Angst What Angst / Western Animation

Angst? What Angst? in Western Animation.

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Shows/franchises with their own pages:

• Amphibia

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• Adventure Time:
  • Finn is the Last of His Kind thanks to war. His toddler years were a crapshoot, as highlighted in "Memories of Boom Boom Mountain". His adopted parents are dead. As a thirteen-year-old, he contends with every villain in Ooo while the various kingdoms tend to sit on their asses and do nothing. Besides Jake and the on-and-off help of Marceline, he's on his own. No one else is helping him take down the villains, aside from sporadic help from Princess Bubblegum. There are hints (most prominently in how he acts incredibly needy in his love life) that he is repressing crushing loneliness and depression, but given what he's gone through and continues to go through, it's amazing that he's functional at all, and on a day-to-day basis, very upbeat.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Avatar Aang discovers that he's The Chosen One at 12 years old and his home is now a a long-abandoned ruin. Every single person he's ever met, and the animals too, - have died save for one wacky genius king and a pet bison. His Refusal of the Call gets him and his bison frozen for a century and leads to him waking up clueless about the fact the world is engulfed in war and he has about nine months to master three elements and save the world from utter doom. The writers dealt with it by making Aang The Pollyanna. In a reminder of why this trope exists, whenever Aang goes through a Rage Breaking Point, fans complained about how whiny, mean and OOC he was and made cracks about "Aangst", even though he'd dealt with much worse without whining.
  • The city of Ba Sing Se was sieged by Iroh, likely causing many deaths of their citizens, but Iroh is allowed to peacefully run his tea shop and face no anger from the people in the finale. To be fair, he did lead the liberation of Ba Sing Se from the Fire Nation right before this.
  • Katara has a breakdown at the end of "The Puppetmaster" episode after learning the Dangerous Forbidden Technique against her will. In the next episode, she seems to have gotten over it, probably since she now has the means to exact her revenge on her mother's killer. Or so we (or she) think(s).
• The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes has the Incredible Hulk get arrested for a crime he didn't commit. None of the other Avengers show any distress over the loss of one of their oldest and most powerful members, not even the heroes who had become his closest friends over the show's course. They don't seem to bother freeing him until the series finale becomes imminent.
• In the Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.I.V.E.", a Kids Next Door operative from the 1800s is thawed out after having been frozen in an ice cream explosion for nearly two hundred years. His modern-day counterparts try to console him because they assume he must be in shock. After all, his world is gone and everyone he ever knew is long dead. Turns out the only thing he's bothered about is the fact that the Kids Next Door are now allowing girls to become operatives. Throughout the entire episode, he never shows any real sadness as a result of his plight.
• You think that Danny Phantom would be faced with severe PTSD and depression after the episode "The Ultimate Enemy" considering that he witnessed the violent deaths of his parents, sister, best friends, and teacher and the destruction of his city (even if the Reset Button was eventually pushed) and fought his most evil and powerful foe yet which turned out to be the Bad Future version of himself, all because he cheated on an exam. Such events would definitely be emotionally scarring towards a 14-year-old boy, even one who's a superhero, but despite that, he still manages to live about his life normally and happily throughout the remainder of the show. Some fans have even speculated that he's a Stepford Smiler. Then again his Bad Future self is the end-result of him giving into his angst over said violent deaths, which gets his human half killed and his ghost half turns into The Sociopath, so perhaps he figured this was the better alternative.
• Dungeons & Dragons (1983): A group of preteens barely seem upset at all over being trapped in a harsh fantasy world where everything is trying to kill them and their mentor is unhelpful in the extreme. The one exception is Eric, who is always portrayed as a whiner who needs to snap out of it already. The Complainer Is Always Wrong, even if it's about impending bloody death. A notable exception is at the start of "The Dragon's Graveyard", where after losing yet another way home the entire group is sunk in depression, and the youngest breaks down in tears.
• Extreme Dinosaurs: While the Dinosaurs were sometimes saddened that they were the last of their kind, Hard Rock quickly got over the fact that he was stranded on Earth with no way to get back home again.
• In Final Space, Gary Goodspeed's father, John Goodspeed, doesn't seem very phased when Gary warns him that his best friend, Jack, will become a galaxy-ruling tyrant who causes his son a lot of trouble.
• Although Bear from Franklin was just as close to Otter as Franklin was, he doesn't seem upset or fazed all that much after she moves away while Franklin does not take it well. (Then again, maybe he is a bit relieved that she isn't around anymore.) Actually, Bear doesn't seem to get fazed at all much like his friends. He can be stoic, frivolous, or even hedonistic but when it comes to dishonesty or things that change his personal routine (suddenly being a big brother or getting homesick during a sleepover) is when he becomes emotional.
• Futurama:
  • Philip J. Fry takes all of five seconds to get over the fact that he's a thousand years in the future and all the people he knew are long since dead ("I'll never see any of them again... YAHOO!"). While entirely justified by both his previous life sucking hard and him being a crazy buffoon, him agonising about it in a few episodes makes it weird when it goes away after a while.
  • In the final episode "Meanwhile," Leela seemingly kills Professor Farnsworth and neither she nor anyone else cares in the slightest.
    Leela: It worked!
    Amy: But you killed the professor!
    Leela: Yeah, but it worked!
  • It's a borderline Running Gag that Bender is functionally immune to And I Must Scream situations, and seems to actively enjoy being thrown into isolation for millennia.
    Fry: Bender, what was it like lying in that hole for a thousand years?
    Bender: I was enjoying it until you guys showed up.
• Gargoyles begins with a massacre that wipes out the entire gargoyle population of Castle Wyvern, except for three young brothers, the clan leader, their aged father, and one pet. All their other friends, siblings, children, fathers, and mothers (gargoyles have multiples of each) are dead along with the leader's wife, and the survivors find the castle littered with the dismembered pieces of their corpses. Then they're put into a magic sleep and wake up 1000 years later in modern New York, completely Fish out of Temporal Water, and one of the first things they learn is that the clan's eggs are gone and as far as they know, they are the last of their species on Earth, and there are no females left. Almost immediately, they learn that the leader's wife actually survived somehow, but she and their only human friend in the world had betrayed the clan and caused the massacre, and she's now a genocidal maniac out to murder her husband. Yet after the first couple episodes, they don't go through the mourning, angst, or survivor guilt one would expect after such trauma.
• Glenn Martin, DDS: Not that it never comes up, but the Martins (particularly Jackie and the kids) seem more frustrated with being on a perpetual road trip than with the fact that the only reason they're on said trip is because they're (technically) homeless.
• Jem: "Father's Day" takes place in what seems to be the girl's first Father's Day without their dad. Kimber is emotionally distraught, but the others don't seem remotely fazed. They also don't understand why Kimber is so upset.
• Kaeloo: Mr. Cat explaining "art" to Stumpy causes Stumpy to kill himself by shooting his own head off with a bazooka. While Kaeloo cries, Mr. Cat does not care at all that one of his best friends is dead, and it's all his fault.
• Zigzagged in Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts for the 13-year-old titular character. When she first discovers her jaguar abilities, she's appropriately horrified and confused by what's happening to her, concerned about scaring off her friends, as well as losing control and harming them: two things that do happen at different points in the show (though both issues are resolved in short order). So you'd think that learning these abilities are the result of her parents experimenting on her in-vitro, pumping her embryo with various mutagens, would just add to the horror she's feeling. But while her father asks for forgiveness when first telling her, and her friends are disturbed and disgusted when they learn the details, this newfound understanding has Kipo herself immediately switch to being overjoyed by this knowledge, gushing about her parents' intelligence and the general coolness of her powers.
• Kung Fu Dino Posse: None of the dinos seem to care that all the other dinosaurs were wiped out by the Ice Age and that the world is now drastically different than it was 65 million years ago.
• The Legends of Treasure Island: with the numerous sinister threats in the show, the fear of the crew losing each other was always prominent. Disney Deaths were frequent in many episodes, and very few got a particularly shattered reaction from the others (with a couple of exceptions, usually when Jim was in protective mode towards Jane).
• In the relatively Darker and Edgier second season of Legion of Super Heroes (2006), Lightning Lad gets his arm fried in battle, only to wake up to find Brainiac 5's replaced it with a robot arm. His response is to shrug "Cool," and revel in his new lightning-cannon powers. Cartoon-Brainiac 5 of all people might have something to say about tossing away human bits of yourself so casually.
• The Lion Guard: Bunga doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that he has never met his biological parents.
• The Loud House: In the episode "The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos", Bobby, despite having cried his eyes out with Lori at the beginning of the episode, cheered up way too quickly after he and his family left Royal Woods, to the point of being excited at moving in with the Casagrandes indefinitely, even though it meant being away from Lori for much longer than he expected.
• Metalocalypse: For all the shit that Toki went through ever since his childhood and his Cartwright Curse that caused the death of his father, cat, and guitar teacher, he's still one of the idealistic members of the band. While he did become an alcoholic after his father's death he snapped out of it quickly after realizing that Nathan and the rest actually care about him.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • In the episode "Timebreaker", Chat is surprisingly cavalier about his death in a previous timeline, much to Ladybug's annoyance. On a broader level, he immediately Jumped at the Call in "Origins", not caring in the slightest- then or later- that it entailed risking his life on a daily basis.
  • In general, the people who get turned into the Monster of the Week seem fine after they've been changed back and carry on with their lives as normal, though that might be partly due to them not remembering what they did as villains, and the fact that most people don't blame them for it. Paris is probably just used to Akuma attacks by now.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Discord was stuck as a stone statue for well over a millennium, and fully conscious the entire time. Once he's freed, he's remarkably fine, even mentioning his loneliness and boredom while imprisoned off-handedly. Though he does hint that he's more upset about his Fate Worse than Death than he lets on.
    Discord: It's quite lonely being imprisoned in stone, but you wouldn't know that, would you, because I don't turn ponies into stone.
  • Subverted when Princess Luna was banished in the moon for a thousand years as Nightmare Moon. At first, it didn't seem to have affected Luna's sanity but the Season 5 episode "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" reveals that she created the dream-warping Tantabus as a reminder that she once was Nightmare Moon. With some encouragement from Ponyville, Luna shakes off the ghosts and defeats her creation.
  • The only ponies who angst over anything that went on in the season 2 finale were Twilight Sparkle and Cadance, the former regretful over her impulsive attack on Cadance (who was revealed to be a fake) and the latter upset that the fake is taking her place and marrying her fiance. Everyone else sees nothing to cry over, not even the civilians of Canterlot who were attacked by the Changelings. Everyone just danced the night away like none of it happened... Granted, it all worked out for them.
  • The inhabitants of Starlight's village underwent years of brainwashing and intense repression under Starlight's regime. After Starlight is overthrown and ultimately redeemed, the villagers not only show no signs of trauma from their cult mentality but they welcome Starlight back with no reservations. Starlight's suspicion that the villagers may still hate her is treated as just a sign of insecurity, not a completely understandable prediction.
• Pixar Shorts: Tales from Radiator Springs "The Radiator Springs 500½": Lizzie does not show any discomfort (and in fact, seems to enjoy it a bit) when seeing Lightning and Mater portray her late husband Stanley.
• In Planet Sheen, Sheen doesn't seem at all worried about getting back to Earth at all. Sure he writes a letter to his grandmother in several episodes, but that's it. What about his father? What about Libby? He doesn't at all seem to care that his friends are missing him back on Earth or that he'll probably never see Jimmy and the others again. Nesmith even lampshades this.
• Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja:
  • "Aplopalypse Now" reveals that Plop Plop, the loyal friend and esquire of the First Ninja, was forced to become the guardian of one of the Sorcerer's balls for 800 years against his will. (By his best friend, no less) Despite that, when he meets Randy and Howard, he shows no signs of being remotely affected by this, and at the end of the episode When Randy uses the Nomicon in order to destank him, Plop Plop is overjoyed to be reunited with the First Ninja again.
  • You'd think Julian would be a bit less chipper after becoming trapped in The Land of Shadows by his own evil doppelganger, but when Randy and Howard come across him there in "Ball's Well That Friends Well", he isn't behaving much differently, and seems to have gotten used to his new home. Though, this could potentially be seen as some delirium caused by isolation, seeing as he's befriended a seemingly inanimate gargoyle skull.
• Ready Jet Go!:
  • Despite Mitchell's scathing comments towards her, Mindy, being a Cheerful Child, appears to be unfazed by these and continues to try and be friends with him.
  • "My Fair Jet": After being put in serious danger thanks to a weather balloon, Sean is surprisingly chipper.
• Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat: A number of times, especially from Mama and Baba, who are not at all alarmed at how sad Sheegwa is to be away from her siblings when she is mistaken for a princess, nor do we see their reaction when we learn she is to be taken from home to fulfill her royal duties. In a much later episode, they don't even put their work down when Sagwa runs off to get Dongwa off her back, merely chastising his carelessness while Sagwa is very nearly taken away by a family who mistook her for a stray. Especially remarkable as they are horrified when the Magistrate once nearly gave away one of their kittens to an Italian dignitary.
• Samurai Jack:
  • The Scotsman seems rather jolly when he rises as a ghost after being incinerated down to his bones in front of his mortified daughters by Aku. He just seems happy to have come back in his youthful prime as a Spirit Advisor.
  • Played more seriously, Ashi shows little resentment towards Jack for killing all of her sisters: it's intended to hammer home the fact that the Daughters were raised to repress their empathy, even for each other.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: In episode 20, Shaggy wants to re-establish a relationship with Velma, but she just wants to remain friends. It shatters Shaggy, but moments later he's up for pizza.
• In Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century Sherlock is resurrected two hundred years into the future but doesn't think much of it. He doesn't react in any negative way, instead just going on being Sherlock Holmes.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM):
  • Compared to the games' usual scenarios, Dr. Robotnik is treated far more seriously, and his method of robotizing characters, which had no known method of reversal, was considered tantamount to being killed. While there are genuine moments of heartbreak and emotion in the series, the cast often acts less horrified than they should; "Sonic Boom" and "Blast To The Past" for example feature one-shot characters being captured and robotized, and in both cases a main character mourns over the loss for only a few minutes.
  • Uncle Chuck, a victim of roboticization who regained his free will, nonchalantly mentioned that the process left his mind completely conscious but with no control over his body for the decade it was under effect. He shows not one sign of issue over it.
• South Park:
  • The kids never show any emotion, besides their trademark line, when Kenny is killed. One episode reveals that Kyle Broflovski is the only one aware he ever died. Everyone else forgets it ever happened the next morning. Deconstructed in "Kenny Dies," which has Kenny diagnosed with a terminal disease and plays it straight. As an added twist, this death actually stuck; the creators intended to have him Killed Off for Real but did eventually resurrect him by the end of the next season.
  • Stan Marsh gets shot in school at the end of "Dead Kids"... and appears perfectly fine in the next episode, with just an arm cast and no desire to talk about a near-death experience. This does at least make sense in the context of the satire, which depicts school shootings as so common that nobody cares about them anymore.
• In The Spectacular Spider-Man, one of Peter Parker's oldest friends, Eddie Brock, becomes the supervillain Venom. You'd expect Peter to be very upset over the fate of his "best bro" and try to reason with him, with the hope of redeeming him. Instead, he spends surprisingly little time dwelling on this issue and treats him as just another villain in subsequent fights. It's made pretty clear though that Peter doesn't think he's fighting Eddie, rather the symbiote who's warped Eddie's mind. He refers to Venom as "the symbiote", and does his best to get the symbiote off him, and attempts to get psychiatric care for Eddie afterward.
• Static Shock: Averted with Static who struggles with balancing his normal life and being a superhero. Gear, on the other hand, loves being a superhero. When the government finds a way to cure every meta-human in the city, Static wonders if it's for the best while Gear freaks out. Justified since Gear's powers make it possible for him to breeze through school with minimal effort, and hiding being a superhero from his parents would probably be easy for him since he already spent most of his life hiding the fact that his best friend is black from his racist father.
• Ruthlessly deconstructed in Steven Universe. For the first part of the series, Steven Quartz Universe appears to work on superhero/kiddie-cartoon rules of psychological and physical Plot-Powered Stamina. Over the course of the series, though, viewers start to notice his experiences weighing on him more and more heavily, as he tries to deal with it through increasingly unhealthy coping mechanisms, particularly his sunny optimism ossifying into Stepford Smiling. Finally in Steven Universe Future, an actual doctor gets a look at him and raises the alarm about how damaged he is from the massive physical and psychological trauma he's experienced in the previous years. Viewers brutally realize that all the blows and falls he took didn't follow cartoon logic; he actually was badly injured every time, even though he magically healed almost immediately. He then gets so overwhelmed by the rage, guilt, and pain from the psychological side of his trauma that it morphs him into a literal monster. By the end of the show, thankfully, he's in therapy.
• Street Sharks: The protagonists get kidnapped by a Mad Scientist and his two monsters, find out that their dad went missing, nearly die from an injection, and then turn into shark hybrids with possibly no way to turn back. Their first thought? To eat a hot dog stand. Goes even stranger with an out-of-towner named Melvin, who turns into a shark hybrid purely by accident, spends all of two seconds confused when he wakes up, and then decides to go enter a music contest.
• Superman: The Animated Series: In “The Late Mr. Kent”, Martha Kent receives a phone call telling her that her son Clark was killed in an explosion. She tries to pass her her very subdued reaction as still being in shock. Of course she(and the audience) already knows that a little explosion isn’t going to kill her son, as the view pans over to show that he, in full Superman costume no less, had been in the room the whole time.
  • In the "Little Girl Lost" two-parter, Superman discovers Krypton's devastated sister planet Argos, hears the holographic recording of an Argosian woman's detail of her planet's gradual apocalyptic collapse in the face of Krypton's nearby explosion, and finds the woman's family frozen in stasis, and every member but one, Kara In-Ze, has died. Any trauma Kara might have from watching the death of her entire planet and waking up only to lose her family is forgotten with the "Two Weeks Later" card, because now she can fly through the Kansas sky and that's the most awesome therapy ever.
• A tie-in comic to Teen Titans showed Starfire's parents died during the time she was sold into slavery. Starfire never notes this when she goes back to her home planet and didn't seem too fazed about the slavery part either.
• Ugly Americans:
  • Despite being drugged by a cult and effectively raped by Maggotbone Sr. and the occasional night terrors she experiences, Callie's mom feels no ill will towards either party and is implied to have at least tried to pursue a relationship with Maggotbone before leaving to raise Callie (whom she adores) on her own.
  • This was retconned in "Callie's Little Sister" - turns out she was dating Frank Sinatra, and Mack (Callie's father) offered to impregnate her in exchange for her soul, and getting him out of his Arranged Marriage with Twayne's mother, Violet.
• Justified in the Young Justice episode "Failsafe"; the team seems oddly unaffected by the deaths of the Justice League and Wolf... because they knew it was a training simulation. But then Artemis "died" in front of them and everything went pear-shaped. In the follow-up episode "Disordered", Superboy expresses guilt because he didn't angst one bit during "Failsafe" even when he thought everything was real.