Go Mad from the Revelation: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either [[Trope Namers|go mad from the revelation]] or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."''|''[[HP Lovecraft|The Call of Cthulhu]]''}}

 

 

There is generally a distinction between things that happen to the mind because of experience and things that are done to the brain. This trope is the former. Thus, insanity caused by drugs or a specific, quasi-magical effect (like a [[Brown Note]]) doesn't qualify. Contrast those things with the Shoggoths, who strain people's sanity in spite of never having that as a stated special ability -- the thought of them is just that horrible. Confronting a Creature From Beyond The Stars or a Thing That Should Not Exist will lead either to psychological regression into denial, or insanity when the cognitive dissonance becomes too great. [[HP Lovecraft]] was fond of these; his stories abound with [[Eldritch Abomination|creatures from regions of space where the known laws of nature do not apply]], and [[Alien Geometries|geometries that violate the laws of physics]].

This almost could have been [[Truth in Television]], insofar as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a real mental illness, but a character who Goes Mad From the Revelation usually is portrayed in a more generic insanity, often resembling Freak Outs, [[Heroic BSOD|catatonia]], schizophrenia or most commonly, psychotic mania with [[Laughing Mad]]. Sometimes, if you whack someone with the "insane stick" enough times, they'll get [[Bored With Insanity]].

 

 

The extreme form of a [[Freak Out]]. May take the form of a [[Heroic BSOD]] where the thing isn't going to start working again. If the whole nature of the universe is opened to you because of your velocity, this is [[Ludicrous Speed]].

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Fantastic Children]]'', scientist Dr. Radcliffe became obsessed with unraveling the mystery of the Children of Befort. Needless to say, the more he found out, the madder he went. He could have been saved a lot of suffering if he knew that his theory was actually {{spoiler|as far from the truth as you could get}}.

* ''[[Space Pirate Mito]]'': Masatsuki Nenga goes totally batshit insane when {{spoiler|he comes to the realisation that his "Justice" is nothing more than a tool of oppression (one that has no issue shooting down a "mob" of villagers, men, women and children) used by a pretender to the throne}}. This leads to about two episodes worth of him screaming "I AM JUSTICE!" at the top of his lungs whilst firing his gun like the lunatic he is. This would be fine all in all, but the guy doesn't look older than 12.

** Notably, if you didn't already know who was going to grow up to be the villain, it would ''look'' like Knives handled it better than Vash. They both locked themselves in and attempted to starve to death together, but after Rem broke in and saved them it was ''[[The Messiah|Vash]]'' who did the [[Creepy Laugh]] and [[Humans Are Bastards]] and hysteria, and Knives seemed...perfectly okay. He saved his freak-out until after he'd set up all the colony ships to crash.

* ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'': Certainly not the only factor in his descent, but his visit to the [[Cosmic Horror Story|Dark Ocean]] a perpetually dark realm, populated by various Lovecraftian horrors and where Love and Hope are a foreign concept, was definitely the Straw that Broke the Camel's Back for Ken Ichijoji. One look at his [http://www.alltrees.org/anime/basetwo/images/ken.chibi.evil.jpg expression] in that [[Flash Back|scene]] is enough to convince you that this kid just went off the deep end.

** Captain Britain himself had his own brush with this trope when he was first confronted with a supernatural occurrence he couldn't [[Flat Earth Atheist|dismiss or explain away]] - in this case, extradimensional beings contacting him in the middle of a Trans-Atlantic flight. He promptly freaked out and jumped out of the plane. Note that at this point in time, Brian got his powers from an amulet and scepter given to him by Merlin and Arthur. ([[Knights Of The Round Table|Yes, them]]). This has been [[Retcon|retconned]] at some point to Brian getting his brains rattled by a psychic attack and jumping to protect the plane's passengers (At this point he couldn't fly yet).

* According to ''[[Transformers Shattered Glass|Shattered Glass]]'' [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_<!-- 28SG29 Optimus Prime's bio]], he discovered something so shocking from Cybertron's past that it made him to go insane, and to the present day no one knows what it was he found. -->

** And, of course, John himself was pretty horribly traumatized by what happened in Newcastle in '79, and had to go in and out of institutions for several years afterword.

** Prior to this, in [[Swamp Thing]] Constantine leads a mentalist to make contact with heroes and villains battling what appears to be a giant, black [[Ultimate Evil|shelled mollusk]] that even defeats [[Beyond the Impossible|the Spectre, implied to be an aspect of God.]] Though the entire experience has been traumatic, Constantine's patsy gets a good look at the shell on the creature to snap his mind: {{spoiler|It's not a shell, it's a fingernail. The entire battle had been fought on a scale so alien, whole armies had been assaulting just the fingertip of their foe without realizing.}}

* An issue of Marvel's "What-If?" ends with Rogue (after killing Mr. Sinister) discovering the ULTIMATE TRUTH behind the Marvel Universe. The last picture of said issue has her (looking quite rattled and/or mentally shattered, take your pick) sitting down amidst a handful of Marvel comic books strewn around the ground.

* Much of the plot of [[Tron]]: Ghost in the Machine runs on this trope. The story opens with the [[Tron Two Point Oh (Video Game)|protagonist of the game]] being so paralyzed by what he saw inside the computer system that he went from being an avid programmer to being a shut-in afraid to touch electronics. From there, the whole comic spirals into a genuine [[Mind Screw]].

* Happens in [[Power Pack]] when the kids' parents learn that the kids have superpowers. They're ultimately saved by being led to believe that the superpowered kids were fakes switched for their real kids.

 

* Poor, poor [[Past Sins (Fanfic)|Nyx...]]

* In the setting of the [[Mass Effect]] fanfic ''[[Inglorious Boshtets (Fanfic)|Inglorious Boshtets]]'', this is what happened to many people who viewed the porno magazine ''Fornax'''s "Forbidden Issue," which featured Tali's idiot crewman Prazza performing a sanity-blastingly obscene sex act that thankfully [[You Do NOT Want to Know|remained]] [[Noodle Incident|undescribed]].

 

 

* In the chapter "The Castaway" in Hermann Melville's ''[[Moby-Dick]]'', the cabin boy Pip falls overboard and the immense emptiness of the ocean drives him mad. "By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul."

* Parodied and Inverted in ''[[Don Quixote (Literature)|Don Quixote]]'', who goes mad for trying to make sense of the purple prose that plagued the chivalry books he has read, but never was any reveal because even [[Aristotle (Creator)|Aristotle]] could not make sense of that. Chapter I, Part I:

* William Gibson's short story ''Hinterlands'' has a parade of lone astronauts drifting at a particular point in space, setting off radio flares, who are either taken by [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|some force]], or more often, ''not'' taken. Those who are taken come back with scary new science and technology, but are all batshit crazy and {{spoiler|eventually kill themselves without revealing much of what they saw}}. Those who are ''not'' taken are {{spoiler|so profoundly crushed at being rejected by [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Space God]] that they all ''attempt'' suicide}}, and are then employed as counselors for those the batshit crazy returnees.

* In [[Robert E Howard]]'s "[[Jewels of Gwahlur (Literature)|Jewels of Gwahlur]]" Yelaya warns [[Conan the Barbarian]].

** In season 6, in the episode "If I could see me now" we discover that Al has bad eyesight and experiences the world mostly as fuzzy blobs. The kids prevail on him to get glasses after driving home with Al behind the wheel. Upon finally getting his glasses Al sees the world around him, especially his house and family, as it really is. He clutches his head and screams in agony, parodying this trope. He finally destroys his glasses as he would rather cling to the world he knew rather than face the truth.

* "Need to Know", an episode of the 1980s ''[[The Twilight Zone (TV)|The Twilight Zone]]'', featured William Petersen investigating an insanity epidemic in a small town. It turns out a resident has discovered the meaning of life, but to hear the secret is to go crazy.

* This happens in ''[[Being Human (TV)|Being Human]]'', when Annie (a ghost) whispers to {{spoiler|her killer, Owen}} a "secret that only the dead know." He snaps almost immediately. Interestingly enough, when [[Our Werewolves Are Different|George]] asks what she said, [[Our Vampires Are Different|Mitchell]] shakes his head slightly, indicating that Annie shouldn't say--as well as the fact that he knows it too.

* When [[Battlestar Galactica|D'Anna]] learns the identities of the Final Five Cylons, it appears to be so overwhelming as to at least render her comatose. Only a borderline example, though, because she does get better.

** Over in the New World of Darkness, the Bane Hounds of ''Werewolf: The Forsaken'' are said to have completely gone off their collective nut on finding the site of Father Wolf's murder.

* In ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade (Tabletop Game)|Vampire: The Masquerade]]'', this is the schtick of the insane seers of Clan Malkavian, and is also a popular trait amongst the utterly inhuman Tzimisce.

* And then, of course, we have ''[[Mage: The Ascension (Tabletop Game)|Mage the Ascension]]''. One could say that Awakening to the realization that all reality is controlled by the belief of people, that your beliefs can change it more than others, and that humanity has become an apathetic race unwilling to realize the wonderment of the world is simply the start of a long, torturous road to death or complete insanity. Mages who violate the rules of reality too much eventually find themselves to become gibbering madmen unable to accept any reality but their own convoluted, insane one, eventually being ejected from the fabric of the world itself. Some Mages become brainwashed into reinforcing the frozen reality as it is (i.e. science) forming a contradiction in themselves against their dynamic nature. Then there's the [[Complete Monster|Nephandi]], the depths of depravity who would sell humanity out to [[Eldritch Abomination|Demons]] just [[Deal With the Devil|for power]]. Since, by being a mage, you change reality with your beliefs just by existing, you're constantly violating general reality, you're always a little off even if you can avoid those three disastrous paths above.

* ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning (Tabletop Game)|Hunter: The Reckoning]]'': You are a normal guy who realizes that humanity is just the playthings of vampires, werewolves, fairies, zombies, etc, and always has been since the dawn of time. Of course, the voices in your head telling you this is the truth doesn't exactly help.

** And the game knows it, too. To elaborate, {{spoiler|the treasure at the end of the infamous Hell Temple is a "Forbidden treasure that may not be looked at or used". It's not kidding, the treasure for defeating the horribly hard Hell Temple is the Skimpy Swimsuit. The last room foreshadows this, asking if there is truly anything that could make you regret your long journey through Hell Temple. The treasure has no use, and doesn't appear in your inventory...and that would be awful enough, if not for the fact that it shows you a picture of your character wearing it. Your male character. Screams of horror will ensue.}}

* Wallachia in ''[[Melty Blood]]'' went insane when he learned that nothing could avert the doom of mankind, only make it worse. To try and get around that he made a deal with a Dead Apostle to became a conceptual being for more time to find a solution. His insanity only got worse from there, eventually becoming a horrible raging unkillable monster. Crosses over with [[Despair Event Horizon]], and it's alluded to that insanity is the eventual fate of all alchemists who try to calculate a future too far ahead.

** NakaTeleeli goes mad from the revelation in his [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48z22pTWFGA final] ''[[Let's Play]]'' of ''Engage To Jabberwock''. Luckily the ''Let's Play'' also [[Averted Trope|averts]] [[There Are No Therapists]].

* In ''[[Star Control]] II'', if you explore the [[Ghost Planet]] of the extinct Androsynth, Science Officer Bukowski will find out the hard way that [[These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know]]. It's very creepy for such a funny game.

* Part of the point and appeal of [[Interactive Fiction]] title ''[[Slouching Towards Bedlam]]''. This means that typing "jump out of window" as your ''first command'' is an entirely viable way to {{spoiler|"win" the game}}. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].

* Invoked in the venerable ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]''. The "[[Standard Status Effects|Confuse]]" status effect causes the character to go [[Laughing Mad]], so it's really not surprising that any monster related to the game's [[Big Bad]], the [[Cosmic Horror]] known as Lavos, can and ''will'' inflict this status with any of its attacks unless you've equipped items that prevent it.

** And again when [http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002879 he finds out that Gushers are made by Betty Crocker.] {{spoiler|Subverted, though. THIS IS STUPID.}}

** After asking an omniescent cueball about whether {{spoiler|1=the horrorterrors are good or evil, [[Black Magician Girl|Rose]] [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005542 goes] [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005543 grimdark.]}} The scariest part is that [[Brown Note|we never get to see the answer ourselves.]] {{spoiler|Again, it's shown to be subverted when she arrives on Skaia - she's still herself, (probably) sane and responds positively to meeting [[The Hero|John]], but she is far more aggressive and can only speak in incomprehensible [[Black Speech]]. After she dies and is revived on Derse, she returns to normal.}}

** Who is totally fine. He even understood that the six hundred and twelve-dimensional sphere contained information concerning "every possible way to build any possible device to destroy every possible thing in all creation."

** While it did shut down his higher brain functions for some time, Black Mage snapped out of his condition pretty fast. For the record, Black Mage's ''face'', currently hidden in the shadow of his hat, made Onion Kid go into a coma. He later said it felt like everything good was gone from the world...

** And lately, Red Mage got the idea of using the datasphere to learn how to destroy the [[Enemy Within|monster currently inside himself]], as it threatens to take over his body.

*** Hilariously, the result was the death of the monster. ''And Red Mage was fine''. If that makes sense, recall that Red Mage ''was'' the monster. Oh, and he might be catatonic.

** {{spoiler|In Dave, anyhow. He finally went mad... from the revelation that he would go mad. Nice.}}

** All [[Mad Scientist|mad scientists]] go mad, sooner or later, by definition. It seems to be genetic. [[Its All There in the Manual|Helen went mad]] in an Italian restaurant when her mother's lawyer met with her.

{{quote| '''Kyle:''' I can't speak the English language anymore! God help me!}}

** Kyle himself has had a few incidents of this in his own show, ''[[Brows Held High (Web Video)|Brows Held High]]''. In particular, there was the "if you can't beat 'em..." segment at the end of the ''[[Mind Screw|What is it?]]'' review, and the [[Psychic Nosebleed]] and subsequent [[Unstoppable Rage]] he had after keeping his cool through most of ''[[Gorn|A Serbian Film]]''.

** In another [[James Rolfe]]-related video series called ''Shit Pickle'', the monkey father from ''Munky Cheez 2'' (yet another video series) goes mad after his kids keep saying "monkey cheese" over and over while watching the original, and those two words are all that the monkey dad can say from then on. Watch it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RWdyjSutKQ here].

* Inferno of ''[[WALLE Forum Role Play]]'' may count?, as she's more of a case of Go Even More Mad From The Revelation...

* While not exactly "mad", Scientologists contend that anyone who reads the Xenu story without proper preparation (i.e., $200,000 in "donations") will become physically and mentally weakened. This may have something to do with a kind of "shock treatment" backfire similar to the VR in ''[[Twentieth Century Boys]]''.

** However, there were originally plans to make a [[Film of the Book]] in order to let the public in on the <s>joke</s> secret. [[L Ron Hubbard|Hubbard]] probably changed his mind when he realized how much money he was making off the "[[You Keep Using That Word|audits]]".

** Especially the [[Wild Mass Guessing]] page, specifically the "[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/RealLife Real Life]" section.

* [[Wikipedia]]. Some pages aren't for the meek of the psyche, such as, say, the aptly-titled [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe Ultimate Fate of the Universe].

 

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{{reflist}}

[[Category:Lovecraftian Tropes]]

[[Category:Go Mad From The Revelation]]