History Main / InsaneEqualsViolent

This trope has ''some'' roots in TruthInTelevision, though of course different mental illnesses will differently affect a person's propensity towards violent crime: some illnesses (like antisocial personality disorder) have violent behavior as a symptom, whilst others (such as depression) actually make a person less likely to commit a crime. Overall, people with mental illnesses do commit slightly more violent crime than average. However, [[RuleOfDrama it's not anywhere nearly as common as media would imply]]: Mental illness is an extremely weak predictor of violence, to the point of uselessness even when compared to simple demographics like being young or male. Mentally ill people are [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1389236/ also more than eleven times more likely]] to be victims of violence (although it should be noted that the people in that statistic were seeking help, whereas the ones who were not were most likely not). Alcohol and drug abuse are associated much more strongly with violence, and when you account for the increased prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse among those with mental illnesses, the extra risk of violence for mentally ill people overall vanishes completely... [[RuleOfCool but that's not as interesting]].

* ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'':

* Implied in ''The Weight'' by Music/TheBand, with the character of Crazy Chester, who cuts the singer in the fog for no reason.

A fictional character who is insane (in the psychotic, out-of-touch-with-reality way) is usually also violent. Thus, in typical TV-land logic, if you become psychotic, you must also become violent--even if you never were before. A character who already resorts to violence will turn on their friends instead of fighting whatever enemy they usually fight. (Conversely, a villain or antihero who engages in unnecessary violence will often be called "psychotic" as an insult both in- and out-of-universe, even though that character might be clinically sane.)

* Subverted in ''ComicBook/ThirtyDaysOfNight: Bloodsucker Tales'' with Lex Nova, a deranged vampire who believes himself to be a private eye and goes on brutal rampages the second he tastes blood. He's actually a genuinely heroic FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire who only feeds on goats and directs his rampages on other, malevolent vampires and a group of misogynistic SerialKiller{{s}}.

** The Reavers are also a trope. "Bushwhacked" gives us the descent of someone exposed to their brand of madness (revealed in the movie to be [[spoiler: the Pax they were exposed to, which subverts the trope some 99% of the time where [[LongTitle Insane Equals So Apathetic You Dehydrate To Death Because You Just Don't Feel Like Getting A Drink Of Water]]]]).

** Partly justified in the two episodes of [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries TOS]] featuring asylums -- both times they were specified to be for the ''criminally'' insane, explaining why ''these'' insane people would be violent even if the overwhelming majority aren't. The Tantalus penal colony is for those deemed curable, Elba II is intended for the incurable (by modern Federation science), and dialogue implies it to be the ''only'' such installation in the Federation. It has ''eight'' patients.

->''"Oh, don't let all the joking around fool ya--I've got kind of a thing for killing. Most funny people do, you know. The two things must be linked somehow."''

* An apparent invocation of this trope saw a British psychiatric charity condemn ''VideoGame/Manhunt2'', despite the lead character -- and most of the enemy characters -- not actually being insane at all. The Japanese release of ''VideoGame/DementiumTheWard'' was met similarly.

What's more, the fictional psychotic will not only be invariably violent, they'll actually be ''more'' lethally effective than a sane person. Count on the villainous psychotic to be a nigh-unstoppable assassin who's mastered OffscreenTeleportation rather than, say, a poor deluded individual uselessly arguing with or attacking their own hallucinations, or getting caught during their very first crime because they weren't trying to escape. Expect [[PowerBornOfMadness plenty of ridiculously heightened abilities]], ranging from super-strength to [[FeelNoPain freakish imperviousness to pain]].

This trope has ''some'' roots in TruthInTelevision, though of course different mental illnesses will differently affect a person's propensity towards violent crime: some illnesses have violent behaviour as a symptom, whilst others (such as depression) make a person less likely to commit a crime. Overall, people with mental illnesses do commit slightly more violent crime than average. However, [[RuleOfDrama it's not anywhere nearly as common as media would imply]]. Mentally ill people are [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1389236/ also more than eleven times more likely]] to be victims of violence (although it should be noted that the people in that statistic were seeking help, whereas the ones who were not were most likely not). Alcohol and drug abuse are associated much more strongly with violence, and when you account for the increased prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse among those with mental illnesses, the extra risk of violence for mentally ill people overall vanishes completely... [[RuleOfCool but that's not as interesting]].

* {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in ''Fanfic/CheatingDeathThoseThatLived'' with Mascara from District One, the daughter of [[BrotherSisterIncest Victor and Princess Court]]. She is severely mentally ill, and although she could have received treatment for it and lived a somewhat normal life, her parents [[DefiedTrope refuse to accept]] the offers for treatment and instead ''[[InvokedTrope encourage]]'' her to partake in violent behaviours to [[TrophyChild "train" her to become a Victor of the Hunger Games]].
-->''Most parents would be terrified of their offspring displaying such violent tendencies and incredible unstable behaviour.\\

All letters about Mascara's psychosis and various other ailments were burnt and any medication that happened to be mailed to the manor in an attempt to help the young psychopath -- or save the rest of One from her, either was fine -- were swiftly disposed of.''

A fictional character who is insane (in the psychotic, out of touch with reality way) is usually also violent. Thus, in typical TV-land logic, if you become psychotic, you must also become violent--even if you never were before. A character who already resorts to violence will turn on their friends instead of fighting whatever enemy they usually fight. (Conversely, a villain or antihero who engages in unnecessary violence will often be called "psychotic" as an insult both in- and out-of-universe, even though that character might be clinically sane.)

* Franchise/{{Batman}} villains are widely regarded as among the most psychotic and violent in all of comics, and thus are serial representatives and offenders of this trope.

** Creator/FrankMiller's ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns'' partly plays this straight and partly parodies it, by showing how absurd Batman's conflict with supervillains becomes when made into a discourse among the popular psychology and sociological analysis of prime time cable news. Popular psychologists and careerist shrinks like Bart Wolper try to cure the likes of [[Characters/BatmanTwoFace Two-Face]] via plastic surgery that repairs the bad half of the face. [[spoiler:It turns out to be the wrong half, the real Harvey Dent was the scarred out part of his face, representing his guilt and self-loathing]]. The book also shows Joker closer to the original Bill Finger characterization as a joyless psychopath who speaks in a CreepyMonotone, although it does this by playing up the FoeRomanceSubtext element to whole new heights. Batman himself in Frank Miller's books is shown to be somewhat of a functional madman most of the time.

** It's not so much that they're violent as the fact that they [[RealityWarper have the power to make their insane delusions reality]]. While one male channeler may or may not be a problem, over a hundred of them deciding that peaches are poisonous, or that mountains belong ''there'', or that they're 100% certain a hurricane/earthquake is coming, leads to a lot of death and destruction. We get a perfect example of how it works at the end of ''A Path of Daggers'', where a male channeler snaps and remains quite good-natured... but one of the protagonists keeps having to explain to him that he should not collapse the palace they're standing in so that he can use the stones to build a shelter for her.

* River Tam from ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' is psychotic, violent -- and a protagonist. Her violence is directed at the bad guys (and also, for reasons that might have become clear if the series had continued, at anything with a Blue Sun logo). Before the experiments that made her psychotic, she was a normal, nonviolent (if extremely gifted) young girl. An example of a JustifiedTrope, since the aim of the experiments was to create a SuperSoldier and violence kind of comes with the package.

* ''Series/HoraceAndPete:'' A surprisingly realistic version. Pete has some sort of disorder that causes psychosis, and this occassionally makes him act out violently, [[SubvertedTrope but this is always due to Pete being terrified by his hallucinations and panicking]]. Everyone (except Uncle Pete, and Sylvie to an extent), avoids holding it against him and make efforts to calm him down when he is like this. Any blame for his uncontrollable actions go directly to his insurance and pharmacy for not putting an effort into keeping him out of the hospital, [[spoiler:especially when they discontinue the medication without offering a replacement for him.]]. The revelation that Pete has ''no choice'' in this matter makes him breakdown sobbing, for obvious reasons.
* ''Series/IClaudius'' manages to subvert this despite featuring the actual Caligula. His violent/psychopathic tendencies are explicitly shown NOT to follow from his psychotic delusions: he's a killer from childhood but doesn't go mad until after he becomes Emperor years later. Livia and other murderous characters are described as "mad" by other characters, but are not shown as irrational -- even Nero, explicitly called "as mad as... Caligula", is clearly nothing of the kind.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': Averted in "The Martin Baker Fan Cub", where only one of the four escaped mental patents from a VA hospital exhibits violent behavior (by grabbing a sidearm from a police officer) and two others are completely harmless with the mental acuity of small children.

** Played straight: Anyone under the influence of [[FantasticDrug ''Drive'']] in the storyline ([[GameplayAndStorySegregation though not in gameplay]]) will become violently insane. Elly and an early game antagonist have this happen in story (with said antagonist [[WouldHurtAChild trying to kill children in his path]]), and it's implied Sigurd was a test subject for the drug in his backstory.

** Implied: Krelian/Karellen appears to be driven to the desire to force Sophia/Elly to have a relationship with him, then on losing her Sophia incarnation in war, to GrayGoo the entire last remnants of humanity on the planet and become one with "god," as a result of what can be interpreted as ''extreme'' narcissism.

* Unclear and played in Website/{{Killerbunnies}}. In Razelle's case, she suffers from some form of psychosis but she isn't necessarily violent because of that, rather, it could be that she has underlying impulse problems worsened her mental illness, the which she doesn't have any medication or some help for. On that note, she is described to be rather pleasant, even during those fits of delirium.

* ''VideoGame/AiTheSomniumFiles'' plays with this trope in regards to its main villain, but ultimately averts it. [[spoiler:Saito Sejima was born with a brain disfunction that caused him to receive a rush of dopamine whenever he killed someone, and this was the only instance where his brain would ever release it. To keep chasing the high that killing gave him, he became a SerialKiller. After a series of [[FreakyFridayFlip body swaps]], he ends up in a different body while the game's protagonist, Kaname Date, ends up in Saito's body. Date, now having Saito's same brain condition, receives treatment and ends up becoming an outright ''better'' person than he was in his original body. Saito continues to seek the high he got from killing people, but finds himself to be miserable as most brains are not wired to make you happy when you kill someone. Instead of trying to find some other outlet to get satisfaction, however, he chooses to keep killing people and get back into his original body so that he can enjoy killing people again]]. So while [[spoiler:Saito's condition]] was certainly a ''factor'' in causing him to become a serial killer, the fact [[spoiler:Date is a good person even though he has the exact same condition]] shows that [[spoiler:he didn't ''need'' to become one]]. Condition aside though, it must be mentioned that [[spoiler:Saito]] isn't exactly "insane" as [[spoiler:he is by no means out of touch with reality and there is a clear line of logic to what he does]]. Furthermore, there is no real-life equivalent of [[spoiler:Saito's and Date's condition]], in contrast to other characters with neuroses like [[spoiler:Mayumi or Iris]].

This trope has ''some'' roots in TruthInTelevision, though of course different mental illnesses will differently affect a person's propensity towards violent crime: some illnesses have violent behaviour as a symptom, whilst others (such as depression) make a person less likely to commit a crime. Overall, people with mental illnesses do commit slightly more violent crime than average. However, [[RuleOfDrama it's not anywhere nearly as common as media would imply]]. Mentally ill people are [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1389236/ also more than eleven times more likely]] [[AcceptableHardLuckTargets to be victims of violence]] (although it should be noted that the people in that statistic were seeking help, whereas the ones who were not were most likely not). Alcohol and drug abuse are associated much more strongly with violence, and when you account for the increased prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse among those with mental illnesses, the extra risk of violence for mentally ill people overall vanishes completely... [[RuleOfCool but that's not as interesting]].

** The MadGod Sheogorath can go from friendly and helpful to savage and murderous mid-sentence. In one of his myths he "helped" a woman commenting on the beauty of bird songs by gifting humanity with music... by killing her and using instruments made from her body. His plane of Oblivion, shown in the Shivering Isles DLC for ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' mostly averts this though. While all of the inhabitants of the Shivering Isles are completely insane, it's mostly in ways that are either harmless or only really harmful to themselves, with only a handful being a real danger to anyone.

** Rorschach is a SociopathicHero, described by Moore as "Batman without the excuses". He lives alone, prowls the streets and bars, believes in all kinds of UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories, and sees himself as the OnlySaneMan. He was already violent and unstable even before a certain dog incident but after that, he becomes even ''more'' violent, in his own words explaining that he had been merely soft before because he let his victims live.

* Unclear and played with in [[Wiki/{{Killerbunnies}} Razelle]]'s case in that she suffers from some form of psychosis but she isn't necessarily violent because of that, rather, it could be that she has underlying impulse problems worsened her mental illness, the which she doesn't have any medication or some help for. On that note, she is described to be rather pleasant, even during those fits of delirium.

This trope has ''some'' roots in TruthInTelevision, though of course different mental illnesses will differently affect a person's propensity towards violent crime: some illnesses have violent behaviour as a symptom, whilst others (such as depression) make a person less likely to commit a crime. Overall, people with mental illnesses do commit slightly more violent crime than average. However, [[RuleOfDrama it's not anywhere nearly as common as media would imply]]. [[note]] Mentally ill people are [[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1389236/ also more than eleven times more likely]] [[AcceptableHardLuckTargets to be victims of violence]] (although it should be noted that the people in that statistic were seeking help, whereas the ones who were not were most likely not).[[/note]] Alcohol and drug abuse are associated much more strongly with violence, and when you account for the increased prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse among those with mental illnesses, the extra risk of violence for mentally ill people overall vanishes completely... [[RuleOfCool but that's not as interesting]].

A fictional character who is insane (in the psychotic, out of touch with reality way) is usually also violent. Thus, in typical TV-land logic, if you become psychotic, you must also become violent--even if you never were before. A character who already resorts to violence will turn on their friends instead of fighting whatever enemy they usually fight. (Conversely, a villain or antihero who engages in unnecessary violence will often be called "psychotic" as an insult both in- and out-of-universe, even though that character might be perfectly sane.)

A fictional character who is insane (in the psychotic, out of touch with reality way) is usually also violent. Thus, in typical TV-land logic, if you become psychotic, you must also become violent--even if you never were before. A character who already resorts to violence will turn on their friends instead of fighting whatever enemy they usually fight. (Conversely, a villain or antihero who engages in unnecessary violence will often be labeled psychotic both in- and out-of-universe, even though that character might be perfectly sane.)

* ''Franchise/DragonAge'': Played with. The Qunari teach that without the stabilizing influence of the Qun (their religion), their people will invariably go insane and start murdering indiscriminately. People who have left the Qun are called "Tal'Vashoth," and they are almost exclusively some of the worst bandits and murderers anyone has ever heard of. However, it's strongly implied that there's a lot of SelfFulfillingProphecy going on; Qunari soldiers [[CripplingOverspecialization are never taught how to do anything but fight]], so if they leave the Qun they have no choice but to turn to banditry or mercenary work to survive. And since they've been told that people like them are all insane murderers who will be killed on sight, they have no reason to keep their violent instincts under control. Qunari from other castes are able to live perfectly peaceful lives when they leave the Qun, but the Qunari don't mention them because they don't fit the narrative.

* ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Grotesque" has a SerialKiller who claims that he's possessed by some dark spirit. Scully thinks he suffers from a dissociative disorder and Mulder informs us that he spent the better part of his twenties in a mental institution. The episode deals with the issue of spirit possession versus insanity.
** In "Chimera", the monster-of-the-week is revealed to have got some kind of dissociative multiple personality disorder: split personality. The woman's overt self was not aware that it was [[TheKillerInMe her]] who was committing the murders.

* Averted by the titular character in ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer''. A few characters note that he's an obsessive freak who's not all there, and even Cow Girl's uncle warns her to keep her distance as the boy she knew back then is ''gone''. But Goblin Slayer remains calm and cordial in his relationships, and at the end of the day, he's still a trusted Silver-rank member of the Adventurer's Guild.

* In ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'', this seems to be a dime a dozen for the villains, so much so that if you're a villain, you're also AxCrazy. Not only are they violent but are also psychotic to varying degrees, such as Vassago Casals[=/=][=PoH=], the Death Gun trio, and Gabriel Miller[=/=]Subtilizer.
* Farfarello of ''Anime/WeissKreuz'' falls under this, particularly in the backstory. As a child, he [[spoiler: snapped and killed his whole family, despite apparently being a perfectly normal kid beforehand]].

* Averted in ''Series/{{Cracked}}'' a show about a team of police officers and psychiatric professionals assigned to deal with crimes involving the mentally ill. While many of the perpetrators are disturbed individuals, there have also been cases where insane people have been witnesses or victims, including a bipolar psychotic who saw a girl he had been trying to help get murdered, and a boy with Tourettes who tried to find assistance for an abandoned baby.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'': Crazy Dwarves might go berserk and attack other dwarves and kill people, but they're just as likely to be DrivenToSuicide or strip off their clothes and run around naked. The [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential players, however...]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In "The Fat Guy Strangler", Lois' long-lost brother has spent his life in an insane asylum after [[PrimalScene walking in on his mother having an affair with Jackie Gleason as a kid]]. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have done Patrick any good, as he still has a lingering hatred of fat men that (thanks to Peter pushing his TraumaButton) eventually leads him on a killing spree.