History Main / ReluctantPsycho

TheMadHatter doesn't suffer from insanity, they ''enjoy every minute of it''. If only the Reluctant Psycho was so well-off. They may or may not understand the details, but they are well aware that ''something'' is wrong with their own psychology and they are [[HeroicWillpower fighting it to the best of their ability]], possibly with the help of medication. Success will vary; perhaps they ''do'' manage to present a normal façade, but they are fighting a constant inner battle to maintain it. Or maybe they have found an outlet to channel their issues productively, or, in the most tragic cases, they are constantly fighting a losing battle and may only realise they have given in again once it is too late. Whatever the details, they both ''know that they are mentally unwell'', and ''desire to cancel or curtail the effects of their illness''.

--->'''Light:''' You knew this was a temporary arrangement. It's not like we could talk forever.\\

->''What am I doing? Why do I wanna hurt you so bad? I'm supposed to be a friend. I just wanna be a friend...''

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfHorror'': One of the unlockable characters is Mimi, a medical student with a MadScientist streak; she has lower starting [[SanityMeter Reason]] thanks to starting with the unique affliction "Mimi's Obsession", several of her personal events show she's [[NightmareFetishist obsessed with studying the horrifying goings-on in Shiokawa]], and her Challenge path, "Mimi's Little Project", involves ''[[ProfessorGuineaPig performing bizarre medical procedures on herself]]''. She also shows signs of struggling against her obsessions and darker impulses.

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[[folder:Web Original]]
* The AI protagonist of ''Literature/TheLastAngel'' is a weird hybrid of this and TheMadHatter. Nemesis is fully aware she isn't mentally stable, but she only cares because it interferes with her ability to perform her self-appointed mission: revenge on the alien empire that enslaved humanity despite her best efforts. She absolutely loves playing up her madness to terrorize her enemies and exploit their fear of AI.

This is a very particular subtrope of the TragicFlaw; examples that are about temptations and tendencies that are not actually insanity go there.

* Azula, fresh out of the asylum in ''ComicBook/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheSearch'' is aware that she has lost control of her mind and she is not happy about it. [[spoiler: Her goal is to silence the voice in her head that is causing her so much pain and doubt, but the only way she thinks that will happen is to kill her mother, which Zuko will not let happen for very obvious reasons]].

* In ''FanFic/PointOfSuccession'', [[MindRape while talking]] [[CriticalPsychoanalysisFailure with Beyond Birthday]], [[BreakTheCutie Light seems to realize that there might be something fundamentally flawed with his own psychology]]:

'''Beyond:''' [[HannibalLecture I think we could.]] [[FlawExploitation And never get bored.]] You aren't a boring individual [[spoiler: [[TermsOfEndangerment Sweetie Jam]]]], [[StepfordSmiler despite what you try so hard to show the world.]] And me, [[AxCrazy I know I'm not boring.]]\\

* In ''Film/TheDeadCenter'', this is what psychiatrist Dr. Forrester ''thinks'' is going on with the mysterious John Doe that's been brought into the psych ward. [[spoiler: John Doe is being driven insane and taken over via DemonicPossession.]]

* In the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode "Friends Like These," the unsub was said to be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and insomnia. Once his medications stopped working his hallucinations taunted him into murder since the only way he could sleep was after the adrenaline rush from the kills. Throughout the episode he was begging "his friends" to just go away because he didn't want to kill and just wanted to sleep.
** In another episode, Reid meets a young man struggling with violent urges that he's so far managed to resist. At the end of the episode, he's alone in a room with a prostitute and a knife [[spoiler:but instead of attacking her, he tries to kill himself]].
* ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' is an excellent example of the Reluctant Psycho who uses a productive or at least acceptable outlet to relieve his issues - through vigilante justice, in his case.
-->'''Dexter:''' [[MadnessMantra I will not kill my sister, I will not kill my sister]], [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments I will not kill my sister.....]]

* Through the entire first season of ''{{Series/Heroes}}'' this was the struggle for Nikki Sanders.

* ''Series/LieToMe'' - there was an episode called "The Core Of It" where the main suspect/witness was a young woman suffering from Dissociative Personality Disorder. When they got around to talking to the original personality she was a wreck because she had no control over the other personalities - a law student and a prostitute. She is trying to fight it - just failing.
* A sort of odd example in Druitt from ''{{Series/Sanctuary}}''. He's an abnormal whose power is to teleport, but each time he teleports he becomes susceptible to an energy being who eventually takes up residence in him. This drives him to becoming UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper, but once he's not a villain in the series he's struggling to make sure he doesn't go mad again and takes medication to make sure. It's ''not a possession'' - the presence of the being ''just'' makes him mentally unbalanced in the form of bloodlust and rage, not actually forces him to do anything.
* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'': Holmes is typically perfectly willing to embrace his [[SociopathicHero sociopathic tendencies]], but occasionally shows hints of inner turmoil over whether they are actually more of a strength or a weakness. (John is helping him deal with the aspects that cause him problems; Mycroft is not nearly so conflicted.)

** In ''The Reichenbach Fall'', [[spoiler:he consciously becomes a full Reluctant Psycho after the police department's perception of him, heavy on the 'psycho' and light on the 'reluctant', [[FromBadToWorse goes wrong in the worst possible way]].]]

* Members of the Wayward creed in ''TabletopGame/HunterTheReckoning'' have a vision for the world's supernaturals: their complete destruction by any means necessary, no matter who gets in the Waywards' way. Whatever creates Waywards rewrites their minds, makes it so that they see planning and committing mass murder and destruction as the best way of dealing with supernaturals - but while most Waywards accept this, not all do. Some struggle with their newfound genocidal urges, try to restrain themselves for a while, lead normal lives, but the urges never go away, not permanently.

* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'': The Mad Hatter. Ironic, since TheMadHatter is characterized by enjoying his own madness. However, he doesn't respond poorly to being called mad.

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' has Krieg, one of the DLC player characters. His background is left intentionally vague, and the only real fleshing out he gets in a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6chxuovrbCI promotional video]] that shows how he met Maya, as he fights a losing battle with his own psyche to avoid killing an innocent person. While most of his spoken lines are [[TalkativeLoon incoherent word salads screamed at the top of his lungs]], occasionally you can hear a much calmer voice that says things like "That's right, help 'em. Just like old times," when reviving a teammate in co-op.
** The "Fantastic Fustercluck" DLC of ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 3}}'' expands on this. Krieg's sane side and mad side are sick of each other, and Sane Krieg even hopes there's a way for him to escape to a separate body so he can finally know peace. However, events of the story show that even his mad side isn't actually ''evil'', and cares about him, and the two halves eventually accept that they need each other.
* The player character of ''[[VideoGame/CubeEscape Cube Escape: Seasons]]'' is clearly aware that they're [[InsaneEqualsViolent dangerously mentally ill]]. They take Prozac daily, went to Rusty Lake because it was advertised as a place for patients, and one of the notes they leave on their bulletin board is "I'm afraid I will do something terrible." Additionally, when it looks like they really ''did'' do something terrible ([[spoiler:murdering a woman who turns out to be ''[[DrivenToSuicide themselves]]'' - it's [[MindScrew that kind of game]]]]), they seek to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong change the past]] to prevent this from happening. They also double as a TragicMonster after you learn in ''The Mill'' [[TheCorruption how they came to be what they are]].

* ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'' and its sequel, ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami2WrongNumber'', have Jacket and [[spoiler: Richter]], respectively.

** [[spoiler: The second game shows that the only reason that Richter attacked TheMafiya and became a hitman for 50 Blessings was because the latter were using his sickly mother as a bargaining chip for his services.]]
* [[spoiler:Kuon Ichinose, the creator of EMMA and Sophia]] in ''VideoGame/Persona5Strikers'', is a near-EmptyShell, who refers to herself as an "emotionless doll", and almost completely lacks the ability to express emotions or genuinely connect to people. Reminding her of this or asking her about the human heart (which she claims she doesn't really have) is one of the only things that is guaranteed to get an emotional reaction - specifically, it makes her upset and angry she can't feel emotions normally.

* In ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', in the second act, Yuri starts acting increasingly disturbingly [[spoiler: thanks to someone tampering with her mind from the outside]], reacting to the PlayerCharacter with rather excessive excitement and feeling urges to do some things of a sort you wouldn't tell others about, except eventually she starts doing that too. She will repeatedly catch herself at it, however, and be as disturbed as anyone. This is especially painful next to her normal personality, which is reserved, intellectual, and trying hard to be dignified although often clumsy and anxious.

* [[spoiler:Kirei Kotomine]] of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' is an especially interesting example, in that he acknowledged intellectually that his particular brand of sociopathy ([[EvilFeelsGood only taking joy in other people's suffering]]) was both harmful and immoral--without being told, and without anyone noticing. He then spent twenty years trying to correct himself, establishing himself as a heroic figure within his organization, without anyone ever suspecting his true nature. He only [[BeingGoodSucks gave up trying]] after [[spoiler:his wife, whom he had married as a last-ditch effort to teach himself to love others, committed suicide in front of him in order to prove that Kotomine COULD care about others. Unfortunately, Kotomine instead realized that his only emotion afterwards was regretting that he didn't kill her himself.]] His later philosophical defense of [[spoiler:[[MadeOfEvil Angra Mainyu]]]] is simultaneously [[PsychologicalProjection an overt attempt to justify his own existence]]. There is also his interest in [[spoiler:[[TheHero Shirou Emiya]], the adopted son of his enemy from [[Literature/FateZero the 4th Grail War]], Kiritsugu Emiya. Shirou, unlike Kiritsugu (who was Kotomine's {{Foil}} in every respect), isn't so different from Kotomine]].
** In ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', the Saber version of Gilles de Rais does have Madness Enhancement EX, but is clearly using his emotional dependency on Jeanne d'Arc (and at higher bond levels, on the Master) to repress it. His Bond 5 line is to beg that [[PsychicAssistedSuicide you mercy-kill him with your Command Seals]] if he becomes [[WouldHurtAChild what he's]] [[Literature/FateZero most famous for]].
--->'''upon third Ascension:''' Jeanne, forgive me! I truly hate... everything! And everyone!
** Brynhildr from ''Anime/FatePrototype'' doesn't want to be a yandere, but she was cursed by Odin to easily fall in love, while also being cursed with the fate of always killing the target of her affection. The more she loves someone, the more her urge to kill them increases. In ''Grand Order'', it's an outright ''game mechanic''; there are Servants with the trait Brynhildr's Beloved, those with the qualifications to be Brynhildr's [[HasAType ideal lover]], and they take extra damage from her Noble Phantasm, a spear that grows bigger and heavier against those she loves. The only silver lining is that her actual lover is pretty much too hard for her to kill when she meets him again.

* ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'': [[spoiler: Before Rika completely spiraled into delusional disorder, she told V that she felt herself growing more and more mentally unstable; anxiety, depression, paranoia, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts plagued her every day, and she feared that she would soon completely lose touch with reality and become someone else. V insisted that his love was all she needed and that her fear and self-loathing was beautiful, choosing to not tell anyone in the RFA that she was struggling and later accepting her refusal to keep going to therapy. Meanwhile, her best friend Mika encouraged her impulses and used them to groom her into becoming the leader of Mint Eye. When you get to actually interact with her personally during Another Story, even while she's in the throes of her messiah delusion, she acknowledges that she's suffering and it makes the instances when she [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone snaps out of it and realizes what's going on]] even harder to watch.]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'': Dr [[spoiler:Bowman]] is not best pleased that he was created to be a weapon, by people who left a lot of the nastiest instincts of a furious chimp in place, or even exaggerated them; he can't handle crowds (he barely has the energy to handle one person for more than a few minutes), he HatesBeingTouched, he has anger issues that would make Norse berserkers take a breath and step back, he has serious trouble with concepts such as asking permission, he instinctively treats eye contact from a human as a threat, and so on. His entire life could be described as a sequence of attempts to 1) control his own issues, 2) develop ways to work ''around'' them, and 3) ensure that the next generation of artificial intelligences, both robotic and biological, do not have to deal with the same shit he did from their brains. As a result, he does things like issue other people with activators for his shock collar so that if he goes within five feet, he gets shocked into unconsciousness.

* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic. He regrets his psychotic episodes, doesn't want them to happen and tries to tell people that he's down to earth and logical instead.
** Inverted in his other character, WebVideo/AskThatGuyWithTheGlasses; he's creepy, undeniably psychotic, perverted, obsessed with human sacrifices (and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking onions]])... Then in one episode his medicine ''wears off''. Turns out in his lucid moments, he's actually completely aware that he's being drugged into being so awful, and now's his chance to escape and - nope, gets drugged again and it's business as usual.

* ''Film/SuicideSquad'' has a LeaveYourQuestTest that the Enchantress uses against the titular squad, inducing a fantasy sequence of them achieving their heart's desire should they side with her. ComicBook/HarleyQuinn's dream is to live a normal life with ComicBook/TheJoker, where neither is violent or psychotic and lead a mundane family life with 2 children in the suburbs. Harley saves the world and the squad by realizing it is very much a TragicDream and that Enchantress was in no position to grant it, even with her godlike powers. By the time of the sequel, she takes the concrete step of realizing she's less healthy remaining in the toxic relationship she had been with the Joker.

-->--'''Spinel''', ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseTheMovie''

* ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'': [[spoiler: Before Rika completely spiraled into delusional disorder, she told V times that she felt herself growing more and more mentally unstable; anxiety, depression, paranoia, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts plagued her every day, and she feared that she would soon completely lose touch with reality and become someone else. V insisted that his love was all she needed and that her fear and self-loathing was beautiful, choosing to not tell anyone in the RFA that she was struggling and later accepting her refusal to keep going to therapy. Meanwhile, her best friend Mika encouraged her impulses and used them to groom her into becoming the leader of Mint Eye. When you get to actually interact with her personally during Another Story, even while she's in the throes of her messiah delusion, she acknowledges that she's suffering and it makes the instances when she [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone snaps out of it and realizes what's going on]] even harder to watch.]]

* In V's route of ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'', we see that before [[spoiler:Rika]] truly spiraled into delusional disorder, [[spoiler:she told V numerous times that she felt herself growing more and more mentally unstable; anxiety, depression, paranoia, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts plagued her every day, and she feared that she would soon completely lose touch with reality and become someone else. V decided that his love was all she needed and insisted that her fear and self-loathing was beautiful, electing to not tell anyone in the RFA that she was struggling and instead choosing to take pictures of her and accepting her later refusal to go to therapy. Meanwhile, her best friend Mika encouraged her impulses and used them to groom her into becoming the leader of Mint Eye. When you get to actually interact with her personally during Another Story, even while she's in the throes of her messiah delusion, she acknowledges that she's suffering, and it makes the instances when she [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone snaps out of it and realizes what's going on around her and what she's been doing]] even harder to watch.]]

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'': Kelder Vanard ''knows'' it's horrible to kill elven children because they're "too perfect", but he can't stop the "demons" (note, not the ''literal'' demons in the setting) from making him do it. His greatest wish is for someone to stop him, but his father covers up his serial killing out of misguided parental feelings. And since the medieval fantasy world of Thedas has no way to diagnose or treat schizophrenia, the only recourse is for Hawke to MercyKill him.

** Brynhildr from ''Anime/FatePrototype'' doesn't want to be a yandere, but she was cursed by Odin to easily fall in love, while also being cursed with the fate of always killing the target of her affection. The more she loves someone, the more her urge to kill them increases. In ''Grand Order'', it's an outright ''game mechanic''; there are Servants with the trait Brynhildr's Beloved, those with the qualifications to be Brynhildr's [[HasAType ideal lover]], and they take extra damage from her Noble Phantasm, a spear that grows bigger and heavier against those she loves.

* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'': Dark Evolutions happen mostly involuntarily and causes the Digimon who undergoes it to go berserk and lose control of themselves. In ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'', Koromon specifically states that he was unable to stop himself from hurting his friend when he rampaged as [=SkullGreymon=] and was fully aware what he was doing at that time. In ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'', Takuya evolving into Vritramon for the first time ended in a disaster, as the Beast Spirit's bestial instincts took control of him and made him see everyone as an enemy from his point of view.

->''"What is better -- to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"''
-->-- '''Paarthurnax''', ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim''

** In ''ComicBook/BatmanGothamAdventures'' #11, the Riddler tries to circumvent his obsession with leaving clues that lead Batman right to him by instead leaving clues that lead to ''other'' criminals. This works out fine until Batman pieces together hidden riddles in each of the clues that lead him to the Riddler anyway. When the Riddler realizes that he has done this, he is heartbroken.

** ZigZagged by Sergeant Travis. He doesn't turn AxCrazy from extensive exposure to Ghidorah's severed head, but it becomes clear something's wrong inside his noggin, and he's torturously aware of it, pleading that he just wants to feel like himself again.
** According to Word of God, Ghidorah was once this in the beginning of its {{Backstory}}. [[spoiler:Ghidorah's three brains had three words forcibly hardwired into them through indicated alien brain surgery, which consciously and unconsciously tormented the three heads ceaselessly and drove them to try again and again without success to make the ceaseless phrase stop by sating it. The author suggests these words probably faded to something like tinnitus later in Ghidorah's life]], but by then, Ghidorah's SlowlySlippingIntoEvil had come full circle.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Ragnarok}}'', Light's father Soichiro catches onto his son's growing mental problems early enough to retrain him out of his BlackAndWhiteInsanity to follow ALighterShadeOfGray. Light constantly struggles with thinking of the criminals he pursues as a detective as "Evil", and has to remind himself [[GreyAndGrayMorality "Shades of gray, Light. The world exists in shades of gray."]]