"We psychoanalysts never use the crude term 'crazy'. You may merely suffer from Type 3 Psychomanic Derangement, which presents as craziness."
— Dr. Klaus Angstrom, Broodhollow
Any tropes involving madness or insanity. Except those dealing with Hollywood Psych.
These can run the gamut from the weird but generally happy chaos that inhabits the Cloudcuckoolander's mind to the darkest corners of a person's shattered psyche.
Please sort tropes appropriately. Some tropes may fit in both the "Characters" index and the "Madnesses" index, but each trope should only belong in one section of each index.
Sub-index:
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Character Tropes:
Sane Characters
- Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Someone who tries to keep a cloudcuckoolander from acting too crazy.
- Friend to Psychos: Someone who's on good terms with psychopathic people.
- Mistaken for Insane: Someone who's sane, but is mistaken for being insane.
- Obfuscating Insanity: Character fakes a lunatic ego.
- Only Sane Man: This one person is the only character who isn't crazy or dumb.
Craziness by Career
- The Caligula: A ruler who is insane.
- Crazy Homeless People: Homeless people portrayed as mentally troubled.
- Crazy Survivalist: He's prepared for the end of the world, but has more than a few screws loose.
- Defective Detective: Insanity is a possible character flaw of an otherwise fine investigator.
- Deranged Park Ranger: Where else would a crazy, antisocial person work?
- Deranged Taxi Driver: A crackpot cabbie.
- Eccentric A.I.: A computer, robot or other self-aware machine that behaves strangely.
- Eccentric Artist: "Creative" and "loony" go hand in hand.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Some parents will go to insane lengths to keep their kid from something they consider a waste.
- General Ripper: A military official who is obsessed with opposing and destroying a particular enemy.
- Insane Admiral: Military higher-ups in general aren't the most stable folks.
- Insane Proprietor: A salesman who adopts a "crazy" persona (or maybe it's not a persona)...
- Loony Librarian: Too many books and Dewey decimialization can drive you crazy.
- Mad Artist: Death is as good a medium to work in as any...
- Mad Bomber: BLOW IT ALL UP!
- Mad Dreamer: They reject your reality and substitute their own.
- Mad Doctor: Putting people together is a fine thing. Taking them apart is fun.
- Mad God: Possesses Godly powers and is completely insane.
- Mad Oracle: Prescience is bad for one's mental health.
- Mad Mathematician: Excelled in the field of mathematics and completely insane.
- Mad Scientist: A scientist who doesn't let little things like ethics or practicality get in the way of their work.
- Monster Clown: Clowns that are disturbing in various ways.
- Obsessive Spokesperson: The mascot in an advertisement is unhealthily obsessed with the product.
- Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: She was in a relationship that didn't end well, and the breakup left her rather unhinged.
- Psycho for Hire: A mercenary or hired killer with an unhealthy fondness for their job.
- Psycho Lesbian: A mentally unhinged lesbian, mostly motivated by unrequited love for a straight female character.
- Psycho Psychologist: A psychologist who is crazier than their patients.
- Psycho Supporter: They want to help a person they respect. How and for what reasons are dubious.
- Robotic Psychopath: AIs can be insane too.
- Royally Screwed Up: The scions of noble families develop mental issues for any number of reasons.
- Sane Boss, Psycho Henchmen: Many of the people who work for the villain are crazy.
- Serial Killer: Frequently driven to kill by an insanity.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: A war veteran is severely traumatized by the horrors they witnessed during the war they fought in.
- Sociopathic Hero: It's a good thing that this crazy psycho is (nominally) on the side of good, and (mostly) focuses their aggression on the bad guys.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: And they can be pretty damn funny when they do bad things too.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Military personnel who find the death and destruction brought by war to be entertaining.
- Stalker with a Crush: Someone obsessively spies on someone they have a crush on.
- Yandere: If they have a crush on someone, there will be blood.
- Yandere Couple: Twice the dedication, twice the crazy.
Crazy-Eccentric
- Barefoot Loon: Prefers Going Barefoot, but seen in a worse light.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Being bizarre doesn't prevent this person from being good at their job.
- Chuunibyou: Adolescent fantasizing taken to a ludicrous degree.
- Cloudcuckoolander: A naive, seemingly dumb kind of mental weirdness.
- Companion Food: Someone becomes friends or obsessed with a piece of food.
- Crazy-Prepared: Someone who manages to prepare for anything, even (especially) if it's unlikely or ludicrous.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: They're crazy, not stupid!
- Cuckoosnarker: A Cloudcuckoolander with moments of on-point humor.
- Devil Complex: A character believes themselves to be Satan and acts accordingly.
- Eccentric Artist: Artists tend to be weird.
- Eccentric Fashion Designer: Fashion designers and their styles tend to be weird and quirky.
- Genius Ditz: A seeming dumbass has at least one expertise at which no one can beat them.
- Loon with a Heart of Gold: The cloudcuckoolanders are portrayed as nicer and much more compassionate than the normals.
- The Mad Hatter: Crazy and loving every second of it.
- Mood-Swinger: Hot and cold running emotions.
- Neat Freak: Crossing the line from tidiness to obsessiveness.
- Nightmare Fetishist: A person who is fascinated by what most people are freaked out by.
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Someone who's creepy and disturbing without intending to be.
- Pregnancy Makes You Crazy: Pregnancy stresses and hormones are hard on a woman's mental well-being.
- Talkative Loon: Mental issues indicated through babbling.
- The Wonka: Being bizarre doesn't prevent this person from running a business or being otherwise high-ranked in their profession.
Crazy-Dysfunctional
- Ax-Crazy: Not just crazy but dangerous.
- Broken Ace: Being The Ace came at a terrible price.
- Broken Bird: Troubled, but Cute person who has a seriously tragic back story.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Animal hoarding as a sign of mental issues.
- Cute and Psycho: Characters are endearing and unstable at the same time.
- Kids Are Cruel: Sometimes the cruelty is a sign of mental issues.
- Living Doll Collector: Mere toys are not enough for this person.
- Loners Are Freaks: Lonely people are social outcasts.
- Madwoman in the Attic: Hiding an insane person away for various reasons.
- Mask of Sanity: Doing a very good job of concealing the madness within.
- Mental Handicap, Moral Deficiency: Mentally handicapped citizen lacks moral judgement.
- The Mentally Disturbed: Treating mental illnesses as mere quirks or bad habits.
- Narcissist: Being vain and self-centered to insane levels.
- Nervous Wreck: This person has default anxiety.
- Omnicidal Maniac: They want to see the world burn (or explode, or swept by pandemics...)
- The Ophelia: A fragile, delicate young woman whose madness inspires more pity than fear.
- The Paranoiac: Paranoia has taken over a person's life.
- Psycho Electro: People with electrical powers who happen to be crazy as well.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Childlike but often violent and dangerous.
- Pyromaniac: Loves fire to an unhealthy degree.
- Reluctant Psycho: Someone trying to come to grips with their mental illness.
- Sadist: Someone who really enjoys hurting other people.
- The Sociopath: They don't really see anyone else around them as being people.
- Stepford Smiler: Employing a cheerful façade to mask how you really feel about your problems.
- Teens Are Monsters: Some teens are not merely bratty but insane.
- Uncanny Valley Girl: Girl seems wholesome, but there's something about her that screams suspicious.
- Unstable Powered Child: A powerful child can't cope with said power and is may be driven to madness as a result.
- Unstable Powered Woman: A powerful woman can't handle said power and might undergo a Sanity Slippage.
- Windmill Crusader: Being obsessed with attacking an enemy that doesn't exist.
Madness Tropes:
Causes
Tropes about the origins and instigations of mental disorder.
- Ailment-Induced Cruelty: An illness or injury damages a person's psyche and causes them to become bitter, spiteful, or vicious.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Literally becoming their crazy enemy.
- Becoming the Mask: A façade permanently warps a personality.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Mental issues as a long-term effect of torture.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Mind-controlling someone into genuinely dangerous/violent behavior.
- Break the Cutie: Some cuties break mentally.
- Cabin Fever: Being stuck in a small place for too long a time.
- Cast from Sanity: Magic or a superpower makes you lose sanity every time it's used.
- Chemically-Induced Insanity: Drugging someone to induce or fake mental illness.
- Clothes Make the Maniac: A superhero accessory with nasty mental side effects.
- Corrupt the Cutie: Losing one's innocence in an unhealthy way.
- Damaged Soul: Death and resurrection has damaged a person.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Character has a traumatic back story.
- Despair Event Horizon: All hope is lost.
- Driven to Madness: Deliberate attacks on one's mental well-being.
- FTL Travel Sickness: Traveling faster than light can drive people insane if they're not properly protected.
- Gaslighting: Trying to drive someone crazy by making them believe that they are already insane.
- Go Mad from the Apocalypse: Someone goes insane after their world collapses around them.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Someone goes insane from being locked away from other people for a long time.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Learning the truth about something causes a person to go insane.
- Go Among Mad People: A sane person is improperly institutionalized— and that may drive them mad.
- Heroic BSoD: Shocked to the point of complete mental shutdown.
- Heroic Safe Mode: Shocked to the point of shutting down all but the basic "fight or flight"-type instincts.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Morally and ideologically becoming their crazy enemy.
- Humanity Is Insane: Aliens just don't know what to make of us.
- Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Certain forms of space travel are incomprehensibly bizarre.
- Identity Breakdown: Not being certain of who or what you are can drive one insane.
- Infectious Insanity: Being around the insane makes you insane too.
- Insanity Establishment Scene: That point in the story where a character is revealed to be insane.
- Jade-Colored Glasses: A Naïve Newcomer gets beaten into the ground and loses their idealistic outlook, ultimately transforming them into a cynic.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Romance can go to your head.
- Mad Love: An especially unhealthy form of unrequited love.
- Madden Into Misanthropy: Someone grows to hate humanity from negative experiences with other people.
- Mind Rape: Deliberate mental abuse to break a person.
- Mind Virus: A virus that affects thought processes.
- Murder Makes You Crazy: The act of murder has long-term detrimental mental effects.
- My Skull Runneth Over: Learning more knowledge than the mind can handle.
- Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: Unusual mental conditions are caused by paranormal phenomena.
- Ocean Madness: Isolation while stuck on an uninhabited island or boat drives someone mad.
- Polar Madness: Too much time in the ice can drive people insane...
- Perfection Is Addictive: Perfection can ruin your view of anything that isn't.
- Perfection Is Static: An eternity of perfection leads to boredom and insanity.
- Post-Historical Trauma: Learning of past tragedies is traumatizing.
- Psycho Serum: Something that can give superpowers— at a terrible mental cost.
- Rage Breaking Point: A calm and sane character is driven past their breaking point by something, or someone (or multiple, or both), crossing the threshold between sanity and insanity in some cases.
- Rape Leads to Insanity: Part of why Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil.
- River of Insanity: An adventure through the wilderness goes horribly wrong.
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Being idealistic is seen as hopelessly naive.
- Space Madness: Go Mad from the Isolation in the vacuum of space.
- Stress-Induced Mental Voices: Being under pressure makes you hear voices.
- Subterranean Sanity Failure: Being underground does nasty things to the mind.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Insanity is caused by constantly spending time with stupid people.
- Teach Him Anger: The Nice Guy is pushed over the edge to make him grow a spine.
- Terrible Ticking: Like Hearing Voices, but just sounds rather than voices.
- They Called Me Mad!: Being accused of madness drives the Mad Scientist to complete their work and prove their naysayers wrong.
- This Index Has Had a Hard Life: An index for tropes exhibiting the stress and hardships of life.
- Took a Level in Cynic: A formerly idealistic character sees the world from a more realistic (or more depressing) perspective and becomes cynical as a result.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: A character becomes more mean-spirited over the course of the series.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: A traumatic experience causes memory loss or suppression.
- Went Crazy When They Left: A character becomes emotionally unstable when away from someone they're attached to.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Having or using supernatural powers takes a toll on your mental health.
Conditions
Issues, crises, things that are running through the sufferer's head.
- Black-and-White Insanity: Believing that there is only "good" or "bad" with no tolerance for nuance.
- Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: Unable to tell the difference between fiction and reality.
- Categorism as a Phobia: Bigotry as a phobia/mental illness.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: The hero finds it impossible to resist the urge to help people in need, no matter how much it may hinder them on their quest.
- Chronic Villainy: The villain simply can't be reformed forever and will always go back to being evil.
- Crazy in the Head, Crazy in the Bed: Being unhinged makes this character a passionate lover.
- Crazy Sane: Someone acts crazy as a coping mechanism.
- Death Seeker: A character wants to die, but doesn't have the will to commit suicide.
- Diagnosed by the Audience: A character who's definitely off mentally, and viewers have an idea as to why that is.
- Fighting from the Inside: A character attempts to resist their insanity.
- Genius Ditz: The Ditz is superior in a specific area of expertise.
- A God Am I: Someone believes they are a god and aims to kill everyone who opposes them.
- Hallucinations: Seeing or hearing imaginary things that feel realistic.
- Success Hallucinations: A character believes they won when they really lost.
- Hearing Voices: Auditory hallucinations of hearing imaginary people talking.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: Puberty causes teenagers to become sex-obsessed.
- Idiosyncrazy: A character completely obsessed with a single gimmick.
- Madness Shared by Two: Two people share the same delusion.
- Mentally Unwell, Special Senses: The insane can see things the sane cannot.
- Napoleon Delusion: Someone believes they are Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Obsessively Organized: An obsession with order, symmetry, and following certain behaviour patterns.
- Reluctant Psycho: A character knows they're mentally disturbed and hate that they can't overcome their compulsions.
- Sanity Slippage: Someone becomes insane through a gradual process.
- Science-Related Memetic Disorder: Terminology for something that creates Mad Scientists.
- Theory Tunnelvision: A character mentally warps their worldview to fit their ideals.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Crazy people see the world differently from normal people.
- Treacherous Spirit Chase: A character is led into danger by a hallucination of loved one(s).
Symptoms
Ways to show the audience that a character is not of sound mind.
- Angst Coma: Mental trauma so severe it renders you unconscious for long periods of time.
- Apocalyptic Log: A record of events showing a character's descent into insanity.
- Apophenia Plot: A character irrationally obsesses over random events in the belief that they're part of a conspiracy.
- Batty Lip Burbling: A crazy person bats their lips with their fingers.
- Bloody Hallucinations of Guilt: Guilt over another's death has a character hallucinating blood where there isn't any.
- Broken Smile: Creepy smiles that show insanity.
- Caligula's Horse: Giving jobs to animals or inanimate objects is insane because it makes no sense to hire non-sapient beings or inanimate objects to do something a human would be more qualified for.
- Clawing at Own Throat: A crazy character scratches their neck impulsively.
- Cloudcuckoolanguage
- Comically Cross-Eyed
- Companion Cube: Talks to an inanimate object to compensate for their lack of social life.
- Consulting Mister Puppet: Talks to a puppet to compensate for their lack of friends.
- Crazy Consumption
- Crazy Memory
- Crazy People Play Chess: The mentally challenged prove to be impressive Chess players.
- Creepy Cleanliness
- Creepy Monotone
- Cuckoo Finger Twirl: A classic hand or limb gesture to indicate someone in a complete loon.
- Dance of Despair: Dancing in an attempt to cope with a distressing situation.
- Delusions of Doghood: A crazy person believes they're a dog and act like one.
- Deranged Dance: A character dances as a sign of failing sanity.
- Dissonant Laughter
- Dissonant Serenity
- Dr. Psych Patient
- Dumb Struck: After a traumatic experience, a character loses the ability to speak.
- Empty Eyes: Eyes are shown lacking pupils or irises, or the eyes are otherwise blank or missing. This can be used as an artistic way to show that a character has been driven to madness, sometimes to indicate a Thousand-Yard Stare.
- Freak Out: Character goes on an absolute insanity spree.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Fighting while naked can indicate insanity.
- G-Rated Mental Illness: Mental illness toned down for family-friendly works.
- Hidden Eyes
- House of Broken Mirrors
- Imaginary Enemy: Treating a figment of imagination as a nemesis.
- Imaginary Friend: Treating a figment of imagination as a companion.
- Insane Equals Violent
- In the Dreaming Stage of Grief: Devastated character copes by convincing themselves it is/was just a bad dream.
- I Reject Your Reality: Character is selectively naïve to certain areas of realism.
- Laughing Mad: Frequent laughing and giggling as a sign of insanity.
- Limp and Livid
- Loony Laws
- Loves the Sound of Screaming
- Mad Eye
- Madness-Induced Omnivore
- Madness Makeover: A poor appearance reflects poor mental health.
- Madness Mantra: Crazy person says the same phrase over and over.
- Madness Montage: Watching someone go insane in a series of events.
- The Madness Place
- Main Character Final Boss: The main character finally snaps and goes mad, causing their party to fight against the now-maddened protagonist.
- Maniac Tongue
- Mind-Control Conspiracy
- Mood-Swinger
- Moral Sociopathy: When The Sociopath still has an ethical code, just one that's not rooted in empathy for others (and that's often unique to the sociopathic character).
- Mummies at the Dinner Table: A character is dead, but someone tries to pretend – and actually believe – that they are still alive.
- Murder Is the Best Solution
- Mushroom Samba: Intense and maddening hallucinations caused by controlled substances.
- Naked Nutter: Casual nudity as a sign of madness.
- Neat Freak
- Neologizer: Makes up new words. Sometimes to the detriment of being understood.
- Out-of-Character Moment: When it focuses on sanity.
- Power Born of Madness: Going insane grants supernatural powers.
- Room Full of Crazy: The decor of a room reflects someone's mental state.
- Sanity Slippage Song: Singing about how you're losing your mind.
- Shattered Sanity
- Shifting Voice of Madness
- Slasher Smile
- Sleepy Depressive
- Stalker Shrine: A hand-made shrine used to indicate that a stalker is obsessed with someone in a creepily unhealthy way. Often hidden in a secret or private place by a stalker and devoted to object of their affection, but it can also be Played for Laughs.
- Sticky Fingers: Kleptomania: A recurrent urge to steal, typically without regard for need or profit.
- Talkative Loon
- Talking to Themself
- Tears of Fear
- "They're Not Real" Reveal: You think something or someone was real, but it turns out they weren't.
- Thoroughly Mistaken Identity
- Thousand-Yard Stare: After a traumatic experience, someone has a slack, emotionless face along with failure to react to external stimulus. The name comes from the eyes staring straight ahead without focusing on anything in particular.
- Trauma Button: A stimulation that triggers Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
- Troubled Fetal Position: Someone reacts to stress or trauma by curling into the fetal position, usually lying on their side or sitting with the knees drawn in front of the body.
- Trigger-Happy: An unhinged character with a violent or aggressive personality who is likely to shoot someone for the slightest provocation.
- Tuneless Song of Madness
- Twitchy Eye: The muscles around the eyelids and eyebrows twitch constantly to show pent-up anger, frustration, or insanity.
- Unstoppable Rage
- Villainous Breakdown: A villain going mad with rage or despair as their efforts are foiled by the heroes.
- Wandering Walk of Madness
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Phobia supertrope.
- Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises
Remedies & Resolutions
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Confronting the madness personified in a Mental World.
- Bored with Insanity: When someone has been crazy for so long that they find a way to restore their own sanity.
- Electroconvulsive Therapy Is Torture
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Giving someone a slap to snap them out of a current fugue.
- Heroic Willpower: The hero does their best not to give in to the madness.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight
- Insane No More
- Kind Restraints
- Let Me at Him!: Holding someone back so they can't attempt to hurt anyone.
- Lobotomy
- Mental Health Recovery Arc: A Story Arc dedicated to improving a character's mental health and overcoming their disorder.
- Percussive Therapy: Cathartic smashing of annoying objects (and occasionally annoying people).
- Restoration of Sanity: A character suffering from insanity regains their sanity by the story's end.
- Sanity Ball: Insane character becomes sane for a brief moment.
- Sanity Has Advantages: Things would go smoother for you if you weren't crazy.
- Sanity Strengthening
- Split-Personality Merge: Re-integrating a Split Personality into your psyche, becoming someone knew based on the two selves merged together.
- Split-Personality Takeover: When a Split Personality usurps control as the dominant personality from who they split off from.
- Survival Mantra: Repeating a phrase to bolster your spirit and succeed at a difficult task.
Settings
- Bedlam House: Not all mental hospitals are helpful.
- Black Bug Room
- Cloudcuckooland
- Creepy Cave: Caves are known for their ability to drive people to insanity.
- Escape from the Crazy Place
- Happy Place
- Mental World
- The Wonderland
Other
- All Therapists Are Muggles: A problem the characters may encounter in settings that have The Masquerade going on.
- Cast Full of Crazy: When everyone, or nearly everyone, is insane.
- Cuckoo Nest
- Cutting Back to Reality: A character's insanity is illustrated by seeing a situation through their eyes, before cutting back to what's actually happening in the real world.
- Delusion Conclusion: Audience members believe that the supernatural elements of a story are due to delusions on the part of the viewpoint characters.
- Insanity Defense: Insanity from a legal perspective.
- Insanity Immunity: Being insane means that you can't get any crazier.
- Lunatic Loophole: A character being crazy means that they'll be spared when other characters get killed.
- Moment of Lucidity: The crazy person lapses back to sanity for a brief moment.
- No Medication for Me: A mistrust of psychiatric drugs, or finding that the side effects aren't worth it.
- Paranoid Thriller
- Pre-Insanity Reveal: It is shown what a crazy person was like before they went out of their gourd.
- Sanity Meter
- The Schizophrenia Conspiracy
- Secret-Identity Identity
- Self-Soothing Song
- Success Through Insanity
- There Are No Therapists: A problem the characters may encounter in settings that provide a lot of psychiatric trauma.
- Wrongfully Committed: A sane character is wrongfully committed to a mental asylum.
- You're Insane!: Rebuking a person for their dangerous or absurd actions or intentions by calling them a maniac to their face.
