Blinded by Rage

"Pissing Punchinello off was a dangerous game, but when people get mad, they make mistakes. I should know. That's where I wanted Punchinello — mad enough to trip over his own feet, preferably into a grave."

— Max, Max Payne

Blinded by Rage is when a fighter actively tries to make their opponent angry, because people can't fight or perform as well when they're mad. Usually, as someone gets more angry in a fight, their attacks gain strength and speed at the expense of technique and accuracy. More mistakes get made as the fighter gets sloppy, reckless, or tunnel-visioned due to their anger clouding their judgment. This allows their opponent to gain an advantage in several ways — they could lead the raging fighter into a trap, get them to hit something they really need to avoid hitting, take advantage of the aforesaid worse technique that leaves the raging fighter wide open when they miss, or cause them to waste ammo or stamina in their fury and press the advantage when they can't fight back anymore.

Other advantages to making your opponent angry include keeping their focus on you while your allies sneak up behind your opponent for a knife In the Back, sabotaging the Evil Plan, or making them blurt out something that they wouldn't say while they were calm. This can also work to set up a Heroic Sacrifice, as in cases where the angry opponent is far stronger than the heroes, someone may opt to keep them busy at the expense of their own survival, while the others make it past with their lives intact.

A common weakness for The Berserker, where blind rage proves to be a flaw in their fighting style. May also be caused by a Hate Plague. Characters might also start speaking in Angrish.

A Sister Trope to Revenge Before Reason. A subversion of Unstoppable Rage and You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!.

See also Berserk Button, Trash Talk, I Shall Taunt You, and You Fight Like a Cow, which is often meant to provoke this reaction, Villainous Breakdown, when the villains typically lose their composure right before their defeat, Rage Judo, another way to use someone's anger to your advantage, and Moment of Weakness, where getting angry causes a dramatic lapse in judgment. Fury-Fueled Foolishness is similar to this, but without the "intentionally invoked by someone else" angle. In non-physical contexts, this might result in a Misdirected Outburst.

Contrast Tranquil Fury when angering someone makes him more focused and calm instead, and Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!, for when you want them angry so they can show off better. Also contrast Temperate Berserker, where they perform just as well regardless of their rage.

People who try to get this reaction out of others include the Warrior Therapist (evil version, specifically), the Batman Gambitter, and the Troll.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Bleach:
  • When it's finally time to throw down with Aizen, he goads the Visoreds with a particularly spiteful taunt that sends Hiyori flying towards the ex-captain in a blind fury, despite Shinji's protests. Her recklessness gets her swiftly bifurcated by Gin Ichimaru, though it was suicide regardless of whether Gin intervened or not.
  • Later in battle, Kyōraku, Soifon, and Hirako use impressive teamwork and are able to distract Aizen, aIlowing Hitsugaya to stab him from behind. Unfortutanly, it turns out they were all under Kyoka Suigetsu's illusion and Hitsugaya had stabbed his childhood friend, Hinamori, by mistake. In blind rage, Hitsugaya charges at Aizen but gets his left limbs sliced off. Hirako and the remaining captains are defeated soon after.
• Played for laughs in Combatants Will Be Dispatched! early in the story. Agent Six is a Combat Pragmatist, and the best in the trade at going for the quickest and easiest solution to victory, never mind if it’s not honorable or noble. When fighting against Snow, knowing that she had him outmatched in all areas, Six just grabbed her boobs. This ended up making Snow so flustered that she couldn't focus and just randomly flailed her sword at him after she went into Pervert Revenge Mode. As a result, Snow quickly tired herself out, allowing Six to easily get the win.
• Cross Ange: Tusk uses an I Shall Taunt You tactic against Embryo to invoke this in his opponent when they clash with their Humongous Mecha in Episode 24, as the latter starts talking about how much he wishes to "tame" Ange. In response to that, Tusk angrily spits back that Embryo doesn't know the first thing about Ange, then claims he knows her so well that he could count the number of freckles on Ange's inner thigh (and given his Running Gag of tripping and falling into Ange's crotch by mistake, it's easy to believe he's not kidding). Suddenly Embryo's calm, Faux Affably Evil demeanor cracks as he then demands what Tusk means by that, interpreting it as a threat to Ange's sexual purity. Tusk then proudly reveals that he and Ange took each other's virginity not long ago, and explicitly describes how amazing it was. While Embryo at first thinks he's lying, he ultimately falls into a Villainous Breakdown when he realizes that Tusk isn't kidding, and immediately loses control of his temper as he accuses Tusk of defiling "his wife". As a result, Tusk starts to gain the upper hand in their fight, with his Paramail managing to land soms painful hits on Embryo's Hysterica.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Goku uses this to get an edge against Nappa in Dragon Ball Z, until Vegeta calms him down. Nappa is so angry that he just starts blindly rushing at Goku, which doesn't work. Goku is still superior to Nappa in all the ways that matter, but after calming down, Nappa at least puts up a more decent fight.
    Vegeta: Nappa! Don't be a fool! Calm down! How do you expect to win when you're so mad you can't even see straight?!
  • This is Vegeta's overall fatal flaw, coupled with his Pride. When Vegeta gets angry enough, he becomes extremely reckless, which leads to humiliating defeats against his opponents. Realizing that his Super Saiyan transformation still wasn't enough to beat Android 18 lets her break his arm when Vegeta keeps refusing to stand down, which instantly ends their fight.
  • Cell succumbs to this during his fight with Gohan. He ends up so insane with rage that he resorts to Hulking Out in an attempt to even the odds and only results in making himself a Mighty Glacier, despite having mocked Trunks for doing the exact same thing previously. Trunks even lampshades it, remarking that Cell's so pissed off that he's getting careless and making the same mistake.
    Trunks: He's so focused on power, he's not paying attention to his speed! Cell's getting careless the same way I did. He's gone totally berserk!
  • Played for Drama in Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Broly's Legendary Super Saiyan transformation isn't brought forth by a simple outpour of ki like before; instead, it is triggered by intense sorrow at Paragus's death combined with the ensuing blind rage. While strong enough to easily pummel Goku, Vegeta, and Frieza, the moment Gogeta gets involved the fight takes a 180 as it becomes clear Broly's blind anger is no match for Gogeta's speed, skill, and power. By the end of the fight, Broly is getting beaten to near-death and cannot stop himself from continuously charging Gogeta thanks to this trope, and ends up nearly killed as a result, if it weren't for Cheelai wishing him back to Vampa.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: A literal variant happens in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable during Josuke Higashikata's fight against Rohan Kishibe, though it's ultimately subverted, because it works in the angry's person's favor. Rohan repeatedly presses Josuke's Berserk Button — insulting Josuke's hair. At the time, Rohan's Heaven's Door stand requires the victim to look at a page of his artwork to actually work, and Josuke fights with his eyes closed in an attempt to avoid this. While Rohan eventually succeeds in eventually making Josuke open his eyes, his Berserk Button has been pressed so hard that he can't actually see anything, artwork page included, since he's become literally blind with rage. Rohan goes from Smug Snake to terrified pleading with Josuke in the span of only a few seconds.
• Kill la Kill: This is the main tactic of Nui Harime, with her Faux Affably Evil facade. As a consummate Troll, she loves to piss people off however she can, as people tend not to fight at their best when pissed. She herself is also susceptible to it, as when she finally gets pissed off near the end of the series after losing her arms to Ryuko, her standard behavior completely vanishes and she'll even continue fighting a battle she can't possibly win.
• In Mobile Fighter G Gundam this was the fatal flaw of Domon's Super Mode. Against a regular opponent the Unstoppable Rage factor guaranteed a win. Against stronger fighters like Master Asia he would be so blinded by rage that though he had the power to win, he could barely see straight and couldn't land a hit. He later mastered the true Super Mode which manifested as a golden colored Tranquil Fury.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, Shinn Asuka is normally a tactically inventive and brutally efficient Combat Pragmatist. When enraged, however, he's prone to making sloppy mistakes that lead to a curbstomping at the hands of returning Mobile Suit Gundam SEED protagonist Kira Yamato and Shinn's own former mentor Athrun Zala, both of whom Shinn had defeated in previous battles and despite his own extensive study of Kira's distinctive fighting style.
• One Piece:
  • When Luffy called Buggy "Big-Nose", the latter was enraged enough to fire a cannon at Luffy - something that Luffy's body can easily launch back.
  • During the Whitebeard War, Admiral Akainu goads the barely-escaped Ace into fighting him by insulting his captain and foster-father Whitebeard in front of him. This angers Ace enough to turn around and attack Akainu, leading directly to his death.
  • During the Law vs Doflamingo fight, Law knows that as Doffy is a former World Noble, he'd fear people with the middle name D (those people tend to be mysteriously exceptional), so he declares right to Doffy's face that he is also a D. Doffy angrily retorts with how he doesn't care about such superstitions, but Doffy's subordinate Trebol notes that Doffy's attacking recklessly and is walking right into Law's trap. Doffy got a nasty blow in the gut for his mistake. He wises up after that.
  • From the Wano Arc: After witnessing Kaido hurt Tama and vaporize the tower his allies were hiding in, Luffy, without so much as a second thought, jumps in the fray and starts a fight with the Emperor, something Law specifically warned him NOT to do. All Luffy's barrage of attacks (in Gear Fourth, no less!) ends up accomplishing is sobering Kaido up from his latest drinking binge; in stark contrast, Luffy is immediately one-shotted and imprisoned by Kaido.
• Pokémon: The Series: Unlike most members of its species, Iris's Dragonite has a terrible temper at the best of times. When Ash's newly-evolved Krookodile puts it on the ropes during their battle, Dragonite loses its mind with rage and starts wildly attacking everything around it, completely ignoring its foe. Krookodile capitalizes on its tantrum and attacks it while its guard is down, enraging Dragonite still further, and by the time Dragonite tries Dragon Rush it's so sloppily executed Krookodile easily escapes and counterattacks for the finish.
• Ranma ½: A typical battle tactic of the eponymous character. With most of the cast having Hair Trigger Tempers and wanting him dead for various reasons (real and imagined), it's a pretty easy tactic to utilize.
• Rebuild World: Akira's deep seated trauma induced Fatal Flaw being rage, it's eventually used against him in gambits, first to lure him into destroying a target for someone, but later for this. A villain tramples on every Berserk Button Akira has after he tells her Give Me a Reason, to get him to attack into an ambush. He's soon after taunted by said villain's smile into attacking her Attack Reflector shield, and then she uses his anger to repeately try and trick Akira into fights with the government that he couldn't possibly win.
• Soul Eater: Death the Kid is normally a cool-headed strategist. However he tends to get angry and then screwed up whenever he sees something asymmetrical. This actually worked to his advantage in his first appearance, as he could not bring himself to attack a perfectly symmetrical mummy's crypt, but the mummy itself turned out to be asymmetrical in several ways.
• In Vinland Saga, Thorfinn follows the mercenary leader Askeladd only in the hope of getting Askeladd in a proper duel and avenging his father's death at Askeladd's hands. Askeladd goes along with this, and any time in a duel when it looks like Thorfinn might be doing better than usual, Askeladd just gets Thorfinn angry, (usually by insulting Thorfinn's father Thors) at which point Thorfinn abandons all subtlety and strategy and makes predictable attacks against Askeladd, which Askeladd promptly counters and then beats the snot out of Thorfinn. Several years and arcs later, a now calmer and more mature Thorfinn uses this very same tactic against his Ax-Crazy Evil Counterpart Garm.

Comic Books

• Aquaman tends to not think clearly when his wife, kids, or mentees are in danger, which villains are happy to exploit.
• She-Hulk:
  • Jennifer (She-Hulk) tends to play with this trope, particularly following Avengers Disassembled, when getting angry caused her to go murderously insane.
  • Hulk's daughter Lyra, the second woman to claim the title of She-Hulk, had a variation of her dad's powers that caused her to get weaker as she got angrier.
• The Incredible Hulk plays with this in the 1990s. After Dr. Samson cures Banner/Hulk of his split personality, creating a Hulk with Banner's brainpower, when he gets extraordinarily angry he turns into scrawny Bruce Banner but with the Hulk's brain. "Banner smash!"
• Attempted by a mobster boss in The Punisher MAX arc "Up is Down, Black is White". Nicky Cavella wanted Frank Castle pissed off and careless so he could hopefully take him down with ease, so he dug up the Castles' graves, pissed on the bodies, and recorded it and sent it out to the news. Unfortunately for him, the result was not this — instead, Frank got into a hyper-focused, hyper-violent Tranquil Fury and his rampage demolished all of Nicky's organization (not to mention a whole lot of real estate and so many random goons that the City of New York agreed to his demands to get his family buried again just to make him stop) in a single night. Oops.
• Attempted by Lobo in Red Daughter of Krypton. He makes Supergirl so enraged that she can't think clearly. However, he can't capitalize on her mistakes because she is too tough to be easily taken down, and her superior speed means her sloppy but increasingly stronger blows eventually connect.

Fan Works

• All For Luz: Luz becomes this after her cousin Riley betrays her and attempts to murder her even she tried to give herself up to the police. Luz doesn't demand to know why Riley betrayed her and tell her to surrender peacefully, like she normally would. Luz just wants Riley dead, familial ties be damned. By the time she finally calms down, Riley and her accomplice have escaped her wrath, Luz has blown up an entire supermarket and turned the whole squad of cops about to arrest her into Ludicrous Gibs with her exploding Deadly Force Field. All this occurs in front of shocked onlookers, including her horrified mother, who recorded the whole thing, labelling her a villain.
• Hans from A Brighter Dark goes ballistic when Mozu is hurt in a fight, but his rage causes him to expose his back to some enemies and get himself subdued instantly.
• Deconstructed in A Destiny of Ice and Steel. When someone just wildly hacks without thought for technique or finesse, Ser Rodrik calls it an "immature tantrum."
• In A Force of Four, villainess Badra successfully baits Wonder Woman into charging blindly by threatening her mother and daughter.
  "Then deal with me a second time," said Badra. "If I get done with you soon enough, perhaps he'll let me help the boys deal with your daughter. And your mother."
  A second after she had done it, Diana realized she'd been goaded too well. She should have harnessed her fury, and tried a move with more finesse.
  Instead, she just charged, with a war cry on her lips and a face twisted in hate. Badra managed a sidestep, no easy feat considering Diana's velocity, and swung a knee into her abdomen.
• In Hellsister Trilogy, Supergirl tells her evil duplicate that the Legion of Super-Heroes killed her lover Mordru so she is too angry to fight efficiently.
• Juxtapose: Momo pulls off some pre-game Trash Talk before her match with Katsuki and fights a game of keep-away, keeping him so distracted and frustrated that when he finally gets a blind blast off, he does so in the middle of a cloud of aluminum dust. Cue dust explosion.
• Metal Gear: Green: Bakugou, upon seeing Akatani alone, became completely blinded by rage after remembering his humiliating loss to him in the class trial and angrily stomps up to him with the intent to deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. So blinded by rage, he didn't notice Akatani had a gun pressed to his stomach. When he does, he is swiftly defeated and tied up in a way he cannot use his Quirk on Akatani or his restraints.
• The Mountain and the Wolf:
  • Much like his canon counterpart, the Wolf insults his targets into attacking recklessly, which leads to them failing (even moreso if they didn't have much skill in the first place like Littlefinger), which leads to more mockery, which... The only ones who weren't afflcited by it were Euron (who despite being angered, actually manages to volley insults with the Wolf for a bit) and the Night King (who doesn't react in the slightest).
  • He also goads Cersei into executing prisoners rather than negotiating, ensuring King's Landing can only fall by siege, and later arranges for Daenerys to be struck by rage to torch the city, although she interrupts her attack earlier than in the show.
• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Ash is prone to occasional angry outbursts, and they tend to hamper his performance in Pokémon battles:
  • In Chapter 18, he runs into Paul, who picks a fight with him after blasting Ash's Primeape into the sky, possibly with fatal consequences. After Pikachu loses to Paul's Nidoking, Misty manages to calm Ash down and help him regain his focus to win the battle.
  • Later in Chapter 31, he runs into a guy named Joshua who was responsible for getting Serena kicked out of Professor Oak's summer camp. In this case it's downplayed, as Ash completely trashes Joshua's entire team without losing a single Pokémon, despite having a few slip-ups, but Iris notices how it affects him and decides she will train Ash to Tame His Anger.
• In the climax of Security! (Worm), Zion is so enraged at Michael Allen blowing up Eden's body and then blowing up a lifelike facsimile of her that when he finally gets his hands on him, he completely annihilates him and the land around him, leaving him blind to the Armor-Piercing Attack coming for him In the Back.
• Seventh Endmost Vision has this as a consistent and disturbing part of Tifa's nature. Events during the War appear to have left Tifa with some traces of PTSD, meaning Tifa sometimes blacks out and goes berserk on opponents. This is not treated as a good thing; it scares the hell out of some kids she was trying to save, and she herself is worried about what this element of her personality might result in if she's not careful with it.
• Shadows over Meridian: When the enraged Metalbeak wants to immediately hunt down the Nest Butcher's kin, Jade makes a point of letting him do that only if he manages to knock her out of the circle she draws in the snow. When his more and more furious attempts to do so fail, she specifically tells him that he must keep his head cool to avoid falling into any possible trap of the rebels. After she finally knocks him on his ass, he reluctantly admits she's right.
• This Bites!:
  • With his penchant for dancing on Berserk Buttons, Jeremiah Cross frequently uses this tactic. One example is when he goaded Corto of the Amigo Pirates with fat jokes, enraging him enough to run right into a knockout blow.
  • The Straw Hat Pirates themselves fell victim to this trope, when Shiki the Golden Lion called their crewmate Nami his "property". This infuriated the whole crew enough to lay a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Shiki, but it also made them sloppy enough that a veteran like Shiki could beat them easily.
• Zero Context: Taking Out the Trash:
  • Circe was already angry due to her friends and associates attacking her own wedding. When two of them damage her footwear and deprive her of her lightsaber, she remembers that something similar had been done to her once before; she completely flips her lid and breaks out a wide-angle disintegration beam, no longer caring if her friends died or not.
  "That's it. Killing you both! Loving Heart: Double Spark!"
  • Later, her completely blinding rage at the saboteurs became immense enough that it broke the effects of a Love Potion she'd been under, restoring her senses.

Films — Animated

• Big Hero 6: The Big Bad Yokai, motivated by wrath and Revenge for his lost daughter, is so focused on getting Hiro and Baymax out of his way in the final fight that he doesn't notice that the others are removing his Microbots from play, until he effectively runs out.
• In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Terry effectively heckles the Joker enough for the enraged Joker to choke Terry out with his bare hands as soon as he gets the chance - bringing him close enough for Terry to zap out the microchip containing Joker's personality controlling Tim Drake with the Joker's own electric buzzer.
• In Turning Red, in the climax, Ming is so aggravated by Mei's actions she doesn't notice Mei is actively keeping her within the ritual circle.

Films — Live-Action

• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: In a scene that wasn't in the book, Thorin takes advantage of the dragon Smaug's volatile temper by insulting him to his face, enraging him into breathing fire which ends up reactivating the Lonely Mountain's forging furnaces so the dwarves can kill him.
• In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Holmes is counting on Moriarty's rage at losing his fortune being a hindrance during the climactic fight at the end, as Holmes is too injured to fight properly. The two slug it out in a Combat Clairvoyance sequence in which Moriarty defeats Holmes, but this was all a ploy, because Holmes was planning on taking Moriarty off a cliff with him, something a sociopath like Moriarty couldn't predict.
  Holmes: "His advantage: my injury. My advantage: his rage."
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990): Shredder uses this to his advantage by mocking the Turtles, claiming that he killed Splinter. Leo proceeds to recklessly charge Shredder in absolute rage... and is easily disarmed and pinned down. Then, a moment later, Splinter arrives and makes Shredder angry enough to charge at him recklessly, giving Splinter the opening he needs to quickly defeat Shredder.
• During the tournament in White Men Can't Jump, Billy spends the entire tournament Trash Talking everyone there, especially the team Sidney identified as their only major competition. When called on it by Sidney, Billy reveals that he's trying to invoke this trope. When Sidney says that Billy is embarrassing and pissing him off as well, (despite Sidney usually being the one to run his mouth on the court) Billy responds that unlike the other players and teams, he thinks Sidney will play better angry.

Literature

• Captive Prince: The Big Bad provokes Damen into attacking him in a rigidly enforced Truce Zone by gloating that he raped Damen's lover in childhood, which brings about his Near-Villain Victory.
• In Dragon Bones Ward, who is Obfuscating Stupidity at that time, uses this effect to win a training fight against a guardsman - the guy is so mad that he would kill Ward, but fortunately doesn't succeed. Later lampshaded by Stala, the woman in charge of the guard; one of her favourite sayings is that anger is of no use in battle.
• Ender's Game highlights the difference between this and Tranquil Fury.
  Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's anger was hot, and so it used him.
• Fengshen Yanyi could almost be considered an Aesop against anger: whenever a general or a taoist succumbs to his anger, he makes himself vulnerable and exploitable. Most notably, the Disc-One Final Boss Wen Zhong is repeatedly taunted and tricked to wander from trap to trap until, exhausted and demoralized, he's left with no men and fighting the highly skilled Yunzhongzi, who easily dispatch him. The entire war between the Chan Taoists and Jie Taoists halfway through is ultimately caused by the Jie patriarch Tongtian being unable to control his temper and let anger get the better of him.
• Go to Sleep (A Jeff the Killer Rewrite): Jeff's short temper has caused him to get into troublesome fights, caused intentionally by the other party.
  • Jeff's outburst during an ice hockey game when an opponent insults him leads to a fight that suspends him from the match, and only at that point does the realisation of his actions hit him.
  • Randy suggests that he should've pushed Jeff in the water instead of Ben, pissing off Jeff even more to lure him into a fight against him. However, he underestimates Jeff, resulting in both of them getting beat up rather badly.
• Knaves on Waves has an unusual example in Carnage, who is fully aware that he's susceptible to this. As such, he recruits others to serve as his negotiator, lest he lose his temper. The success of this method is questionable.

Live-Action TV

• The Mentalist combines this with Poor Communication Kills in the episode "Red Alert". In the backstory, a man has been accused of murdering his wife, with a video apparently disproving his alibi. The Victim of the Week is a filmmaker who was interviewing him about it. During an interview, she tries to ask him a question about the video, only for him to fly into a rage. She was actually going to tell him that the metadata on the video showed it had been tampered with, proving he was framed, but she never gets to tell him this. Instead, she inadvertently tells the murderer that no one else knew that the video file was altered.
• In The Last Kingdom, when the Danish warlord Cnut hears that one of his young sons was killed by the Saxon warlord Uthred, Cnut charges off in a blind rage and not only leads his forces straight into a trap, but in his personal duel with Uthred, Uthred is easily able to sidestep all around Cnut and get the better of him. Cnut does more or less shrug off several serious, perhaps mortal wounds because of the sheer power of his rage and determination to kill Uthred, but the fight is very much a case of bull vs matador, with Cnut coming out on the losing side. Then Uhtred reveals that he didn't actually kill Cnut's son, only faked it, and Cnut's rage breaks and all of a sudden he starts feeling the effects of all the wounds he sustained just a few minutes prior and his body starts to give out.

Tabletop Games

• The Garou in Werewolf: The Apocalypse suffer from this hard. While their rage allows them to shapeshift into their terrifying crinos war-form, it also leaves many Garou extremely easy to piss off, especially in combination with their Honor Before Reason tendencies. Those that try to keep their rage in check to avoid this trope simply end to exploding much more violently once they reach their limit. Much of their backstory, such as the aptly-named War of Rage or the eradication of the Camazotz were-bats, can be linked to the Garou being consummate rageaholics.
  • In-game, this is represented with the Rage attribute which allows the Garou to shapeshift instantly. However, the more rage points a character has, the more likely they are to experience Frenzy, especially during moments of intense stress or even a particularly harsh slight against them. During Frenzy, Garou are liable to turn against their packs while tearing at anything and everything around them.
• Warhammer Fantasy: This is Wulfrik the Wanderer's modus operandi: using his Gift of Tongues, he's able to deliver an uninterruptable challenge (well, long list of insults) to an enemy, who then has to fight him no matter the difference in combat ability. In one case, he was able to get an Imperial baron to leave the safety of his fortress and charge out into Wulfrik's army unsupported (and leaving the gates open) just by making a comment on the baroness' supposed infidelity (said infidelity existing only in the baron's mind).
• Magic: The Gathering: This is the general concept of the "goad" mechanic, a multiplayer-focused effect that forces the creature that's goaded to attack, aimed at someone other than the goading player if at all possible, meaning they're not even attacking the source of their rage. The creatures that inflict this status tend to have names like Agitator Ant, Taunting Kobold or Mocking Doppelganger.
• In Fabula Ultima, the Enraged status effect lowers the victim's Dexterity and Insight by one die size each. This not only makes it harder for them to succeed on Checks involving those skills (including Accuracy Checks with most weapons), but it also reduces their Defense and Magic Defense, making them easier for enemies to hit.

Video Games

• Somewhat literally in Asura's Wrath: One of his Super Mode is a Clipped-Wing Angel called "Wrath Form" where he is very powerful, but does more damage to himself than to enemies as he fights, and also has next to no self-control in it.
• Both Ragna the Bloodedge and Jin Kisaragi have this happen often in the BlazBlue series. In both cases their rage often leads to them doing things like letting themselves get captured, injured, or defeated, or worse, them fighting each other.
• Berserk/Fury is a status effect in Final Fantasy series which makes its bearer unable to do anything else than physical attacks. If the character in question is more magic-oriented, that pretty much negates their main strengths. If they're suffering from other status ailments such as Poison or Confusion, (where they're as likely to attack themselves or members of the group as they are the enemies you're fighting) then you can have a pretty significant problem on your hands.
• Used by Alchemist in Girls' Frontline. Through an open channel broadcast during Chapter 6, she calls out Negev by name and taunts her in order to lure her behind Sangvis lines. This works, causing Negev to charge through in a bloodthirsty rage.
• In Hi-Fi RUSH, this is effectively how the boss fight with Korsica goes after Chai tries to Break Them by Talking. Early scenes suggest Chai can't physically compete with Korsica, and even if he could, La Résistance needs her alive and verbal to get Korsica's password. The boss battle thus instead revolves around wearing her out by trying to talk sense into her. It almost works, but when Chai says exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time, Chai settles for aggravating Korsica on purpose. By doing so, Korsica burns herself out, to the point she's too exhausted to keep going. Wounding her pride and insulting her intelligence especially needle her to the point she's knocked out with nothing but counter-attacks and a verbal beatdown.
• In Max Payne, Max plays this card against Punchinello to get him mad enough to make mistakes. He tries to kill Max by trapping him in a burning restaurant, but Max escapes and takes the battle to the manor itself.
• Minion Masters: Lorewise, the Master Volco slowly becomes this due to the anger stored in his magical weapon.
• Planescape: Torment: Morte's Litany of Curses ability causes a targeted enemy to be unable to do anything but rush up and make melee attacks against him. They take a penalty to attack rolls and armor class while enraged, and Morte is already the most damage-resistant member of the party so this tends to be a highly effective ability.
• Pokémon seems to have some attacks with this idea:
  • Swagger is a move that enrages the enemy, complete with animated Cross-Popping Veins, and the result is that the opponent's attack increases but it also applies "Confusion" (the attack boost guaranteeing that if it does hit itself in confusion, it'll deal even more damage).
  • Taunt prevents an opponent from using any non-attacking moves.
  • The move Torment similarly prevents the opponent from using the same move twice in a row, by means of extreme heckling.
  • Outrage is a powerful Dragon-type Unstoppable Rage move, but the user cannot select targets and can hurt anyone, even allies in Double or Triple battles, not to mention it leaves the user so drained they become Confused after it runs its course: it's particularly fitting for this move, as now the user runs the risk of attacking itself in its blind frenzy.
• Punch-Out!!, being about boxing, shows why anger issues make people unfit to be boxers.
  • Super Punch-Out for the SNES has Narcis Prince of the Special Circuit. He has a very good defense and can counter well... until you somehow manage to punch him in the face. That makes him angry, even showing in his sprite, and he becomes more aggressive, but also open to more punches in the face until he gets knocked down.
  • Punch-Out Wii has the Final Boss, Mr. Sandman in Title Defense. His ultimate move is called the Rage Uppercuts, where he gets pissed off and unleashes a flurry of uppercuts that make him as dangerous as Mike Tyson himself in the NES. However, unlike him, if he misses all of his uppercuts, he is exhausted and completely helpless afterwards.
• Rengoku: Each boss is said to be so "blinded by their sin", they would have recognized that Gram is their Captain if not for spending too much time in own self-loathing.
• In the third episode of Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, after Sammun-Mak warps reality when he gets into Max's body, Sam uses this strategy to take down Skun-ka'pe.
• Shin Megami Tensei: as in Final Fantasy, Rage is a Status Effect which causes a fighter to automatically only deal physical attacks. Enraged characters inflict extra damage when they attack, but they also take more damage from all sources.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Knuckles is sometimes depicted as blundering and reckless as a result of his short temper.
• ULTRAKILL: Enemies that become Enraged may attack faster and harder, but their actions and general intelligence suffer from it. Enraged Cerberi are known for charging into Bottomless Pits (when before they'd stop right at the border), Swordsmachines forget they have a shotgun, and if you piss off V2 by hitting it with its own arm it completely forgets how to use certain parts of its arsenal (the Marksman revolver in particular) in favor of rushing you down as much as possible.

Web Animation

• In the Helluva Boss episode "The Harvest Moon Festival", seeing Moxxie being choked by Striker made Millie savagely attack Striker, including with a knife to the back. However, her anger clouded her ability, as Striker was able to get the upper hand after Millie got sloppy. She even lampshades it later when Striker throws Millie and Moxxie in a basement, saying that she was too angry to think clearly. Admittedly, those stab wounds would have killed a normal imp; Striker was just a lot tougher than Millie gave him credit for.
• Turnabout Storm: Phoenix starts intentionally riling up the Surprise Witness Trixie found to throw them off of their rehearsed testimony. Twilight Sparkle is surprised at his tactic until Phoenix explains just what he's up to. Phoenix succeeds in infuriating Gilda to the point where he can prove that Gilda not only didn't see Rainbow Dash kill Ace Swift, but that Gilda attempted to frame Rainbow by moving Ace's body and altering the crime scene.

Western Animation

• Sylvia from Wander over Yonder suffers from this in the episode "The Timebomb". She has never won an intergalactic race because when she gets too competitive she loses control and ends up tripping herself (hence the nickname that gives the episode its title). Wander helps her win the race by getting her to calm down.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • In one episode in Season 1 (which has Jeong Jeong in it) Zhao is fighting Aang. The latter knows that Zhao is an irritable person, so Aang just runs and dodges his fire attacks while taunting him... resulting in Zhao burning his own platoon's ships.
  • Throughout the series Azula had been an extremely composed fighter which is why she was virtually unmatched in combat. However, following a Villainous Breakdown her composure degraded and during her fight with Zuko she began to let her rage get the better of her. Azula being unable to think straight was the only reason Zuko agreed to fight her one on one.
• In Jackie Chan Adventures, Jackie defeats a Dragon Talisman-enhanced Valmont by getting him angry enough that he keeps using telegraphed, easy-to-dodge blasts, which leads to Valmont accidentally sinking the boat they're on.
• Steven Universe:
  • During the rematch against Jasper during Earthlings, Peridot's taunting in tandem with Smoky Quartz's skills ends up aggravating Jasper enough that she accidently frees the corrupted Gems she was keeping prisoner before fusing with a Corrupted Gem. After that, things go downhill fast for Jasper, ending in her being corrupted due to her fusion earlier.
• While Amberley's competence varies in The Dreamstone, she is at least shown capable of being The Strategist with a cool head. A recurring plot point however, is her running headfirst into the enemy whenever infuriated enough, usually leading to her getting captured (often still in a violent rage).

Real Life

• Miyamoto Musashi was well known for his strategic brilliance. One of his most famous strategies (which could even be considered his trademark) was his tendency to show up rather late to scheduled duels in order to upset his opponents, resulting in them not being able to fight at their best. In his final duel with Sasaki Kojiro, it is speculated by some people that Musashi won the duel before he showed up. By timing his arrival so that he was not only late (infuriating Kojiro and taking the edge off his skill) but also so that upon finishing his duel he would leave as the tide was going out, he made a swift escape from Kojiro's followers and supporters who might have chased after him to avenge Kojiro's defeat.

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