Insulted Awake



"Professor Dr.: Breaking a hypnotic trance by sharp shock to the feminine self-esteem. Novel concept. Snuka: But effective!"

- The B-Movie Comic, "Revenge of Rutentuten #76"

Apparently, a strong emotional reaction is enough to break hypnotism, brainwashing, amnesia, or just plain depression.

When something (or someone) has entranced one of the Heroes, they'll often be in a hurry to get the victim moving. Fortunately, friends, teammates and co-workers often have a talent for making each other angry.

For some reason, that's especially true if they're completely different from each other and have been repeatedly forced by circumstances to endure each other's company...

Warning! The victim will remember the insult, and it probably won't be erased by having saved them. Be prepared for a (potentially violent) backlash unless you explain yourself. Heck, the backlash could be immediate if this trope involves hitting a Berserk Button.

Even More Than Mind Control isn't always enough to resist this. However, they can't be Insulted Awake if they're really Not Brainwashed.

Anime and Manga
"Akane: Ranma? Ranma, wake up! You didn't… you didn't need to save me… RANMA YOU IDIOT!! Ranma: Who are you calling an idiot?! I save you and this is the thanks I get?!"
 * In an early arc of Ranma ½, Ranma manages to cure Akane of a Shampoo-induced memory loss technique that made her forget him by insulting her so much she gets mad and goes after him. In the anime, his dad even has it repeating on a large stereo.
 * Repeating? Ranma's father actually does some freestyle DJing with it.
 * Akane wakes Ranma up from unconsciousness after he takes the brunt of an attack that slammed him into a wall hard enough to shatter every bone in a normal person's body.


 * Kakeru from Fruits Basket wakes up the one-quarter awake Yuki by commenting that he was probably "brought up as a spoiled little rich girl." Since Yuki is also deceptively strong when he's sleeping, it backfired slightly.
 * In Medabots, Ikki uses this to kick-start Medabee near the start of the series.
 * In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, Miu has been driven into a berserk rage state from thinking . Kenichi tries to hold her and talk her down, but repeatedly gets beaten up for trying. Eventually he uses Ma Kensei's Shock Technique ... which consists of grabbing her by the hooters. She immediately goes from silently trying to kill everyone near her to slapping Kenichi and berating him for being a pervert.
 * Similar: the only way to wake up Komui Lee is to tell him "Lenalee (his sister) is getting married". This will either wake him in a state of profound grief that she didn't tell him, or will wake him instantly, fully alert.
 * Full Metal Panic! has  use this to drag   suppressed consciousness out from , thereby preventing a.
 * In Axis Powers Hetalia America brings England back from the dead by pretending to be happy that he's dead.
 * The edited-for-TV dub of Yu Yu Hakusho has Yusuke claiming he got awakened in the Dark Tournament (and for reference, he'd been sleeping through the cruise to the island venue—a fight in itself—and the first three fights) by Chu's trash talking. As the unedited version reveals, it was really the booze on his breath, which was an insult in itself because it reminded him of his alcoholic mother.
 * At one point in One Piece, Luffy, Zoro and Sanji are all put into comas when their shadows are stolen by the Big Bad of the arc. To wake them up all up at once, someone shouts that a beautiful lady swordswoman has boarded the ship with lots and lots of meat.
 * Played with in Fullmetal Alchemist: Ed is unintentionally awakened by train hijackers referring to him as runt. In a fit of rage, he wipes the floor with every bandit in the train car. Afterward, he has no idea what is going on, and asks who the unconscious bandit he's holding by the collar is. Turns out that he was just subconsciously reacting to the word "runt".

Comic Books

 * In the Tintin story "Destination Moon", Captain Haddock cures Professor Calculus' accidental amnesia by complaining about "acting the goat", a remark that had earlier served as a Berserk Button for Calculus.
 * An isue of Batman Gotham Adventures has The Joker given a radical form of shock treatment that renders him non-violent, good natured, and even affectionate to Harley Quinn. She can't stand him being this way, and declares that she is leaving him for Batman. Whereupon Joker snaps back to his usual psychopathic self and declares that he'll just have to rip Batman's lungs out.

Fan Works

 * In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Hermione restores Harry to normal after a Dementor assault by kissing him. His first words upon his return to normal are (outraged): "I SAID NO KISSING!"

Literature

 * In one of the Undead And novels by Mary Janice Davidson, in order to get Betsy out of a near-comatose state, Eric (her fiance) shouts, "I'm terribly sorry, but I cannot go through with the wedding!" She snaps and begins to yell at him before realizing what he was trying to do.
 * A rather creepy scene in an Everworld book involves The Chick trying to do this by insulting the masculinity of a (rather macho) mind-control victim, only to be told "Don't try to provoke me."
 * In The Perilous Gard

Live-Action TV

 * In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "This Side of Paradise", the ship's crew falls under the influence of spores from an alien plant and stop caring about their duties and responsibilities. Kirk snaps out of it and thereby discovers that strong negative emotions can counteract the spores' effect. He then insults Spock to the point where it drives Spock into a rage.
 * Also happened in one Sledge Hammer! episode, when all the policemen except for the choleric boss have become totally apathetic.
 * On an episode of JAG, a Marine in a coma is awoken by an angry bedside tirade from his Drill Sergeant.
 * NCIS does this in reverse - Ziva manages to restore Gibbs' memory by grabbing his hand and inflicting his trademark Dope Slap on herself.
 * In Firefly, when Wash is starting to lose it under Cold-Blooded Torture, Mal just escalates the argument they've been having all episode.
 * An episode of Full House featured Joey listening to self-help tapes and being so into them that the only way to snap him out of it was to pull back his headphones and insult him.
 * Jeremy Clarkson claims that the first real sign of life from co-presenter Richard Hammond after his accident was when he visited him in hospital and told him that the reason he was in that state was because he was a crap driver. Apparently Hammond smiled.

Video Games

 * In Super Robot Wars Original Generation 2, Seolla had been brainwashed into forgetting that her close friend Arado, who recently pulled a Heel Face Turn, ever existed except as an enemy. Yet, when he made a crack about the size of her breasts (something he's been doing to her since they day they met), she immediately snapped "How many times have I told you not to make fun of my chest!" by pure reflex.
 * Gate Keepers: the entire crew is in a Lotus Eater-type situation, and Shun realizes before everyone else that he's in a dream. He snaps Ruriko out of it by calling her a "crybaby" (something he used to call her when they were kids).
 * In the beginning of Baldur's Gate 2, you can insult Minsc to make him break the bars of his prison.

Visual Novel

 * In Fate/stay night, calling Fuji by her nickname, Tiger, will always wake her up. The students she teaches have to do this whenever she gives herself a concussion in her haste to get to her own class on time.

Web Comics

 * In The B Movie Comic, the Elegant Gothic Lolita was hypnotized by the Big Bad using Functional Magic. When her friends rescued her, they needed to wake her up in a hurry. By pure coincidence, the dumb jock commented on her breasts. It resulted in a Hyperspace Mallet, but at least it worked.
 * England is dying, with America by his side tearing up and whispering his name while the Grim Reaper stands behind him. As England gives his "I never hated you" speech to America, which is cut short by his apparent death, it takes America a few seconds before patting the grim reaper on the back and saying "He's FINALLY dead!" It turns out to be a way to bring him back from death's door.
 * In Antihero for Hire, the Action Girl was accidentally Insulted Awake from a Mind Probe when The Rival Anti-Hero with UST called her a nasty name, resulting in Simpsons-esque strangling.
 * In El Goonish Shive, Ellen roused Susan from a stupor by expressing a misogynistic sentiment, providing the image for this page. And that's after her first attempt failed.
 * A non-verbal example, when Joe from Its Walky meets Joyce for the first time in a year she has no idea who he is thanks to a mindswipe. When she asks if she knows him he restores her memory by promptly slamming a door in her face, something he had done often in college to get her to leave.
 * Mike does this to a Brainwashed and Crazy Tony. Oddly, even after saying he dug up his mother's corpse just to violate it (among other things), Tony doesn't snap out of it until Mike calls him a loser.
 * Blip did it with a witch and Harry Potter reference.
 * Gunnerkrigg Court had a moment when Zimmy stuck in her nightmares after mental contact with comatose Antimony gets a bright idea and says "your dad's a jerk!". Success! Except that Annie doesn't wake up fully, but turns out to be capable of even in this state. Which may be better than getting caught by creepy Nobodies anyway.

Web Original

 * In Atop the Fourth Wall, Linkara found Spoony possessed by evil, so Linkara said "You're standing in my spot, Sir." from the game SWAT 4, a Berserk Button of Spoony's stemming from his Let's Play of it. It wasn't quite the best plan, as, while it did snap him out of it, Spoony then proceeded to beat the crap out of Linkara, shouting "I'm not fucking in your way!" before storming off.

Western Animation
"Mario: Ooooooh! I hate it when you do that!"
 * In one episode of Teen Titans, they repeatedly snapped Beast Boy out of Mad Mod's hypnotism by making him laugh. In the end, it looked like he'd finally succumbed for good—until Raven made a cleverly barbed joke about his intelligence. It was laughter that awoke him, but then he realized what she'd said and was promptly insulted.
 * This happens to Nigel Uno a lot in Codename: Kids Next Door. As one example, on being stranded on Rainbow Monkey Island for a long time, he ended up Going Native... until someone told him he had gone through all that for a keychain. He immediately returned to normal and exploded.
 * The plot of an episode of the Super Mario Brothers Super Show revolved around an escalating argument between the brothers, and, to get at Mario, Luigi snapped Mario's suspenders back, pulled his cap down, and plucked his moustache so hard it curled upwards. Later, Mario fell under a hypnotic tech-induced Koopa Trance, leaving it up to Luigi to save him. When the inevitable "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight between them ended up not actually breaking the trance, Luigi simply repeats what he did to Mario earlier, bringing him back by eliciting the same response as he'd gotten earlier: