Fury-Fueled Foolishness

"He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him."

— Ender's Game, explaining the difference between Tranquil Fury that doesn't fall prey to this trope, and Hot-Blooded anger which does.

One of the more common causes of mistakes, both in Real Life and fiction, is anger. No one is safe from the tendency to act like idiots once they lose their cool. There is a good reason why the word "mad" can mean both "angry" and "crazy".

Some characters lose any and all sense of rationality once their temper flare up. They will grab the Idiot Ball and not let go, as if it was made of superglue. Their actions will make things better for the other side, to the point that in severe cases, the other side only needs to sit back and watch the berserk hero/villain be done in by his/her own wrath.

Is the direct inverse of Enraged by Idiocy, where anger is caused by idiocy instead of causing it. Furthermore, it is also the direct inverse of Unstoppable Rage, where getting angry leads to badassery instead of stupidity. Likely to show up as a Fatal Flaw, especially if the character is Hot-Blooded or has a Hair-Trigger Temper. Has some overlap with Revenge Before Reason (it's not uncommon for vengeance to overlap with anger, after all) and It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. See Alcohol-Induced Idiocy, Fear-Induced Idiocy, Love Makes You Dumb, Lust Makes You Dumb, Greed Makes You Dumb, and Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy for other elements that cause people to act irrationally. When a character intentionally invokes this in order to make their opponent slip up, that's Blinded by Rage. Sub-Trope to A Tragedy of Impulsiveness; specifically, this trope covers impulsiveness caused by anger.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan: When Eren gets eaten by a Titan, Mikasa enters Tranquil Fury mode and orders her team on the offensive, despite clearly not having enough fuel in her 3D-maneuver gear to complete the attack. Only the appearance of the Rogue Titan saves her from getting eaten herself.
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • This trope is Nappa's primary trait: while he's already a gruff individual, spending years at the top of the food chain means that if an opponent gets the best of him, he quickly loses his composure and attacks without any semblance of foresight or strategy. Vegeta has to remind him to calm down and think during his fight with Goku (who intentionally exploited Nappa's anger), but while Nappa agrees to this advice, he's incredibly quick to forget it.
  • Vegeta's Fatal Flaw, alongside his pride, is his wrath. When he gets angry enough, he gets extremely reckless, leading to humiliating defeats and exacerbating the problem. This is notable because next to Nappa, Vegeta comes off as the calm and calculating one, but that's only because it takes him much longer to anger, and it's frequently for the same reasons as Nappa did (someone being better than him). After Vegeta eliminates his partner, he himself is treated as The Angry One.
    • When Cell kills Future Trunks, Vegeta goes Papa Wolf on him and attacks him with everything he has... only for Cell to No-Sell it and beat him into the ground. The only reason Vegeta lives to tell the tale is because Gohan took the bullet, which disabled his arm and severely bottlenecked his power, thus giving Cell the advantage.
    • This leads to a significant chunk of the Buu Saga happening; Vegeta was so furious that he was still second-best to Goku even after the latter had been dead for seven years that he doesn't hesitate to sell his soul to Babidi for a power boost, not caring that in doing so, he'd unleash Majin Buu.
  • After Cell pushes Gohan into an Unstoppable Rage for the sake of unleashing his hidden power and getting a Worthy Opponent, he gets his wish; Gohan ascends to Super Saiyan 2 and beats Cell to a pulp, but when he has the chance to end it despite Goku screaming at him to finish it before Cell gets desperate, he drags it out purely because he felt Cell hadn't suffered enough for his crimes. This bites him in the ass big time when Cell is driven to a Villainous Breakdown and tries to blow up the Earth, forcing Goku to sacrifice himself to save the world. On top of it all, Cell is able to regenerate From a Single Cell and return stronger than ever thanks to his Saiyan genes, and Gohan knows he has only himself to blame for it all.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Envy, while trying to negotiate a truce with Edward and Ling, unthinkingly calls the former "pipsqueak". Ed attacks Envy which leads to all three of them being sucked into Gluttony's Black-Hole Belly.
• Thorfinn's Fatal Flaw in Vinland Saga's first arc. While he's one of the most skilled warriors in the series at age seventeen, his skill and speed only works for him if he can keep his head clear. If he's angered enough, he loses his judgement and gets easily defeated: Askeladd has been exploiting it for years by 'paying' Thorfinn in 'duels to the death' that Thorfinn inevitably lose the moment Askeladd says something that pisses him off. Two arcs and a lot of Character Development later, Thorfinn ends up using this trope himself against the younger Garm, provoking the latter into a close-quarters fight where Thorfinn's fists outcompetes Garm's spear. Thorfinn lampshades his former self's similarity to Garm as he does.

Comic Books

• The Incredible Hulk: Way too many examples of this applying to the Hulk exist to count, but it's most likely to happen with the Savage Hulk, who already has a childlike mind as-is, and is therefore easily enraged or duped. Once Hulk's upset, it takes a lot to calm him down.
• During Infinite Crisis, this is what causes the definite Face–Heel Turn (closer to a Face–Monster Turn actually) of Superboy-Prime. His foolish actions during the Crisis Crossover cause great damage to the entire story and lead to his final Heel turn. A good example of this is when the Teen Titans tried to save Superboy from his beatdown. He accidentally kills Pantha by punching her head off, and from there just starts killing and maiming indiscriminately. Then he gets dragged into another dimension, and when he returns has lost whatever sanity he had, becoming a blind berserker who kills anyone in his way for as little reason as annoying him. Gets exploited in Legion of 3 Worlds, when the plan to defeat the Time-Trapper is dump Prime in front of him and let things play out from there.
• Iron Fist (1975): Storm of the X-Men, of all people, has this happen to her during a brawl between the team and Iron Fist (which Wolverine started for petty reasons). She initially tries to break up the fight, only to get some food in her face, at which point she goes ballistic. Once everything's calmed down, she's pretty embarassed.
• The Punisher MAX: The arc "Up is Down, Black is White" revolves around the attempted invocation of this trope by a Mafia lieutenant - he hopes that, by pissing off Frank Castle more than anybody has ever done, he will be too damn angry to think straight and he will be easy to lead into a trap. He perform this angering by digging up the bodies of Castle's wife and children, pissing on them, and sending the videotape of this act to the news. The part of the plan where Castle is angrier than ever was achieved, all right, but instead Frank went into a razor-sharp Tranquil Fury and massacred a large number of criminal underworld groups in a single night in his relentless hunt for the idiot.
• Robin (1993): The final few survivors of Strader Pharmaceuticals' illegal drug trials attack Robin in a rage when he starts asking them questions. Their rage is partially drug induced, but they'd shown that they were not mindless rage monsters as Strader had been internally portraying them as, and this attack leads to their deaths when the mercenaries the company hired arrive while they're busy attacking someone who was trying to help them for asking questions that pissed them off.

Fan Works

• In Amazing Fantasy, Bakugou is so insistent on trying to beat the crap out of Izuku during combat training that Jirou easily leads him into an ambush. After getting himself free, he's so pissed off at Jirou that he quickly beats her into the ground when given the chance... only for Izuku to again ambush him from the ceiling while Bakugou was busy.
• Eight Intertwined: While Tressa isn't normally the sort to run around picking fights, she simply can't STAND any kind of injustice, which can spur her to rush into situations half-cocked and get her and her companions into serious trouble as a result.
• Green Tea Rescue explores this extensively through Ochako's character arc. While she's not normally quick to anger, she can become quite vicious when enraged, something Gunhead notices and warns her against. Miruko later teaches her how to use her anger to her advantage as a source of power, rather than letting it overwhelm her:
  Ochako: Isn't fighting angry dangerous though? Gunhead used to say that.
  Miruko: There's a difference between letting your anger control you, and using your anger to fuel you.
• Throughout the Infinity Train: Blossomverse, many characters lash out or otherwise do something that makes matters significantly worse for themselves or others because they're in a bad mood, if not outright Blinded by Rage. The whole Unown incident, for instance, sparked from Parker's outrage over their mistaken belief that the adults weren't punishing Sara and the rest of his sister's bullies enough for their crimes.
• Jessica: After losing his mother, Cameron starts throwing his belongings around everywhere to vent and accidentally cracks the cartridge of his Pokémon Yellow game, killing his team.
• A Moth to a Flame: Grace Wu is so infuriated at Anne and the Boonchuys that she outright assaults them, while revealing that she'd never considered Anne "good enough" to be a worthy friend for her daughter.
• No Chance for Fate: In the Backstory, the original Crystal Tokyo timeline turned out horribly, with Sailor Pluto Forced to Watch as it all went to hell. In her anger and grief, she unleashed a fury-fulled Dead Scream, accidentally cracking the Gates of Time and trapping herself in a time loop. She's only able to free herself after many, MANY cycles, and only by exploiting a surge of chaos energy in one particular timeline to reset and rewrite causality itself.
• Vow of Nudity: Even Haara's internal monologue admits she was making a terrible decision when she attacked the wyrmling sorcerer with a mote of produce flame after he boasts about his plans to ally with the empire that used to enslave her.

Films — Animation

• The Fox and the Hound: As Widow Tweed warned him at one point, Amos Slade's bad temper gets him in hot water when his obsession with hunting Tod for inadvertently lead Chief to get hurt nearly does him in when he makes an enemy out of a wild bear.
• In Inside Out, this trope describes Anger's main negative aspect, reflecting the irrationality of angry people.
• In Kung Fu Panda 2, after being defeated, Lord Shen attacks Po with a dagger, not realizing that in doing so he's also cutting the ropes holding up his cannon. He is standing right under it just as the last rope gives way, and has barely enough time to Face Death with Dignity as the cannon falls and crushes him.
• In Lady and the Tramp, Tramp is alerted by Lady's barking that there's a rat in the baby's room. Since Lady is chained and can't deal with the rat herself, Tramp goes in in her stead to kill the rat before it can harm the baby. Aunt Sarah doesn't see the rat and angrily calls the pound on Tramp, mistakenly thinking he was trying to harm the baby. Jim Dear, Darling and Lady find the dead rat, and from there, it's a race to try to exonerate Tramp before the pound euthanizes him.
• The Little Mermaid (1989): While King Triton is a wise, respectful, and fair ruler, his temper gets the best of him big-time when he finds out that Ariel has fallen in love with a human; determined to "get through to her" and turn her over to his views of humans, Triton destroys Ariel's collection of human artifacts right in front of her in a fit of rage. It's only after Ariel is reduced to tears by the result that Triton calms down and realizes what he's done, only able to look on in horror and remorse before leaving the grotto in shame. This proves to be the catalyst that leads Ariel to make a deal with Ursula.
• In the first Shrek movie, when the titular green ogre overhears Fiona saying no one could love an ogre to Donkey, he assumes she meant him when she actually meant herself since she's cursed to turn into an ogre at sunset. The next morning, a completely disgruntled Shrek arrives with Lord Farquaad and refuses to hear Fiona and Donkey out when they try to explain the situation. Had it not been for Donkey's tenacity and eventually learning about the misunderstanding, Shrek and Fiona could have led miserable lives.
• In Tarzan, Clayton gets tangled up in vines as he chases after Tarzan up in the trees. He angrily starts hacking them apart, not noticing that one of the vines is wrapping around his neck. Tarzan tries to warn him, but it's too late; the vines give way, Clayton falls and ends up hanging himself.

Films — Live-Action

• In Attack of the Clones, Anakin rushes to attack Dooku, ostensibly to avenge the Jedi slain during the battle. Dooku quickly incapacitates the impulsive charge with Force Lightning, incapacitating Anakin and forcing his mentor, Obi-Wan, to battle Dooku on his own.
• Avengers: Infinity War: Iron Man's team has managed to restrain Thanos when they learn he had sacrificed Gamora's life to obtain the Soul Stone. An enraged Star-Lord lashes out, which allows Thanos to break free of Mantis's empathic powers and scuttles the team's plan to take the Infinity Gauntlet from him. This ended up actually being a good thing as in Avengers: Endgame, it's revealed that Thanos was only granted a temporary victory before all of which was undone by the Avengers.
• In Babe, savage dogs attack the flock of sheep and kill one of them. Babe nuzzles the dying sheep in concern and budding grief, getting blood on his snout. Farmer Hoggett finds Babe bloody-snouted next to the by-now-dead sheep, and with no sign of the dogs, assumes Babe was the sheep-killer. As pigs are omnivorous, that isn't an entirely unreasonable assumption for Farmer Hoggett to make, though the odds of a young piglet doing so are very dubious. In the heat of the moment, feeling strong negative emotions about losing his sheep, Farmer Hoggett leads Babe to a place where he can tie Babe up and shoot him. Fly interferes, stalling for a few precious seconds, long enough for Mrs. Hoggett to deliver the news that the police telephoned her about savage sheep-killing dogs, thus exonerating Babe Just in Time.

Folklore

• A folktale has a king go hunting with his favorite falcon and get separated from the rest. As he's thirsty, he finds a waterfall and puts his cup in it. As he's about to drink, the falcon swoops down and knocks the cup away. The king is surprised but puts his cup in the waterfall, but the falcon knocks it away again. The third time this happens, the cup is swept away downriver. The furious king starts chasing the falcon with his sword, following it up to the waterfall's source. As he impales the bird on his sword, the king notices a decomposing corpse in the water, realizes the water was unsafe to drink, and understands too late why his falcon was trying to keep him from drinking.
• There are various folk tales about parents seeing blood and chaos and jumping to the conclusion that their guard animal mauled their baby. The poor pet is slain in mistaken revenge, only for the parents to find the baby okay and a dead wild beast in the house. Thus the parents find out too late that the blood came from the wild beast that the pet had killed in the act of protecting the baby. The type of guard animal and the type of wild animal change from telling to retelling.
  • One version has a mongoose tearing apart a snake and displaying himself in all his gory glory to the distrustful mother, who kills the mongoose with a water pitcher.
  • Some versions have a dog killing a snake, with the father jumping to the wrong conclusion and dispatching the dog.
  • Most versions have a dog killing a wolf, with the father making the tragic misunderstanding.

Literature

• Discworld: In Going Postal, Moist exploits this trope, saying that "Angry people make mistakes", in the hope of goading Reacher Gilt into messing up during the Clacks-Post Race. Everything from being late to the start of the race, to making sure the message for both sides to deliver was a book, to visibly attempting to put a Flying Broomstick on the coach, is a part of Moist's distracting Reacher about what his plan is.
• The page quote comes from Ender's Game , which uses this to underscore the difference between Tranquil Fury and Blinded by Rage in Ender's fight against Bonzo, who'd ordered his flunkies to back off so he could fight Ender alone after Ender insulted his honor.
• Hand of Thrawn: When Mara is captured by a group of Thrawn's followers, she proceeds to get under their skin, and almost manages to goad one of them into a fury, until an older and more mature officer calms him down, pointing out that one of Mara's most subtle weapons has always been her talent for irritating people so they don't think clearly. Mara is annoyed (but a little impressed) that he saw through it so quickly, or at all.
• The Hike (2023): After a long day of hiking, Helena gets into an argument with Joni and Liz (when the latter tries to defend Joni) shortly before they reach a river they have to cross. Helena is so angry and fed up with her friends, she stubbornly tries to cross the river by herself despite Liz warning her that the current is too fast here and that they should cross together, with Helena dismissing her as being a know-it-all. Helena realises she's made a big mistake when she wades to the middle of the river and finds the current is too strong for her to go on, but she also can't easily turn around and go back. She slips on the rocks and lands face first in the water; although the river is only knee-deep Helena's pack pins her down and she would've likely drowned if Joni hadn't rushed in to pull her up and help her to the opposite bank. Helena knows she's lucky all she got was wet, cold and humiliated.
• Mr. Men: Little Miss Trouble's story has Mr. Clever get so offended by the lie that Little Miss Trouble (That Mr. Small had called him a rude nickname) told him that he falls for it and it leads to him attacking Mr. Small out of anger without letting Mr. Small give his side of the story.
• In Shadow of the Conqueror, Daylen frequently regrets the things he says or does in the midst of his rages, as his reason returns as soon as he calms down.

Newspaper Comics

• In one early Foxtrot arc, Andrea makes Jason leave his video game to have dinner and pulls the plug on his NES when Jason refuses to do as much as simply pause the game, much to Jason's ire as he was in the middle of "his greatest Mario Bros run ever". Afterwards, Jason is so irate that he loses his temper and kicks the NES in a fit of rage, destroying it. He immediately regrets it (especially since Andy refuses to replace it).
  Jason: MY NINTENDO! AAAAAAAA!!!

Tabletop Games

• Battletech: The Clans are a Proud Warrior Race who have practically no cultural sense of humor and take their personal honour very seriously. As such, "Clan Warrior provoked into accepting a rash duel/trial/handicap for a battle" is a very common event, with even some Clans becoming very good at it. When he was taken as a bondsman by Clan Wolf, Phelan Kell used this trope a lot against his rival Vlad, making Vlad look petty, or even provoking him into cheating (which backfired badly when he was found out).
• Warhammer 40,000: Orks and Chaos troops (especially Khornates) are prone to this:
  • Ciaphas Cain once destroyed an ork Waaagh! by pissing off its warboss. Instead of letting his bodyguards dogpile the two humans, Korbul prevented them from interfering, leading to his death and the fragmentation of the Waaagh! as each nob tried to wrest control of it from the others.
  • In another story, he sets up a tripwire that leaves an ork on the ground. The furious ork sees Cain's Commissar Cap hanging on a live wire, angrily swings his choppa at it, and promptly fries.
  • The ork-controlled sector of Octarius is currently in a Forever War between orks and tyranids that started when the tyranids managed to infuriating the warboss into being separated from his bodyguard, quickly surrounding and killing him.
  • Kharn the Betrayer got his name from an incident when both the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children Traitor Legions stopped fighting due to the intense cold of the planet Skalathrax, instead seeking shelter. Infuriated by such cowardice, he ran around with a flamer setting fire to every shelter and every Space Marine he saw, crippling both Legions to the point where millennia later they are reduced to small warbands. Despite the name, neither Kharn, the World Eaters or Khorne himself see it as a betrayal (Khorne demands that his followers spill blood in his name at every opportunity, no matter if it's their enemy's, their ally's or their own), and the Blood God rewarded Kharn for his deeds by making him his champion. Granted this did reduce both Traitor Legions to disparate warbands only really able to unite when their Primarchs (Angron for the World Eaters and Fulgrim for the Emperor's Children) personally intervene until they are banished (and Fulgrim doesn't like doing this when he can instead be having fun on the Pleasure Planet) or when resident Big Bad Warmaster Abaddon calls a Black Crusade.
• Warhammer Fantasy: Exploited by Wulfrik the Wanderer, a Chaos Champion who was given the Gift of Tongues in order to deliver an unrefusable challenge to any enemy the Chaos gods want him to kill, in the form of crude insults that so infuriate the target they not only accept the challenge, no matter how one-sided, and make elementary mistakes (such as one Imperial noble who left the safety of his city walls to fight Wulfrik one-on-one after the latter had made a "your wife and my kids" comment). This was supposed to be Blessed with Suck by the Chaos Gods through forcing Wulfrik to challenge tough enemies until he got himself killed as Wulfrik had pissed them off, but Wulfrik proved too much of a Blood Knight to care about the danger and instead turned it into a case of Cursed with Awesome.

Video Games

• In Bug Fables, Kabbu is normally the very soul of caution, but when he returns to the Wild Swamplands and discovers the Beast once again, his desire for revenge for it killing his old friends results in him recklessly attacking it against the wishes of his new friends, Vi and Leif. It's only when they were close to dying when he realizes that his reckless actions nearly led to a story repeating itself.
• In Choo-Choo Charles, the titular spider train can be fought off, but is smart enough to retreat before it can be seriously harmed. The plot of the game involves collecting three eggs and destroying them, which will provoke Charles into a death match so you can finally kill him.
• Dwarf Fortress: Dwarves in a tantrum will destroy items and attack other dwarves indiscrimately. This can be quite Fun for you when they attack a legendary military dwarf, murder one of your most valuable dwarves (dwarves apparently having no concept of holding back in combat) or destroy something important to your fortress. They also will destroy things (or people) important to other dwarves, which will in turn make them unhappy. Previous versions of the game that had tantrum throwing as the only response to unhappiness made it quite easy for dwarves to throw tantrums, push other dwarves into tantrums, who in turn made still further dwarves tantrum until everyone in your fort is throwing fits and breaking things, a phenomenon known as a tantrum spiral.
• God of War Ragnarök: One of Odin's foremost character flaws is that, like any good Narcissist, he gets enraged when questioned or denied, and when angry, he immediately attacks whoever pissed him off, regardless of consequences. For example, when Groa refused to tell him everything she knew about Ragnarok, he killed her- thus rendering her knowledge forever beyond his reach, especially as she knew what he'd do and lied to him about what she saw. His marriage to Freya fell apart when he threw a tantrum at her refusing to make him invulnerable, instead of attempting to reason with her or persuade her otherwise. He eventually catalyzes Ragnarok by killing Brok when the dwarf saw through his impersonation of Tyr- immediately costing him his disguise, his goodwill with Atreus, any doubt Kratos had about starting Ragnarok, and even the MacGuffin he wanted.
• In Monster Hunter, the brutal Killer Gorilla Rajang is also intelligent enough to climb straight out of Pitfall Traps should it fall into one. Once it becomes enraged, however, it's no longer able to do this, only flail helplessly like any other monster.
• Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11: This trope describes Kotal Kahn's Fatal Flaw, as he seems to have trouble keeping his head cool when something makes him angry. To wit:
  • The first time he got pissed off in the comics, he left Goro armless, but refused to kill him, forgetting that Even Evil Has Loved Ones, and then King Gorbak proceeded to wipe out the Osh-Tekk, making Kotal The Last of His Kind.
  • In MKX's story, when D'Vorah betrayed him, he lets his anger against her and Earthrealm get in the way of reason, deciding to outright kill Cassie's group instead of helping them stop Shinnok, almost bringing ruin to the realms.
  • It comes up again in 11 when he tries to save Jade from the Tarkatans. He gets enraged and attempts to commit genocide on them. This in turn prompts Jade to fight and defeat him, leaving him to be easily captured by Shao Kahn.
• Pokémon:
  • Primeape's blood circulation is boosted when enraged. This makes its muscles stronger, but also severely lowers its intelligence.
  • Exclusive to Generation 2 (not even the remakes have this, though Stadium 2 does) is the Berserk Gene item, which boosts the holder's attack by 2 stages, effectively doubling it, but confuses them for 256 turns. Later generations have the move Swagger, which does the same thing to the target except the confusion functions the same as any other method of inflicting it (meaning it wears off much sooner). Both methods mean that, if the Pokémon hits itself in confusion, it's gonna hurt a lot more.
• Sonic and the Black Knight: When the Big Bad breaks Caliburn Sonic loses his cool and unleashes what, in any other context, would be an Unstoppable Rage on his opponent. Unfortunately, he's hopelessly outmatched so all he gets for his trouble is a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Yet he keeps getting up and trying again, even as his allies beg him to stop. Ultimately subverted in that, after getting beaten within an inch of his life, Sonic is able to channel his rage into the more constructive Heroic Resolve. Which proves to be the key to rekindling Excalibur's lost light: Restoring Caliburn in his true form as the legendary sword and granting Sonic a Golden Super Mode to level the playing field.

Visual Novels

• In Melody, Steve knows that the title character stole her guitar back from him and made embarrassing posts on his social media, but he can't prove it. Instead, he does things like cause disturbances at Melody's concerts (which gets very predictable reactions from security), and on Melody's romantic path, he actually slaps his ally, Bethany, when she relents on giving her back the guitar if the player makes just the right decision.

Web Comics

• Done in a roundabout manner in Captain SNES: The Game Masta. The incarnation of Alex's hatred is also an idiot, because what he hates most is stupid people.

Western Animation

• This a recurring problem for the Big Bad of Big City Greens Chip Whistler. Whenever Cricket or the Greens get the best of him, his impulsiveness and rage also get the best of him and he ends up making things worse for himself.
• Elena of Avalor: In Season 3, Elena is consumed with rage and hatred at Esteban once his alliance with Shuriki is out in the open, and she allows it to run her actions even after coming to terms with her feelings in "Dreamcatcher", readily trying to capture or kill him and focusing on doing so over trying to stop Ash, the real threat to Avalor. This bites her in the ass come "Coronation Day", where this allows Ash to unleash the Four Shades of Awesome on Avalor and leads to Elena herself being trapped in the Spirit World. The spirits of her parents even tell her that her job is to protect the kingdom, not to seek vengeance, and doing so will only lead to her making bad decisions.
• The Simpsons: The episode "Homer's Enemy" has the one-time character Frank Grimes losing it after being fed up with the antics of the nuclear plant, especially by Homer, with the last straw being Homer winning a contest aimed for children. Grimey, as Homer calls him, goes crazy and stupidly breaks all of the rules at the plant, trashing his boss, and him dying by touching the high voltage wires.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012):
  • The episode "Turtle Temper" has Raph's Hair-Trigger Temper quickly turn him into The Load. He flies off the handle after being insulted by Vic, which leads to them drawing the Kraang's attention and Vic capturing the resulting fight on video. Later, when Vic decides to blackmail the Turtles into handing over the video, Raph snaps, draws the Kraang's attention once more, and then ditches his brothers in the middle of the fight to keep arguing with Vic, leading to the Kraang capturing the latter. At this point, Leo has had enough and forces Raph to go home.
  • In the same episode, Splinter reveals that he himself had a moment of this, which led in part to the Shredder's Start of Darkness, which he informs Raph of in an attempt to Tame His Anger. Splinter recounts an incident where Shredder openly and relentlessly insulted him in front of Tang Shen, eventually leading Splinter to lose his temper and attack him. This caused their rivalry to intensify, eventually leading to Shen's death at Shredder's hands. Raph claims that he had no choice but to get angry since Shredder was insulting him, to which Splinter retorts that he did have a choice: he could have just ignored Shredder's taunts and walked away, but he didn't.
    Splinter: I could have chosen to ignore him. I could have chosen to let his words wash over me, like a river over stone. But I let him anger me. It was I who made his words into weapons. That was the choice I made. What choice will you make?
  • Vic himself does this when the turtles try to save his hide form the Kraang, yelling at them and blaming them for getting him into this mess (when it was his own fault to begin with), which leads to the Kraang once again drawing their attention to them and no it soon results in Vic being transformed into Spider-Bites.
  • Leo also falls into this in "Earth's Last Stand". His reaction to discovering that Professor Honeycutt was the one who created the Heart of Darkness in the first place is pure, unadulterated rage. Believing he's just using them to steal it back, he ends up embarking on a one-man assault on the entire Triceraton fleet, ignoring the others' pleas to stop and insistence that what he's doing is a Suicide Mission. Sure enough, during the assault, Leo's scout ship is blown up, leaving him stranded in space, his helmet is cracked, and he ends up passing out; the others retrieve him, manage to resuscitate him, and waste no time giving him a What the Hell, Hero?.
• There are a number of examples in Thomas & Friends:
  • In the episode "Dirty Objects", James gets so angered by Toby's burn against him that he bumps the trucks and ends up forgetting that they need to stop on Gordon's Hill giving the trucks a chance to get revenge.
  • In "Off The Rails", Gordon gets so angry over the fact that he has to take a special train of trucks that he attempts to jam the turntable only to find himself unable to stop and lands in a ditch.

Real Life

• As noted above, anger often causes people in real life to behave foolishly. Just ask anyone who has accidentally broken something valuable or hurt themselves in a moment of frustration. In certain medical communities, someone breaking their wrist because they angrily punched a wall is known as "the dumbass fracture".
• Anger appears to somewhat lessen inhibitions and mess with people's higher cognitive functions such as the ability to reason, although the reverse is true as well. Just ask any psychology student about Phineas Gage, the railroad worker who survived having a beam shot through his head. The beam damaged his prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for impulse control and decision-making) causing a supposedly drastic personality change that turned Gage into an alcoholic short-tempered gambler (although some scholars debate whether or not he may have possessed some of these characteristics even before said incident, and to what extent the changes were actually permanent ).

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