History Main / BoredWithInsanity

* ''[[Anime/Danganronpa3TheEndOfHopesPeakHighSchool Danganronpa 3 The End Of Hope's Peak High School: Future]]: [[spoiler: This leads to the end of Monaca's story in ''Danganronpa''. After the end of [[''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'' Ultra Despair Girls,]] her plans were foiled and she was rescued by Nagito, who was brainwashed into being a Remnant of Despair. Since her original plan of corrupting Komaru Naegi into Junko's Successor failed, Nagito proposed an alternative: train '''Monaca'' into becoming the Successor. After all, thanks to being defeated, Monaka finally learned the meaning of despair, so she had the potential to do so. Ironically, Nagito, the one who proposed the idea, would also ruin it. His constant crazed diatribes on hope and despair eventually caused Monaca to become bored and disillusioned with the conflict for the fate of the world. As she admits to Komaru and Toko, Nagito made Monaca realize that she didn't want to become crazy like him; therefore, she didn't want to become crazy like Junko.]]

* '''Literature/{{Worm}}'': This is explicitly stated by the villain Gray Boy to be the ultimate [[FateWorseThanDeath fate]] of the victims who fall foul to his TimeLoopTrap ability. Not that it alleviates their suffering or helps them escape their current predicament in any way.

* ''WebOriginal/Worm'': This is explicitly stated by the villain Gray Boy to be the ultimate [[FateWorseThanDeath fate]] of the victims who fall foul to his TimeLoopTrap ability. Not that it alleviates their suffering or helps them escape their current predicament in any way.

* ''Literature/Worm'': This is explicitly stated by the villain Gray Boy to be the ultimate [[FateWorseThanDeath fate]] of the victims who fall foul to his TimeLoopTrap ability. Not that it alleviates their suffering or help them escape their current predicament in any way.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'', "[[DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd Journey's End]]": Dalek Caan, after escaping, through an emergency temporal shift, from the Doctor and the humans of 1930 New York City, he somehow ends up breaking through the timelock of the Last Great Time War, and happens to rescue Davros, creator of the Daleks. The breach into the Time War causes Caan to see the past, present, and future perfectly clearly. In the words of Davros, Caan went insane, and predicted several prophecies, seemingly for the benefit of the Daleks, in the process. Eventually, Caan ends up in the then-present day of 2009 with the rest of the Dalek fleet, on the Reality Bomb at the near-end of all creation. If one considers, though, that the Daleks are already insane (as the 10th Doctor intones to one before the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday Battle of Canary Wharf]]), then Caan went ''sane'', as Davros realizes Caan's ProphecyTwist against the Daleks, when Donna disables the Bomb and saves all of reality:

* ''Series/DoctorWho'', "Journey's End": Dalek Caan, after escaping, through an emergency temporal shift, from the Doctor and the humans of 1930 New York City, he somehow ends up breaking through the timelock of the Last Great Time War, and happens to rescue Davros, creator of the Daleks. The breach into the Time War causes Caan to see the past, present, and future perfectly clearly. In the words of Davros, Caan went insane, and predicted several prophecies, seemingly for the benefit of the Daleks, in the process. Eventually, Caan ends up in the then-present day of 2009 with the rest of the Dalek fleet, on the Reality Bomb at the near-end of all creation. If one considers, though, that the Daleks are already insane (as the 10th Doctor intones to one before the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday Battle of Canary Wharf]]), then Caan went ''sane'', as Davros realizes Caan's ProphecyTwist against the Daleks, when Donna disables the Bomb and saves all of reality:

-->'''Maxie:''' ''[After witnessing an explosion that kills his nephew]'' ...Get my toga.

* Wrestling/SamiCallihan had long come to realize he was little "weird" by the time EVOLVE started up but had also come to embrace it, loudly updating anyone who would listen about his ever changing obsessions. Then he got suspended for attacking Wrestling/ElGenerico and was deeply remorseful, vowing to go on a {{redemption quest}} to make up for it during his banned days. It wasn't until Dave Finlay [[WarriorTherapist beat some sense]] in Sami that he realized obsession and insanity were ''problems'' though. And despite gaining a desire to be sane, he still really wasn't.

* [[GreatGazoo Puck]] from ''{{WesternAnimation/Gargoyles}}'' noted that for all his centuries being a GreatGazoo, he had never tried the role of the StraightMan--which is why he [[spoiler:invented the identity of [[TheStoic Owen Brunett]].]]
* Vandal Savage in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', becomes [[TheMadHatter self-conscious of his own mental instability]] in the BadFuture depicted in "Hereafter", where his megalomania caused the ruination of the solar system and the extinction of the human race, causing him to spend the next 30,000 years ''utterly'' alone. As he bitterly admits, destroying the world and realizing [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone he'd gone too far]] was just the catalyst needed to force him to become a better man.
-->'''Superman:''' Self-help books? You don't seem the type.
-->'''Vandal Savage:''' (''Shrugs'') I read [[AfterTheEnd whatever I can find]]. Besides I've got ''issues'', what with [[ApocalypseHow/Class3A destroying the Earth]] and all.

*** Given that he once attacked someone for having an improperly-set clock, his problem is simply a ''different'' form of insanity, probably an extremely severe form of [[ObsessivelyOrganized Hollywood OCD]].

* In ''LightNovel/JigokuNoGoukaDeYakaReTsuzuketaShounen'', it's implied that the unbearable agony of having his soul scorched by all the fires of Hell drove Flare to madness as he screams about not wanting to save the world anymore. But after a thousand years of it, he just becomes bored as the pain level never increases. By the end of his stay in Hell, he's so used to it that he stops to marvel at how pretty the flames burning him are.

* ''ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}'' did this apparently, in an alternative future featuring in a run of the ''ComicBook/XForce'' series while Cable was raising Hope. He hides in a meat locker, gets buried within it, goes insane, plays tic tac toe for a few hundred years, gets bored, plays hangman against a split personality he developed on purpose in order to be able to play hangman (complete with a college graduation hat), decides his other personality is too intelligent and kills it, and then gets bored, goes sane, more or less, and gets freed by a bunch of scavengers. All in 800 years. "Sane" is a relative term for [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Deadpool]].

''"At first, I went mad, of course. But after a few millennia, I got bored with that, too, and went sane. '''Very''' sane."''

->'''Lenore:''' You've gone mad!\\
'''Hector:''' I've been mad. This doesn't feel like that. Maybe I've gone sane.
-->-- ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017''

[[folder:Real Life]]
* This is essentially the goal of [[http://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/exposure-therapy.aspx exposure therapy]]: by exposing someone to their triggers in a controlled manner and environment, the patient eventually grows desensitized to them and, ideally, bored by them to the degree that their fear either goes away or becomes manageable.
[[/folder]]

*** Given that he once attacked someone for having an improperly-set clock, his problem is simply a ''different'' form of insanity, probably an extremely severe form of [[SuperOCD Hollywood OCD]].

Usually, this is more of a throwaway piece of dialogue or plot to explain how a character has managed to go back to normal or left the ranks of {{Cloudcuckoolander}}s. Of course, it is ''by definition'' uttered by an UnreliableNarrator, so they may or may not be as sane as they claim. Compare CrazySane, where one adopts the traits of a madman to survive a maddening world.

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/JLA1997 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/joker_sane.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:MyGodWhatHaveIDone]]

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/ComicBook/JLA1997 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/joker_sane.jpg]]]]

* Seemingly happened to Johan in ''Manga/{{Monster}}''. He has been a mass murdering psychopath for pretty much all of his life, but he seems to have become pretty nonchalant about all the evil plots and groups that revolve around him and the possibility that he is the AntiChrist. He has seen a vision of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt several times, and while other characters are either horrified or entranced by this, he has grown weary of it and doesn't regard it as a big deal any more. His suicidal impulses can be traced to boredom with his own sociopathy.

* ''ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}'' did this apparently, in an alternative future featuring in a run of the ''ComicBook/XForce'' series while Cable was raising Hope. He hides in a meat locker, gets buried within it, goes insane, plays tic tac toe for a few hundred years, gets bored, plays hangman against a split personality he developed on purpose in order to be able to play hangman (complete with a college graduation hat), decides his other personality is too intelligent and kills it, and then gets bored, goes sane, more or less, and gets freed by a bunch of scavengers. All in 800 years. "Sane" is a relative term for [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Deadpool]].
* In ''Comicbook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'', Dr. Eggman pulled off something similar in the ten issues following his descent into insanity in #200. A stray rebuke by another character caused the delusional doctor to begin to mumble and ponder, and seemingly through free-association, brought himself back to sanity, or at least a functional level of madness.

[[folder:FanWorks]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* Invoked, in a sense, by Harry Dresden in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''. Harry views the pure essence of one of the evil creatures on Earth, and the immutable image of it knocks him unconscious and nearly drives him insane. Harry's response is to get to a quiet, dark room and repeatedly hammer his brain with the image of the monster until it loses all impact on him. Years later, Harry still stumbles in his speech when he occasionally remembers the monster, but it can no longer drive him to the edge like it used to.

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''
** Arthur Dent in ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything'' decided to go mad after being stranded on prehistoric Earth for a few years and Ford Prefect tells him this is a good idea (but that insanity is a gradual process and he shouldn't rush). Ford also says that he went mad for a bit and spent several months thinking he was a lemon and jumping in and out of a lake that thought it was a gin & tonic (at least he ''thinks'' it thought it was a gin & tonic... he may have been imagining it). Then he got bored with that, went sane, and [[ItMakesSenseInContext tried to learn to fly.]]
--> '''Arthur:''' This is you sane again, is it? I ask merely for information.
** Wonko the Sane in ''Literature/SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish''. Considering he believes that everyone is insane, and he decided to go sane and build a nice little asylum for everything in the universe save for himself, a small house, and the Pacific Ocean. Whether he is this or not depends on whether you agree.

* Distantly related: Gabriel Syme from Creator/GKChesterton's ''Literature/TheManWhoWasThursday''. The family he's born into is so full of social radicals, political radicals, religious radicals, and miscellaneous crackpots that when he reaches his teenage years, the only way he can rebel against his family is to become ''normal''.
* Creator/TerryPratchett is fond of this: the obvious example is Vorbis from ''[[Literature/{{Discworld}} Small Gods]].''
** Also with Jeremy Clockson in ''[[Literature/{{Discworld}} Thief of Time]]''. Without medication, he becomes ''too'' sane.

** The duke in ''Wyrd Sisters'' alternates between this and being [[AxCrazy a complete and utter loony]]. The relevant quote is:

* Nakor from ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'' books often seems to be [[ObfuscatingStupidity only marginally sane]], except when something important is happening, in which case he becomes absolutely lucid. It's later revealed that he has in his possession an artifact that can [[GoMadFromTheRevelation reveal any and all knowledge at the cost of the owner's sanity]], but "you can only be crazy for so long" and he's had it [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld for a very long time]]...
* [[BodyHorror Very bad things]] have been happening to Colonel Jax on a sentient hospital ship in Creator/AlastairReynolds' short story "Nightingale". [[spoiler: He's been surgically altered into a human artwork intended to represent the horror of war.]] When told that he seems proud of the results (though still quietly crazy), he responds, "Would you rather I screamed? I can scream if you like. It just gets old after a while."
* Ishamael, TheDragon for [[GodOfEvil the Dark One]] in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''. When we first see him he is easily angered, has NoIndoorVoice, and is basically inhuman, and he's so gone so insane that [[DevilComplex he believes]] he ''is'' the Dark One. After he dies and gets a new body, he's reached the other side of insanity; his new incarnation Moridin is a calm, patient [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] who regularly draws on [[TheDarkSide the True Power]], which is supposed to be addictive and madness-inducing, with no negative side-effects. He's still a nihilistic OmnicidalManiac, but he's perfectly logical and philosophical in his reasoning. He gradually degrades back toward his original personality- the cost of being DrunkOnTheDarkSide.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* In season 5 of ''Series/TheATeam'', Murdoch is declared sane. The matter of whether or not he was ever insane was treated with ambiguity and inconsistency.
* The 1999 TV miniseries ''Noah's Ark'' has a variant: Noah, his three sons, and their wives all gradually GoMadFromTheIsolation on the boat. But when Noah's ''wife'' finally cracks, or appears to, the other seven are so horrified that they abruptly [[GetAholdOfYourselfMan go sane again]].
* In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', this is one of the reasons Zoom [[spoiler:created the persona of Jay Garrick and pretended to be the heroic Flash of Earth 2. The other reason was ForTheEvulz]].

* Fujiwara no Mokou from ''Franchise/TouhouProject''. We only meet her after she's calmed down, but apparently she spent 300 years in a state where she could only preserve her sense of identity by killing everyone she met. And then got bored of that so she spent 300 years doing ''nothing''. And then she got better.
* ''VideoGame/TombRaider2013:'' Lara theorizes at one point that [[BigBad Mathias]] is "so beyond crazy that maybe he's come right back around to some kind of sane." (Since the story was written by ''Creator/RhiannaPratchett'', Daughter of ''Creator/TerryPratchett'' this was most likely a nod to her father's work.)
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' as rather than being caused by boredom, Sheogorath was cursed by the other Daedric Princes to undergo this during the Greymarch every thousand years. [[spoiler:The curse causes him to briefly revert to his original self as the Daedric Prince of Order, Jyggalag and destroy the Shivering Isles, only to lose his mind again afterwards and become the MadGod once more]]. During the ''Shivering Isles DLC'', Sheogorath requests the Champion of Cyrodiil's aid in helping him prevent the latest Greymarch.
* Played with in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', where Sheogorath remains a CloudCuckoolander, but is noticeably calmer and more inclined to PetTheDog than before. [[spoiler:This is heavily implied to be because they are really the Champion of Cyrodiil, who became the ''[[LegacyCharacter new]]'' Sheogorath at the end of ''Shivering Isles'' and chooses to be a far [[BenevolentBoss more]] [[TookALevelInKindness benevolent]] deity than their predecessor.]]
* Faust of ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear''. Once a brilliant doctor until a young girl died on his operating table, then the guilt drove him insane and he became a psychotic serial killer named Dr. Baldhead. One day, he had a vision from the girl saying that her death wasn't his fault and that she was assassinated, so he had a major FreakOut from the revelation and disappeared. Now he's back, [[TheAtoner he's sane]], he goes by Faust, he wears a paper bag over his head, and he's no longer AxCrazy. Downplayed in that he's not completely sane and the old bloodlust is still there, just held back by his self-control.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* [[GreatGazoo Puck]] from ''{{WesternAnimation/Gargoyles}}'' noted that for all his centuries being a GreatGazoo, he had never tried the role of the StraightMan--which is why he [[spoiler:invented the identity of [[TheStoic Owen Brunett]].]]

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' mentions that this happened to the second title character, Harry's godfather Sirius Black. Sirius is introduced as an AxCrazy {{Fantastic Terrorist|s}} who betrayed the Potters to [[BigBad Voldemort]] and murdered another former friend, Peter Pettigrew, in an explosion that also killed a dozen {{Muggles}}. When the authorities caught him, he was LaughingMad--presumably brought on by Voldemort's [[OnlyMostlyDead apparent]] death, and not helped by the Black family's history of mental illness. But Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge visited Sirius in [[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]] not long before the latter busted out in the first known escape in Azkaban's history.[[note]][[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire The next book]] mentions that another of Voldemort's followers (that is, [[spoiler:one of his ''actual'' followers, unlike Sirius]]) secretly escaped over a decade before Sirius, though Sirius was the first prisoner to escape on his own while the latter escapee had help from his parents.[[/note]] Fudge later recalls that Sirius was unnervingly lucid, appearing unaffected by all the [[EmotionEater joy-sucking]] [[EldritchAbomination Dementors]] outside his cell and merely bored by his surroundings. Sirius ultimately turns out to have become TooBrokenToBreak, fueled by ThePowerOfHate instead of by any positive feelings that the Dementors could drain. It helps that he's [[spoiler:actually innocent: ''Peter'' betrayed the Potters and, when Sirius hunted him down for retribution, faked his own death by causing the explosion and cutting off his own finger before turning into a rat and fleeing down a drain. (In truth, Sirius was laughing incoherently because he was so distraught.) Without much happiness left for the Dementors to consume, Sirius came to rely on anger over his friends' deaths and his wrongful imprisonment to keep himself going. Eventually, the realization that Peter was still alive and in a position to hurt Harry gave Sirius the motivation he needed to break out.]]

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' mentions that this happened to the second title character, Harry's godfather Sirius Black. Sirius is introduced as an AxCrazy {{Fantastic Terrorist|s}} who betrayed the Potters to [[BigBad Voldemort]] and murdered another former friend, Peter Pettigrew, in an explosion that also killed a dozen {{Muggles}}. When the authorities caught him, he was LaughingMad--presumably brought on by Voldemort's [[OnlyMostlyDead apparent]] death, and not helped by the Black family's history of mental illness. But Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge visited Sirius in [[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]] not long before the latter busted out in the first known escape in Azkaban's history.[[note]][[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire The next book]] mentions that another of Voldemort's followers (that is, [[spoiler:one of his ''actual'' followers, unlike Sirius]]) secretly escaped over a decade before Sirius, though Sirius was the first to escape on his own while the latter escapee had help from his parents.[[/note]] Fudge later recalls that Sirius was unnervingly lucid, appearing unaffected by all the [[EmotionEater joy-sucking]] [[EldritchAbomination Dementors]] outside his cell and merely bored by his surroundings. Sirius ultimately turns out to have become TooBrokenToBreak, fueled by ThePowerOfHate instead of by any positive feelings that the Dementors could drain. It helps that he's [[spoiler:actually innocent: ''Peter'' betrayed the Potters and, when Sirius hunted him down for retribution, faked his own death by causing the explosion and cutting off his own finger before turning into a rat and fleeing down a drain. (In truth, Sirius was laughing incoherently because he was so distraught.) Without much happiness left for the Dementors to consume, Sirius came to rely on anger over his friends' deaths and his wrongful imprisonment to keep himself going. Eventually, the realization that Peter was still alive and in a position to hurt Harry gave Sirius the motivation he needed to break out.]]

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' mentions that this happened to the second title character, Harry's godfather Sirius Black. Sirius is introduced as an AxCrazy {{Fantastic Terrorist|s}} who betrayed the Potters to [[BigBad Voldemort]] and murdered another former friend, Peter Pettigrew, in an explosion that also killed a dozen {{Muggles}}. When the authorities caught him, he was LaughingMad--presumably brought on by Voldemort's [[OnlyMostlyDead apparent]] death, and not helped by the Black family's history of mental illness. But Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge visited Sirius in [[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]] not long before the latter busted out in the first known escape in Azkaban's history.[[note]][[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire The next book]] mentions that another of Voldemort's followers secretly escaped over a decade before Sirius, though Sirius was the first to escape on his own while the latter escapee had help from his parents.[[/note]] Fudge later recalls that Sirius was unnervingly lucid, appearing unaffected by all the [[EmotionEater joy-sucking]] [[EldritchAbomination Dementors]] outside his cell and merely bored by his surroundings. Sirius ultimately turns out to have become TooBrokenToBreak, fueled by ThePowerOfHate instead of by any positive feelings that the Dementors could drain. It helps that he's [[spoiler:actually innocent: ''Peter'' betrayed the Potters and, when Sirius hunted him down for retribution, faked his own death by causing the explosion and cutting off his own finger before turning into a rat and fleeing down a drain. (In truth, Sirius was laughing incoherently because he was so distraught.) Without much happiness left for the Dementors to consume, Sirius came to rely on anger over his friends' deaths and his wrongful imprisonment to keep himself going. Eventually, the realization that Peter was still alive and in a position to hurt Harry gave Sirius the motivation he needed to break out.]]

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' mentions that this happened to the second title character, Sirius Black. He's introduced as an AxCrazy {{Fantastic Terrorist|s}} who betrayed the Potters to [[BigBad Voldemort]] and murdered another former friend, Peter Pettigrew, in an explosion that also killed a dozen {{Muggles}}. When the authorities caught him, he was LaughingMad--presumably brought on by Voldemort's [[OnlyMostlyDead apparent]] death, and not helped by the Black family's history of mental illness or by the [[EmotionEater joy-sucking]] {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, called Dementors, that guard [[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]]. But Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge visited Sirius not long before the latter busted out in the first known escape in Azkaban's history.[[note]][[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire The next book]] mentions that another of Voldemort's followers secretly escaped over a decade before Sirius, though Sirius was the first to escape on his own while the latter escapee had help from his parents.[[/note]] Fudge later recalls that Sirius was unnervingly lucid, appearing unaffected by all the Dementors outside his cell and merely bored by his surroundings. Sirius ultimately turns out to have become TooBrokenToBreak, fueled by ThePowerOfHate instead of by any positive feelings that the Dementors could drain. It helps that he's [[spoiler:actually innocent: ''Peter'' betrayed the Potters and, when Sirius hunted him down for retribution, faked his own death by causing the explosion and cutting off his own finger before turning into a rat and fleeing down a drain. (In truth, Sirius was laughing incoherently because he was so distraught.) Without much happiness left for the Dementors to consume, Sirius came to rely on anger over his friends' deaths and his wrongful imprisonment to keep himself going. Eventually, the realization that Peter was still alive and in a position to hurt Harry gave Sirius the motivation he needed to break out.]]