Sanity Slippage: Difference between revisions

** First anime only, please note. In the manga and Brotherhood, this self-taught alchemist, name unknown, is the only person apart from the immortal Van Hohenheim (who knew the villain personally) to work out what is wrong with Amestris and its alchemy, why the Ishbal War was started, what is going to happen on the Promised Day, and how to stop it.

** This happens to Shou Tucker as well in the first anime - his madness is depicted as being far more explicit and (somehow) more forgivable than in the manga. Here, instead of meeting his [[Karmic Death]] at the hands of Scar, he continues to live aiding the homunculi and experimenting on his own body (turning him into hideous monster) in hopes of bringing back the daughter he sacrificed, with the help of the Philosopher's Stone. Upon realizing that he only got an [[Empty Shell]], Tucker completely breaks down into a gibbering wreck, trying to relive the happy memories he had with his daughter before she became a victim of his research.

** Orochimaru went through this in his backstory, but managed to conceal it enough that he'd already been kidnapping people for depraved experiments for ages when Sarutobi finally worked it out. Nagato went through something more like a [[Heroic BSOD]] that resulted in a [[Madness Makeover]] to Pain, but there was enough of a time spread that he definitely had time to devolve gradually. As [[Madness Makeover|Madness Makeovers]]s go, wearing your murdered friend's corpse as a puppet avatar is pretty near the top.

** ''End of Evangelion'' decides to do away with the incremental slips and jumps right off the edge thanks to [[Eldritch Abomination|the ritual to awaken Lilith]] leaving [[Go Mad Fromfrom the Revelation|Shinji a shrieking]] [[Freak-Out|broken mess]].

* [[Yandere|Kaede]] from ''[[ShuffleSHUFFLE!]]''. In the anime version, anyway.

** Ken Hidaka doesn't fare much better: starting with the two-part OVA ''Verbrechen ~ Strafe'', he finds himself [[Blood Knight|enjoying the act of killing]] more and more, goaded along by having to fake killing his teammates and having to ''actually'' [[Kill the Ones You Love|kill his girlfriend]] when she turns into a target. He manages to avoid falling so far as to start killing people on his own time, but in the [[Radio Drama]] ''Fight Fire With Fire,'' set after Weiss has been dissolved, he tries to convince Aya to become the new [[Mission Control|Persia]] so that he'll have someone to tell him who he can kill.

* Mima and Rumi of ''[[Perfect Blue]]'' both experience this. Mima gets better but Rumi [[Go Mad Fromfrom the Revelation|doesn't]].

* Relatively rare in [[Trigun]], all things considered--mostconsidered—most of the insane people are already insane when introduced, ''including'', in two cases, during the ''kid'' part of their [[Used to Be a Sweet Kid]] reveal. The only serious case of [[Sanity Slippage]] in the manga is actually ''[[The Hero|Vash]]''.

** Notably, Knives didn't get this. Knives went promptly and utterly over to [[Go Mad Fromfrom the Revelation|mad from the revelation]], and acted like he'd blocked it out and was perfectly okay right up until enacting Plan [[Kill All Humans]].

** Legato also devolves steadily and horribly over the course of Maximum--yesMaximum—yes, he was already bonkers, but after [[Big Bad|Knives]] [[Mad Love|breaks his spine]] he falls apart rapidly. Though he doesn't get less dangerous--afterdangerous—after all [[People Puppets]] are his specialty.

** You could make cases for other characters--Knivescharacters—Knives' [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]] [[Nietzsche Wannabe]] material slides up into [[A God Am I]] territory and so on. But none of them start sane.

* ''[[Ultimate SpiderWoman: Change With the Light]]'': Jack O'Lantern, the [[Arch Enemy]] of [[Ultimate SpiderWoman|Spider-Woman]], commits increasingly violent and destructive crimes as the series progresses. He goes from robbing banks to taking people hostage to going on killing sprees to orchestrating a bloody city-wide [[Mob War]]. Even in jail, we see him fantasizing about carving up human heads the way people do Halloween pumpkins. What's unusual is that Jack always had these sadistic urges-the Sanity Slippage comes from the escalating nature of his crimes.

* [[Axis Powers Hetalia|Austria/Roderich Edelstein]] in the ''[[Nineteen Eighty Three1983 Doomsday Stories]]'' is portrayed for the most part as undergoing through this. His obsession in finding out [[Hope Spot|whether Hungary survived]] [[World War III|Doomsday]] grows increasingly desperate (and irrepressible) over time to the point that others eventually start wondering if he's gone delusional from grief. {{spoiler|He doesn't.}} It's also mentioned to have happened as well with Romano (hijacked by [[The Mafia]] as his brother's successor) and Poland (having his personality shattered).

* Zac Hobson in ''[[The Quiet Earth (film)|The Quiet Earth]]'' begins suffering this when he realises that he may very well be the last human being alive. After the [[Good Times Montage]], he begins dressing in women's clothes; he fills his garden with cardboard cutouts of celebrities; he fires his shotgun wildly at televisions; he declares himself President of the World and gives his [[New Era Speech|inaugural address]] to the cutouts. [[It Got Worse|And then the power goes out]], leaving Zac standing on his balcony, in total darkness and utterly insane. He gets [[Bored with Insanity|better]].

* Mike in ''[[Deep End]]'' suffers this, mostly courtesy of Susan. The entire plot of the movie is Mike becoming her [[Stalker with a Crush]] -- except—except it's rather ''hard'' to [[What Does She See in Him?|understand why, considering]] [[The Vamp|her personality]] -- and—and in the end {{spoiler|his sanity finally snaps completely and he kills her.}} Given how she treated him throughout the entire movie, it's hard to sympathize with her.

* Harvey Dent in ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'' screaming in silent agony in the hospital after realizing that {{spoiler|Rachel died}}. From there his [[Sanity Slippage]] is evident, especially following [[The Joker]]'s disturbing [[Hannibal Lecture]] on him.

* Rand Al'Thor of ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' certainly seems to inhabit this trope over the course of at least seven [[Doorstopper|Doorstoppers]]s. More pressures, more sacrifices and mistakes, more obvious signs of mental instability. After he is {{spoiler|almost captured by legendary psychopathic torturer Semirhage and forced to almost kill Min}} he snaps completely. He adopts [[Dissonant Serenity]] and engages in more and more questionable deeds. After {{spoiler|almost killing his own father, willingly, out of misplaced rage and paranoia, followed by a bit of fatalist [[Nietzsche Wannabe]] monologuing on the site of his death in a previous incarnation 3,000 years earlier}} he seems to be showing signs of addressing the slippage though.

* Although it's never shown, during ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|Mash]]'''s finale, after witnessing a traumatic event, Hawkeye begins to not-so-subtly show signs of a breakdown. Like being convinced one of the anesthesiologists was attempting to suffocate his patient with the gas mask, or crashing a jeep through the mess tent. . Little indications of a stressful work environment.

* Avon of ''[[Blake's Seven7|Blakes Seven]]'' fame, during the show's fourth and final series. The final straw comes with {{spoiler|Blake's (apparent) betrayal}}. Considering what he's been through, the only wonder is it didn't happen sooner.

* A daily occurrence in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' and ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]''; living in an endlessly terrible [[Crapsack World]] will do that. Witches/psykers are especially vulnerable to Slippage, thanks to the source of their powers being the home of [[The Legions of Hell]].

* ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' is famous for introducing the SAN attribute, which drops a little each time the players encounter a monster or cast a spell, or something.

* The ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' also has sanity-slipping [[Karma Meter|Karma Meters]]s, though not all splats have them.

* This is a major gameplay element in ''Call of Cthulhu: [[Dark Corners of the Earth]].'' The "hero" is slowly going insane due to all the [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]]s running around. This results in hallucinations, talking to himself, and hearing voices. The player can reduce the rate at which he goes insane by keeping him from being exposed to disturbing situations (this being a horror story based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, that's easier said than done). If it gets too bad, the hero may attempt suicide and prompt a [[Nonstandard Game Over]].

* This plays out in reverse in ''[[Time Fcuk]]''. The protagonist is a [[Heroic Mime]], but due to the unusual nature of time and space in the game, he often gets radio messages from his past and future self. In the beginning, you're getting messages from what seem to be several future selves, ranging from a [[Perky Goth]] to a [[Conspiracy Theorist]] to someone who's flat-out hallucinating. Towards the end, you can hear his early messages, when he was [[The Everyman]]--arguably—arguably making it scarier, now that you know exactly how he'll be broken.

* In ''[[The Sims]] 2'', if a Sim's aspiration meter bottoms out, they'll start doing crazy stuff related to their Aspiration:

* ''[[Devil Survivor|Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor]]'' has an odd example of an ''[[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|AI]]'' apparently undergoing this. [[Mad Oracle|The Laplace Mail]] starts out giving news from the future, but as the game wears on (and the protagonists [[Screw Destiny|repeatedly prevent its predictions from coming true]]), it starts to get glitchier and glitchier, first capitalizing random letters and eventually adding in weird symbols in place of them, changing its "Have a nice day" ending to "Have a nice ''death''", and finally spitting out an error message and discontinuing all together.

* {{spoiler|Pit}} of all people starts to go crazy in [[Kid Icarus: Uprising]]. {{spoiler|In chapter 23, he gets eaten by Hades after the 3 Sacred Treasures are destroyed in front of him. When he's eaten, [[Go Mad From the Isolation|he's isolated from the outside world]] and can't get into contact with Palutena. Only Hades can talk to him from the inside and constantly [[Mind Rape|taunts him]] the whole dungeon. It gets to the point where Pit starts talking to himself and acting like he's going crazy.}} It's then defied when {{spoiler|Pit literally lampshades this trope and says he needs to get out of Hades before he REALLY goes crazy.}}

* Jack from ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]''. He started off as a pretty normal guy, then he briefly got pulled into a [[Dark World]] and saw some ''very'' unpleasant things. Since then he became increasingly antisocial, paranoid (at one point he starves himself because he's convinced the Court has laced his food with nanobots to track him) and amoral (compare his treatment of the Laser Cows to his treatment of the Guard Robot). [[mediaMedia:Jack_Progress_7447Jack Progress 7447.jpg|Heck, even his appearance became worse over time.]] Fortunately, now that {{spoiler|the whitelegs is out of his head,}} he's gotten almost back to normal. Oh, and {{spoiler|[[The Cuckoolander Was Right|he was right about the food]].}}

* The [[Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (Let's Play) Sonic 2006|epic LP]] of ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 (video game)||Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'' by [[Pokecapn]], Medibot, Kung-Fu Jesus, IlluminatusVespucci and John Condit. They played the entire game in less than two days, playing almost non-stop, with only one of them sleeping at any point. Most involved are mildly [[Cloudcuckoolander]]-ish to begin with, but as the game progresses, their commentary is filled more and more with non-sequiturs and [[Cluster F-Bomb|Cluster F Bombs]]. A quarter of the way through, they've ordered and consumed copious amounts of General Tso's chicken because it's "full of ideas" (and thus, eating the chicken will ''give them'' ideas. It makes perfect sense!). Halfway through, one of them ironically blares out an a cappella version of [[Mega Man (video game)|Flashman's theme]] at random moments. Three quarters of the way through, they [[That One Level|get stuck in the last level]], and over the two hours it takes them to beat the level, they can be heard cycling through the [[Five Stages of Grief]] (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). By the end, one of them is reciting song lyrics in Shatner-esque spoken-word renditions, including "Rocketman", "Fast Car", and finally "[[Michael Jackson|Thriller]]" over the final boss fight. When combined with the slow, melancholic choiral music used in the later stages, it borders on [[Tear Jerker|being strangely touching]], depending on your mood.

* Pitchfork, the writer of the [http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/index.php?a=patff Rise and Fall of Final Fantasy] series of articles, spent the last four years playing though each ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' game and writing the articles, [[Determinator|a rather impressive feat on its own]]. The zenith was, of course, at ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' (the former of which got a score of [[Rank Inflation|six out of five]]), but with each progressive game afterwords, he became more divided in his opinion. Then came ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'', which was his first time playing an MMORPG. So not only did he not know what to expect from it, but he didn't realize at first how unrealistic it was to try to "beat" it. His "Vana'diel Diary" gives us quotes like "I refuse to admit that I am not having fun," and he tears the disclaimer given by Square Enix upon logging on ("'THAT BEING SAID, WE HAVE NO DESIRE TO SEE YOUR REAL LIFE SUFFER AS A CONSEQUENCE.' Bullshit. Vicious, brazen mendacity. Like a tobacco company printing "we have no desire that you should develop a dependency while enjoying the smooth taste of our product" on the side of cigarette packs."), and at the end of that, he begs that someone tell him that not all MMOs are like it. In his ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' article, he says that the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' under Square is gone forever, leaving only a [[Cash Cow Franchise]] [[Franchise Zombie]] by Square-Enix. ''[[Final Fantasy X -2]]'' seemed to have completely broken his brain ("...so whenever Yuna equips the Songstress job, she not only dons Lenne's clothes but allows Lenne's thoughts and emotions to diffuse throughout her own, causing god this is so stupid why am i"), and ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' caused him to quit the series entirely.

** "Look at the pretty bunny! Look at the pretty bunny... *Breaks down crying*

* ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]''. Buzz ''really'' doesn't take realizing he's a toy well.

** SpongeBob frequently has [[Sanity Slippage]] to the point that you wonder whether he's exactly sane to begin with...

** In Clams after Mr. Krabs looses his millionth dollar we see him slowly go [[Sanity Slippage|completely insane]]. The cut back to Mr. Krabs, who begins giggling maniacally [[Eye Scream|and tears his two eyes out, using them as a jumprope]] is genuinely disturbing.

* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'': The [[Fan Nickname]] for this is "Cutie Mark Failure Insanity Syndrome", given that a pony failing to live up to their special talent (symbolized by their cutie mark) is the most common cause of ponies going nuts. (It's worth pointing out that in all of these cases, the insanity was cleared up by the end of the episode with [[The Power of Friendship]].)<!-- NOTE TO EDITORS: Please leave the mention of the fandom term for searchability. -->

** [[Adorkable|Twilight Sparkle]] goes through a complete psychotic break in "Lesson Zero". Convinced that she's about to fail her duty to Princess Celestia, her mane goes disheveled, her teeth grind, her eyes becoming unfocused, she [[TalkingInner to ThemselfDialogue|talks to herself]], and she starts [[Teleport Spam|teleporting at random]] while undergoing a complete nervous breakdown, culminating in an (unintended) mass hypnosis that requires the Princess herself to intervene, furious at her student abusing her powers. .

* Though he starts out stable, Dib's sanity eventually starts to slip after his attempts to expose [[Invader Zim]] for the alien menace he is go unsucessfulunsuccessful for the umpteenth time.

* Which appears to be ''nothing'' compared to Randy Quaid and his wife, who are engaging in the kind of ''folie a deux'' that leaves TMZ salivating. After bailing on a good number of bills, mortgages, and other outstanding charges, the couple was arrested for squatting in a manor they'd sold years back. And that's when things got ''really'' weird, as the Quaids started talking about how most of the recent celebrity deaths were the fault of a hit squad known as the "Star Whackers" that was targeting them and had ties everywhere -- ineverywhere—in one interview, the couple said the Star Whackers received orders out of a Dairy Queen in Marfa, Texas.

* Poor [[Superman (film)|Margot Kidder]]. In her case, untreated bipolar disorder led to some bizarre antics, such as hiding in bushes naked. She has since been under regular care and says that she's been free of incidents for 11 years.

** [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wain_cats_6.jpg This montage] shows the gradual slippage in progress from mildly odd to complete lunacy. [[Nightmare Fuel]] warning applies. <ref> It should be noted that he did not date his paintings, so most progessions tend to be mere speculative. However, they still remain a fine example of schizophrenia's effects on the mind, as the featured "fractal" paintings are known to be paintings he drew in the final years of his life.</ref>

** Sleep deprivation (such as from [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|TVAll The Tropes]]) can also make you increasingly unhinged hinged hinged hinged hinged ahahaha...

** Extreme stress can also cause illusions,purely which differ fromvisual hallucinations in that they're purely visual, and the sufferer ''knows'' they're not real. The person ''knows'' the walls aren't melting, the lamp isn't flickering, there aren't any kaleidoscope patterns spinning through the air. But they're seeing it all anyway and they ''can't make it stop''. The patterns persist even with their eyes closed. Their brain isn't functioning properly and ''they know it'', but there's nothing they can do about it. No amount of rationalizing about how all those unsettling things aren't really happening will make it go away. [[And I Must Scream|Imagine knowing that you're standing right on the precipice of insanity and being unable to stop yourself from taking that first step down]].