of gas-masked zombies.
- Farscape: "DNA Mad Scientist" features Aeryn being slowly and forcibly transformed into a Pilot as part of Namtar's Bio-Augmentation efforts, resulting in a Race Against the Clock to restore her before she's fully transformed and Namtar can fatally harvest her for useful traits. In the climax, after Namtar's been dealt with by reverting him to his original lab-rat form, Crichton and Kornata are able to reach Aeryn while there's just enough of her left to save and inject her with the pre-prepared cure; by the finale, she's back to normal.
- Misfits:
- In the second episode, Nathan strikes up a relationship with Ruth, a girl visiting the community centre alongside a group of senior citizens. However, it's discovered over the course of a rather embarrassing mid-coitus reversion that Ruth is actually an old woman who gained the power to rejuvenate herself, and unfortunately, her control over the power slips over the course of the episode. When Nathan visits her house in the finale, he discovers that Ruth has reverted one final time and died of old age - alone and unwanted.
- In a season 2 episode, Kelly befriends and ultimately falls in love with Bruno, a mysterious fugitive on the run from the police. Throughout the episode, he makes oblique references to having changed due to the Storm like the other powered individuals, but he doesn't explain how... until the climax, when he's shot by a detective — and reverts to his true form: a gorilla.
- Power Rangers in Space: During the climax, just as Zordon's wave turns most of the bad guys into sand, it also unmorphs the Power Rangers since victory is achieved and they don't have to fight anymore.
- Red Dwarf: Played for laughs in "Timeslides." In the climax, Rimmer uses the timeslides to reveal the concept of the tension sheet to his past self in the hopes of a) undoing Lister's own disastrous changes to history, and b) becoming rich from the invention of the tension sheet and never getting stuck on Red Dwarf. Because the conversation was overheard by the original inventor of the tension sheet, the latter doesn't work... but for some reason, Rimmer is no longer a hologram and is once again a tangible human being. Unfortunately, the episode ends with Rimmer excitedly punching two crates marked "explosives," accidentally blowing himself to pieces and requiring Holly to bring him back as a hologram all over again.
- The Sandman (2022): In the climax of "Lost Hearts", Fiddler's Green finally returns to the Dreaming after spending decades in the form of a human. Bidding farewell to Rose Walker, he willingly resumes his post as a Genius Loci in order to help restore the Dreaming, his body dissolving into a mass of greenery that spreads across the barren plains around them to become a beautiful forest — in which the plot is finally resolved.
- Sesame Street:
- One "Abby's Flying Fairy School" skit involves Blogg accidentally turning himself into a puppet and everyone working him through the "Pinocchio Process" to turn him back into a real boy.
- In one episode, Big Bird is frustrated with the adults being at work and thus too busy to play with him, so he wishes aloud that "all the grown-ups were exactly like kids". A fairy grants the wish by turning Alan, Maria, and Gordon into five-year-old children, and he finds this a lot of fun, but it backfires when Baby Bear can't buy porridge from Alan, Luis has trouble at the repair shop without Maria's help, and Miles is too weirded out by having a dad who's five, so Big Bird has to wish them back to their correct ages.
- In another episode, Barkley has a cold, so Mumford tries to cure him. It works, but also turns him invisible, so the episode focuses on everyone trying to turn Barkley visible again.
- In yet another episode, Mumford turns Zoe into a dog, so the rest of them have to trace him down so he can turn her back into a monster.
- Stargate Atlantis: In the episode "Common Ground", Sheppard is captured by Kolya's Genii and tortured by being repeatedly fed to a Wraith, resulting in Rapid Aging until he's on the verge of death. However, after both of them break out during the climax, the Wraith gleefully feasts on the Genii troops that were sent after them then returns enough of the extracted life-force to restore Sheppard to his original age as a means of repaying the debt.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- "Deja Q" features Q being transformed into a mortal human being by the rest of the Q Continuum as punishment for his misdeeds, leaving him struggling to help the Enterprise crew to stop the enraged victims of his previous scheme from taking revenge against both of them. In the end, a Heroic Sacrifice on Q's part prompts the Continuum to restore him to his full godlike power, and not long afterwards, he reappears on the Enterprise bridge with a mariachi band accompanying him as he celebrates his restoration.
- The climax of "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2" features the Borg being defeated, restoring Picard's mind and allowing the Enterprise's crew to undo his Unwilling Robotization. The episode ends with Picard fully human again, but clearly grappling with his traumas in the aftermath.
- In "Identity Crisis," Geordi slowly turns into an alien, since that species reproduces by converting other humanoids into one of them. Luckily, they are able to turn him back into a human by the end of the episode.
- In "The Next Phase", Geordi and Ro become invisible and intangible, or in Geordi's words, "phased", after an accident with a cloaking device. The whole episode focuses on the two of them trying to go back to normal, which they eventually do by getting the rest of the crew to flood the area with anions (negative ions).
- "Rascals" focuses on Picard, Ro, Keiko, and Guinan turning into twelve-year-olds and the rest of the crew trying to find a solution to grow them back up. By the end, they've found one that involves modifying the transporter. Ro decides to stay as a kid for a little while longer to compensate for her bad actual childhood, but she's back to normal in her next appearance.
- In "Genesis", the crew catches a disease that causes them to "devolve" into prehistoric monsters, with Riker a caveman, Worf a horned monster, Deanna a frog-like amphibian, Ogawa a hairy ape, Reg Barclay a spider creature, and Spot the cat as an iguana). Picard, Data, and Dr. Crusher must Find the Cure! before Picard and Crusher begin devolving past the point of helping. Naturally, the episode ends with the afflicted crewmembers being reverted to normal.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
- "Second Skin" kicks off with Kira waking up to find that she's become a Cardassian — more specifically, the long-lost daughter of Legate Ghemor — as part of a complicated sting operation by the Obsidian Order against the Legate. After the action is over and she's been rescued, Kira is surgically restored to normal, allowing her to sincerely wish Ghemor the best of luck in finding his real daughter.
- In "The Begotten", Constable Odo has spent the last few episodes without his shapeshifting powers, having been transformed into an ordinary human by the Dominion as punishment for siding with "Solids" over his own kind. However, over the course of the episode, Odo becomes a foster father to a sickly baby Changeling, but despite the best efforts of Dr Mora and himself, the baby's health fails in the finale. In its last moments, the baby uses the last of its strength to restore Odo's Changeling powers, leaving him overjoyed at finally being able to shapeshift again but overwhelmed with grief for the baby.
- Star Trek: Voyager:
- In "Tuvix", Tuvok and Neelix are merged into one guy, known as Tuvix. He eventually decides that he doesn't want to "die" by being split back into Tuvok and Neelix, but Janeway splits him anyway, feeling like he isn't able to speak for them.
- In "Threshold", Tom Paris breaks the "transwarp barrier" and achieves infinite velocity, which somehow turns him into a lizard-like creature, supposedly the form that humanity will eventually evolve into. He then kidnaps Janeway and takes her on a joyride through the transwarp barrier, resulting in her also turning into a lizard creature, and they have lizard babies together. Eventually, the EMH brings them back to normal by injecting them with antimatter.
- In "Favourite Son", Harry Kim begins to turn into a type of alien called a Taresian, with actual Taresians saying that he secretly was one all along. By the end of the episode, however, it turns out that they lied and were simply changing his DNA because they needed a way of reproducing due to the lack of male Taresians. When this is found out, Harry gets restored to a human.
- Star Trek: Enterprise: In "Extinction", Archer, Trip, and Hoshi land on a planet and turn into Neanderthal-like aliens who are obsessed with going to a place called "Urquat", which they eventually find out was destroyed long ago. By the end, they are changed back into humans.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- The Twilight Zone (1959): In "The Four of Us are Dying", con artist Archie Hammer can alter his face to accurately mimic just about anyone, a talent he uses to rip off numerous people throughout the episode. At the end of the episode, he's shot by someone with a grudge against his current persona, and as he lies dying, he cycles backward through all the faces he's imitated over the course of the story, ending with his own face.
- The Worst Witch: In one episode, Mildred does a spell on herself to make herself wise, and it works but it does so by making her old. The effects of the spell are said to last anywhere between a week and a year, but thankfully, in this case, they only last a week and are over by the end of the episode.
Tabletop Games
- Vampire: The Masquerade: Can occur in every single Gehenna scenario.
- "Wormwood": In the event that the player characters are able to reach the end of their divine trials without succumbing to temptation, they will be restored to full humanity while all other vampires on Earth are destroyed by God.
- "Fair Is Foul": No matter which faction you side with, the scenario ends with Caine dying, ending vampirism on the spot. All vampires become humans again, which can kill the players if they're older than the human limit or fail the stamina roll... but if you didn't go out of your way to antagonize Lilith, she'll give you a drink of her blood, allowing you to pass the stamina roll, so you'll at least be able to survive long enough to enjoy your newfound humanity.
- "Nightshade": In the finale, the reincarnated Saulot assumes the full burden of Caine's curse and sacrifices himself to cleanse the world of the Curse of Caine and destroy the Antediluvians once and for all; as a result, the epilogue features vampires all over the world being gradually restored to humanity, including the players.
- "The Crucible Of God": In the first ending, the Divine Judgement brought down on Tzimisce destroys all vampires as well, leaving behind only the creatures they created and any Antediluvians to have transcended vampirism. In the wake of all this, players will awake from their final torpors to discover that they have become mortal again, allowing them to join humanity rebuilding the ruined planet.
Video Games
- Castle Chase: The game ends when Monica either finds love with a boy or leaves the castle, with the Delmar Ending being the conclusion that breaks a transformation curse on the beloved, and with it, the game ends since Monica has found love.
- Chrono Trigger: The character Frog was turned into a humanoid frog when he confronted Magus previously, and remains a frog until the end, regardless of how his story plays out. In the easiest-to-obtain endings, he's shown as returned to his handsome human form. Two more avert it; he challenges Magus to a fight to the death, with it left ambiguous who survives, or Marle is shown to have frog-like traits, implying a still frog-like Frog was her ancestor. The PSX and DS versions add a final ending, where he's returned to human form on-camera after being knighted.
- Darkwatch: In the event that you follow the Good Karma path all the way to the final boss battle, the good ending features Jericho Cross being cleansed of vampirism by Cassidy's angelic spirit, allowing him to go back to riding the Wild West as an ordinary human.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: After Link and Zelda seal away Vaati, Ezlo, who Vaati turned into a hat before the beginning of the game, is turned back into a Minish.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: After Link defeats Ganondorf, the Light Spirits are implied to not only revive Midna but restore her to her true Twili form after being an imp for the duration of the game.
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: After Link defeats the Demon Dragon, the souls of Rauru and Sonia combine their powers to transform Zelda back from the mindless Light Dragon she's been for more than 10,000 years.
- Luigi's Mansion: After Luigi defeats King Boo, the last cutscene of the game involves Mario being transformed back to normal from the portrait he was stuck in.
- Marathon: Halfway through the Game Mod RED, the Big Bad captures the Player Character and forcibly transforms him into a human-cyborg-alien Hybrid Monster known as the Reaver. The ending slide shows the protagonist reverting to human form, though the line "the dark gifts remain" implies he is Not Quite Back to Normal.
- Mighty No. 9: During her boss battle, Trinity first starts in a spherical cloud form during her boss fight; she later transforms into a caterpillar, before finally reverting her true form as a metallic floating gynoid after Beck defeats and absorbs her Xel.
- Mischief Makers: If the player collects enough yellow gems throughout the levels, they may see a post-credit scene where the prior enemies are returned to human form. With all the gems, the player may also watch Marina get converted into a human as well.
- Quest for Glory II: At the end of the game, the saurus is reverted to human form, Emir Arus al-Din, the rightful ruler of Razier.
- Rune: Although Loki claimed that he would be rejected by Odin due to willfully transforming, Ragnar is reverted to human form without explanation upon entering Valhalla.
- Wearing the Claw: A curse causes people to slowly transform into animals, starting with one of the hands, and the quest is to retrieve a pendant to stop the curse. At the end, the curse is actually removed by the captive wizard, who places the effects onto the one responsible for the curse.
- Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap ends with the polymorphic protagonist restored to Hu-Man form. The remake adds exclusive Post-End Game Content for this as well as all of the transformations.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Implied during the epilogue, where Fiora is no longer in her Mechon body after Shulk remakes the world, but no explanation is given in-game, so one could assume Shulk used his temporary godlike abilities to turn Fiora back into a Homs. The actual details as to how she was turned back are detailed in the supplementary story contained within Xenoblade: The Secret File - Monado Archives, in which the party finds an ancient High Entia regeneration chamber shortly before they enter the Bionis Interior.
Webcomics
- Misfile: The comic ends with the titular misfile in the Celestial Bureaucracy being fixed by Ash returning to being male, while everything he did as a girl is filed off into a new human that's Cosmic Retconned into existence as his twin sister.
Western Animation
- Aladdin: The Series: In "Eye of the Beholder", thanks to a magical ointment provided by Mirage, Princess Jasmine is progressively transformed into a naga-like creature over the course of the episode. Worse still, the tree with the fruit that could cure her is destroyed. However, against all expectations, Aladdin uses the ointment on himself so the two of them can be together, proving Mirage wrong about true love in the process. With Mirage having lost the bet with him, Fasir restores the tree, allowing Aladdin and Jasmine to cure themselves and end the episode having fully reverted to human beings.
- Centaurworld: An Elktaur splits himself into an elk and a human so he can be together with the Woman he fell in love with as a human. However, both halves inherited the Elktaur's memories and took turns for the worst, with the human half (aka The General) getting everything he wants and becoming too selfish to let it go, and the Elk mutating himself into the Nowhere King as a result of misusing the Key. The Woman eventually fuses the two back together into their original form as the Elktaur before confessing she would have loved him just the way he was and killing him to end the war.
- Futurama:
- In "The Honking", Bender (a robot) gets run over by a "were-car" (a robot that turns into a feral, sentient, howling car every full moon) and thus turns into one. The curse was started off by an evil car named Project Satan, so Bender's friends set off to kill Project Satan to turn Bender (and by extension, the other were-cars) back to normal. They succeed, but not without a scuffle during which Bender thinks he's killed Fry.
- In "Leela and the Genestalk", Leela gets a disease where she starts growing tentacles on her body. She's eventually cured with genetic engineering.
- In "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles", the Planet Express team take Dr Farnsworth to a Neptunian spa where he can be rejuvenated to a more manageable age in a special tar bath...only to end up falling into the tar pit as well and being regressed to their early teenage years. The middle-aged Farnsworth attempts to reverse the process, only to end up inducing Merlin Sickness in everyone except Leela, forcing them to seek out the Fountain of Age before they can suffer a Death by De-aging; in the finale, they manage to reach it just as Amy and Fry become fetuses, and a quick dip restores them to their original ages.
- Gargoyles:
- "The Mirror" sees Demona summon Puck from a magic mirror and order him to get rid of Elisa and the humans. However, trickster that he is, he merely transforms the humans into gargoyles and the Manhattan clan into humans. After Demona and Puck are defeated, he reverses the spell and changes everyone back into their true forms.
- In "Eye of the Beholder", Xanatos gives his fiancee Fox a pendant known as the Eye of Odin. Due to its magical nature, it turns Fox into a werefox. In a race to save her before her body self-destructs from the high metabolic rate, Xanatos begrudgingly enlists Goliath and Elisa's help. During the climax, they manage to pry the amulet from Fox, reverting her to her original form, exhausted but alive.
- The Eye of Odin once again causes trouble in "Eye of the Storm", in which Goliath, Elisa, Bronx, and Angela meet Odin. Odin wants his eye returned to him, but past experiences with the Children of Oberon cause Goliath to distrust him and don the Eye himself. He then becomes the Protector, a superpowered version of himself. However, like with Fox, the Eye soon corrupts him and he becomes tyrannical and extremist. During the climax, Goliath realizes what he's become and tears the Eye away, bringing him back to normal.
- Gravity Falls: The zombies in "Scary-oke" turn anyone they bite into one of them, with Soos as one of their unfortunate victims. During the climax, the Pines twins and Grunkle Stan use their karaoke skills to blow up the zombies' brains and ultimately save Soos, reverting him to normal.
- Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs:
- In "Abracadabra!", Harry tries using a magic wand, but accidentally grows flowers out of Steggy's ears, saws Sid in half and reattaches his top half backwards, turns Patsy into a mouse and Trike into a chicken, and makes Taury and Pterence switch bodies. The episode ends with Mr. Wiggle Nose telling him to use his own wand to bring them back to normal by believing it will work, which does work.
- In "You're Too Little", Harry is sick of being short, so he drinks magic milk that makes him a giant. He finds this fun at first, but then decides it's too inconvenient being that much bigger than his friends, so he drinks some different milk to make him shrink, but he becomes too small (about the size of an ant). Luckily, there is a third glass of milk to make him normal-sized.
- In "I Wish it Were Yesterday", Harry time-travels back to the previous day, but time keeps reversing, to the point where the characters become several years younger. By the end, they reset the magic clock to return to their correct ages.
- In "Now You See Me", Harry turns invisible using a magic hat. The first half of the episode shows him finding this fun, but the second half is all about him trying, and eventually succeeding, to become visible again.
- The Loud House: In the episode "Small Blunder" focuses on Lily bringing her Child Prodigy sister Lisa's Shrink Ray to preschool for show-and-tell and accidentally shrinking herself and her classmates. They all work together to get to the shrink ray so they can reverse the change by the ending.
- The Mask: Animated Series: In the climax of "Little Big Mask", just when it seems that all hope is lost and Stanley is about to suffer a Death by De-aging, Peggy manages to improvise an antidote to the Mask's uncontrollable rejuvenation cream from baby wipes, restoring the infant Stanley to adulthood. Much jubilation and relief ensue, followed swiftly by embarrassment when Stanley realizes he's still wearing nothing but a diaper. In the final scene, however, the Mask doses himself with the cream all over again, this time using some on Peggy for good measure...
- Mega Man (Ruby-Spears): In "The Incredible Shrinking Mega Man," the Blue Bomber is shrunken down to a tiny fraction of his normal size upon being zapped by a Shrink Ray and is restored at the end of the episode after he defeats Wily.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- In "Bridle Gossip", the protagonists wake up with bizarre transformations, which they presume are a Curse put on them by Zecora — Twilight Sparkle's horn has gone limp, Pinkie Pie now has a swollen, polka-dot tongue, Applejack has shrunk, Fluttershy now has a stallion's voice, Rainbow Dash's wings are facing the wrong way making her a clumsy flier, and Rarity's fur has grown extremely wrong. In the end, it turns out that the transformations are not a curse, but the results of a plant called "poison joke", and Zecora, who is Good All Along, turns them back to normal by bathing them in a special liquid.
- In "The Secret of My Excess", Spike grows into a giant and becomes a rampaging kleptomaniac who only speaks in primitive sentences like "Spike want". Zecora explains that this is due to excessive Greed, and so the only cure is to stop him from being greedy. He eventually turns back to normal when he is generous to his crush Rarity.
- In the episode "Bats," Fluttershy is turned into a feral batpony by a misfired spell. Her friends find a way to return her to normal by the episode's end, though the final shot shows that she still has Cute Little Fangs.
- In "Growing Up is Hard to Do", Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle wish they were adults so they could go to a fair on their own since the adults are too busy to take them. By the end of it, they have to wish they were foals again and age back down.
- Peppa Pig: Used In-Universe in one episode, in which Peppa tells George a story she made up about a pig named Georgie Pig, who grows into a giant, goes on an adventure, and eventually shrinks back down to normal.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Monkey See, Doggy Do", Mojo turns the entire world into dogs with the head of Anubis. He later turns the Powerpuff Girls into puppies, stripping them of their powers. Buttercup bites him on the ass, causing him to lose his grip on it and it shatters to the floor. This turns everyone human again, except for Mojo, who becomes a dog and is sent to the pound.
- Ready Jet Go!: In "Jet Shrinks the Kids", Mindy is sad that she's the shortest of her friends, so Jet makes a Shrink Ray to make himself and the gang as short as her. It works too well and they end up becoming as small as mice. At the end of the episode, Mindy reverses the effects of the shrink ray to restore the gang to their original heights.
- The Real Ghostbusters:
- In "Poultrygeist", Egon and a woman named Maude turn into were-chickens. By the end of the episode, both are turned back into humans via a potion with an ingredient called "chicken-bane".
- In "Egon's Ghost", Egon becomes non-corporeal after an accident on a job. The whole episode involves bringing him back to normal before he fades into nothing.
- In "Short Stuff", the Ghostbusters all get shrunk. They return to normal size using a spell by the end of the episode.
- In "Stay Tooned", all the Ghostbusters except Peter turn into Funny Animals (Ray is a pig, Winston is a dog, and Egon is a bird) due to the antics of the main villain, Sammy. When Sammy is trapped in the finale, the Ghostbusters turn back into humans.
- In "Three Men and an Egon", Egon starts aging backwards due to a haunted clock. The episode follows the others trying to turn him back to normal before he dies, and also trying to babysit him as he turns into a child, then a baby. The effects are ultimately undone by the finale.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- Subverted in "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy IV", in which SpongeBob's goofing around with Mermaid Man's utility belt causes him to accidentally shrink Squidward. Frantically trying to undo it, SpongeBob ends up shrinking more and more people to keep his secret... until he's shrunken everyone in Bikini Bottom. Including Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. When Mermaid Man can't remember how to reverse the shrink ray ("Did you set it to Wumbo?"), the citizens go wild and attack SpongeBob from the inside. Eventually, he has the idea to just shrink Bikini Bottom and then himself. The townspeople agree that there's no functional difference, so all's well that ends well. And then Plankton comes back into town.
- In "Giant Squidward", Squidward grows into a giant due to a mishap with some liquid that was supposed to grow his kelp. SpongeBob and Patrick make said kelp into a giant clarinet for him, and somehow, playing it shrinks him back to normal — which disappoints him, as now he can no longer play it.
- Star Trek: The Animated Series:
- In "The Terratin Incident", the crew all gets shrunk to the size of Lilliputians. They grow back to normal by the end.
- In "The Ambergris Element", amphibious aliens turn Kirk and Spock into amphibians as well. By the end, they're convinced to turn them back.
- In "The Counter-Clock Incident", the Enterprise crew goes to a dimension where time goes backward, so the crew starts de-aging into teens and kids. Luckily, they manage to return to their home dimension before anyone dies.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In "Marco Jr.", Marco commissions a portrait by Cobalt Ferrero to give to his future sibling. Since the usual process takes longer than Marco wants, he opts for the quicker process, which involves a personality quiz. However, as Marco's essence is gleaned from said quiz, Marco unfortunately answers it too quickly and the portrait — and eventually himself — takes on a hideous caricature. Since Marco gradually becomes less and less able to move, his parents try to remedy his predicament by taking the quiz on his behalf. However, the transformation gets worse because the Diazes don't know their son as well as they think they do. Star then answers the quiz for Marco and her truthful responses reverse his transformation.
- Static Shock:
- In "Tantrum", Virgil realizes that his classmate Thomas Kim transforms into the meta human monster Tantrum when he's angry but has no awareness or control of it. Taking inspiration from how his late mother dealt with his own childhood temper tantrums, Virgil lets him wear himself out, far away from where he can hurt anyone, until Tantrum transforms back into Thomas at the end of their climactic confrontation.
- In the finale of "The Usual Suspect", Virgil lures the monster Tamara to the carousel. To keep her from hurting Marcus, Virgil ties her to the carousel and amps up the sound system, knowing that Tamara has sensitive ears. This causes her to transform back to human form.
- Steven Universe:
- "An Indirect Kiss" sees Amethyst accidentally crack her gem, which gradually distorts her light form. Steven and the Gems then take her to Rose's healing fountain, which has unfortunately been overrun with thorns from being underused. Near the end of the episode, Pearl and Garnet fix the fountain and the tears produced from the statue heal Amethyst's gem.
- In "Mirror Gem", Steven receives a Gem mirror that can communicate with him via recorded instances it witnessed. Once he learns that the mirror is actually powered by a trapped Gem, Steven frees the Gem near the end of the episode, thereby allowing the Gem to regain her form as Lapis Lazuli.
- In "Change Your Mind", Steven is at last able to convince the Diamonds to permanently heal the corrupted Gems, gathering them in Rose's spring to combine their power and restore the sanity and forms of the Gems left broken monsters for millennia. However, the process is not flawless and the Gems are still left with traits like horns or discolored skin.
- Steven Universe: Future: In "I Am My Monster", Steven's mental breakdown causes him to transform into a massive pink kaiju. After spending the episode trying to fight him, the climax sees the Gems deciding to calm him down with a Cooldown Hug, prompting him to cry, allowing his healing tears to mix with the Diamonds' essences and revert him to normal form.
