History SanitySlippage / Literature

* ''Literature/TheStorm'': A miserable marriage has led the wife to attempt her own life many times, and the decision to kill her husband to end [[LoveMartyr her love for him despite his abuse]] gives her a newfound resolve. Once she's done the deed and watches him bleed out, she barely realises the blood she rubs on her face as she begins to smile and laugh. As the moonlight shines on her, she's described to deteriorate into something less than human.

** In ''Literature/MakingMoney'', Cosmo Lavish was not particularly stable to begin with, but his mental health deteriorates noticeably over the course of the story, [[spoiler:mainly because of his being poisoned by a finger that began to rot after he decided to keep a ring too small on it]]. The man starts trying to understand how [[MagnificentBastard Vetinari]] thinks, and ends up [[spoiler:committed to an asylum for [[NapoleonDelusion people who think they are Vetinari]]]].

* In Dead City by Shane Stevens, mob enforcer Charley Flowers threatens Scottini's wife in order to find her missing husband's location. He grabs a blanketed pillow from her baby's crib, claims it's her actual child, dangles it out of the apartment window, and drops it after she refuses to cooperate. After Flowers hands her still very well-alive baby in her hands, Scottini's wife - in a shocked daze - gives up her husband's hiding spot after one last threat from Flowers. Nonetheless,[[spoiler:she has a severe mental breakdown believing her baby was truly thrown out of the window. Hallucinating her actual baby in her arms as an inanimate doll, she bashes her own child to a bloody pulp in an insane trance before throwing herself out the window]].

** After [[spoiler:her deputy Tigerclaw betrays her]], this occurs to Bluestar in the first arc. She started out as TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask however began becoming increasingly unstable after the incident. She spent most of her time in her nest, frequently had an unfocused, glazed look in her eye, and became snappy. Bluestar began to become paranoid that essentially every cat was out to get her and even thought [=StarClan=] was plotting against her. [[spoiler:She became more like herself [[DyingAsYourself right before losing her]] [[CatsHaveNineLives last life]].]]

* The Bursar of Unseen University from ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' used to be quite sane, up until the appointment of Mustrum Ridcully to Archchancellor wore away at his nerves. His sanity ''really'' took a dive in ''Literature/ReaperMan'', when ancient wizard Windle Poons rose from the grave. In fact, it's so bad that the medication he's given is specially designed to make him ''hallucinate sanity''.

* Dr. Seward in his appearance in ''Literature/AnnoDracula''. You have to give him a little insanity though; it's an AlternateHistory of ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' where instead of the EarnYourHappyEnding situation of rescuing Britain from a supernatural evil while losing (only) your fiancée and an American friend, he lives through a {{Diabolus Ex|Machina}} [[KillEmAll Kill 'Em]] [[TheVirus Or Corrupt 'Em]] scenario.

* In Dead City by Shane Stevens, mob enforcer Charley Flowers threatens Scottini's wife in order to find her missing husband's location. He grabs a blanketed pillow from another room, claims it's her actual child, dangles it out of the apartment window, and drops it after she refuses to cooperate. After Flowers hands her still very well-alive baby in her hands, Scottini's wife - in a shocked daze - gives up her husband's hiding spot after one last threat from Flowers. Nonetheless,[[spoiler:she has a severe mental breakdown believing her baby was truly thrown out of the window. Hallucinating her actual baby in her arms as an inanimate doll, she bashes her own child to a bloody pulp in an insane trance before throwing herself out the window]].

** Alex: [[spoiler: becoming a PsychoForHire for whoever holds the power - though truth be told, he just needed a little push ]]
** Isobel: [[spoiler: completely breaking down from Joy's MindRape - which we get to read in painful detail... except the "therapy reports" are written completely in newspeak.]]

** Szeth-son-son-Vallano is a pacifist who is also a Truthless--a sort of warrior-slave of his people, bound to obey anyone who holds his Oathstone. He is also [[OneManArmy quite possibly literally the most dangerous man on the planet]], partly because he's the first [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual Surgebinder]] to be seen in four thousand years. He, understandably, is typically used as a weapon and assassin, which is made worse by the fact that there is nothing magical about his oath; he could stop the murders at any moment [[ToBeLawfulOrGood if he would just choose what is right over the law]]. By [[Literature/WordsOfRadiance the second book]], his brain is barely hanging on by a thread. It gets worse [[spoiler:when he finds out that the "lies" he told that got him made Truthless were actually true all along, meaning absolutely ''none'' of it was necessary]].