Villainous Breakdown/Literature: Difference between revisions

Line 7:

** {{spoiler|Ser Gregor Clegane}}, as he fights Oberyn Martell, gets progressively more enraged. A combination of his exceptionally dim wits and the realization that he is being publicly accused of his crimes in front of the entire court leads to him screaming "SHUT UP!" at Oberyn again and again.

** {{spoiler|Ser Amory Lorch}}, after the Brave Companions and the Northmen take his castle, ends his career as a [[Complete Monster]] by revealing himself to be a [[Dirty Coward]] and weeping and crying before he is {{spoiler|eaten by a bear.}}

** {{spoiler|Queen Cersei Lannister}} has a pronounced one after she is [[Hoist by His Own Petard|imprisoned]] by the [[Church Militant|Faith Militant]] in ''A Feast For Crows''.

** {{spoiler|Ser Jaime Lannister}} remains his usual composed, snarky, debonair, and uncaring self despite being defeated in battle and imprisoned. But when {{spoiler|he loses his sword hand}}, he goes completely to pieces, and [[Death Seeker|loses the will to live]]. He gets better thankfully fast, with a little help, which leads directly to a [[Heel Face Turn]].

** {{spoiler|Lady Lysa Arryn}}, when she sees her childhood crush forcibly kissing Sansa Stark, goes completely insane, trying to throw poor Sansa (who did not instigate the kiss) out of the Moon Door. Her breakdown is cut short when {{spoiler|she is thrown out said Door herself.}}

Line 17:

* Although he hasn't been the most composed guy over the course of the book, Grevane in seventh book in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' Dead Beat by Jim Butcher has a [[Villainous Breakdown]] that saves Harry's (or maybe Ramirez') life-right at the instant of his death. Through the entire time he's been trying to fight Harry he's been continuing a major necromantic working, and when Ramirez strikes the killing blow, his mind snaps and refuses to accept that he's dead. As a result, he keeps trying to finish the spell, instead of casting a Death Curse that would take Harry with him.

** According to [[Word of God]], the Denarian leader Nicodemus hasn't been the same since Harry nearly killed him by strangling him with the Iscariot's Noose. The [[Smug Snake]] [[Big Bad Wannabe]] is now ''utterly terrified'' of Harry Dresden.

** Arianna Ortega experiences this in book 12. Throughout the book she's been a [[Smug Snake]], and the fact that she plans to murder a little girl purely for selfish reasons only adds to this. Eventually she faces the father of her would be victim in single combat and ultimately looses badly, getting impaled by numerous ice spears (including one as thick as a man's fist.) As Harry stands over her she simply looses her cool and first says "no no no" over and over again before telling Dresden that he is cattle. Harry responds by mocking her before blowing her head off.

** Her dad the Red King also suffers an implosive one. After getting heavily injured and overpowered by Harry, he first summons all his soldiers despite earlier showing fear at the prospect and he is reduced from a [[Smug Snake]] Chessmaster into a screaming lunatic who inadvertently cuts one of his deputies in half.

* ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'''s "lollipops" moment in the first book.

Line 51:

*** Thrawn's fellow [[Big Bad]], Joruus C'baoth, has a more traditional one after Mara {{spoiler|kills the Luke clone}}. Somewhat unusually, the normally unstable C'baoth actually becomes much [[Tranquil Fury|calmer]] and more controlled as he's in the process of finally losing it. [[Creepy Monotone|This just makes it creepier]].

{{quote|'''C'baoth''': [[I'll Kill You!|You will die for that]], Mara Jade. Slowly, and in ''great pain''.}}

::: The [[Tranquil Fury]] only comes after he goes ''[[Unstoppable Rage|completely fucking berserk]]'', in response to a much more minor inconvenience. The narration points out that the [[Tranquil Fury]] is actually ''scarier''.

** The real bad guys, at least for the characters in the main plotline, of the ''[[Hand of Thrawn]]'' duology are the [[Big Bad Duumvirate|Big Bad Triumvirate]] of Moff Disra, Major Grodin Tierce, and the [[Con Man]] Flim. They work to [[Dead Person Impersonation|make it look]] as if Thrawn has come [[Back ~~From~~ the Dead]]. When Pellaeon [[Big Damn Heroes|exposes their whole plot at a crucial moment]], Tierce has an incredibly sudden, violent breakdown/MotiveRant {{spoiler|where it's revealed that not only is he secretly a clone, but a clone with a bit of Thrawn engineered into his brain.}} If you read carefully there are hints of this, like the way he very slowly changes over the course of the novel and the way he comes up with tactics becomes creepy.

** The real bad guys, at least for the characters in the main plotline, of the ''[[Hand of Thrawn]]'' duology are the [[Big Bad Duumvirate|Big Bad Triumvirate]] of Moff Disra, Major Grodin Tierce, and the [[Con Man]] Flim. They work to [[Dead Person Impersonation|make it look]] as if Thrawn has come [[Back from the Dead]]. When Pellaeon [[Big Damn Heroes|exposes their whole plot at a crucial moment]], Tierce has an incredibly sudden, violent breakdown/MotiveRant {{spoiler|where it's revealed that not only is he secretly a clone, but a clone with a bit of Thrawn engineered into his brain.}} If you read carefully there are hints of this, like the way he very slowly changes over the course of the novel and the way he comes up with tactics becomes creepy.

** It apparently happens to [[Manipulative Bastard|Ysanne Isard]] in slow motion during ''[[X Wing Series|The Bacta War]]''; someone has broken out of her [[The Alcatraz|secret prison]], parts of the Empire she rules are splintering off, and she's been forced off of Imperial Center. [[The Dragon]] notices her changing, ''she'' notices it too, and soon the captain of one of her Star Destroyers is defecting to the New Republic and sending her a message where he calls her insane. Apparently she's better by ''Isard's Revenge'', though.

*** Nope! She's composed, but ''still'' quietly obsessing over her defeat, so that the next stage in her plan is easily predicted, to her ultimate downfall.

Line 72:

* In [[The Color Purple]], Albert experiences this after Celie calls him out. He just loses his cool, stammers incoherently, and suffers a mental collapse. Ultimately, this forces him to change, turning him from a [[Complete Monster]] to a legitimately nice individual

* In the ''[[Outlander (novel)|Outlander]]'' series, Captain John Randall normally, in [[Ax Crazy|all]] [[Interplay of Sex and Violence|his]] [[Depraved Bisexual|villainy]], has two main expressions: arrogant calmness, and being annoyed. The first time he's shown to completely break down sobbing is when he [[Anguished Declaration of Love|confesses to Jamie that he loves him]], and goes ''completely psycho'' when Jamie refuses to respond in the affirmative when he orders Jamie to tell him that he loves him too.

* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[War of the Dreaming]]'', Azrael de Gray has a comb*

* Hatsumoto from [[Memoirs of a Geisha]] already started losing it when she found out Mameha had taken Sayuri as her little sister and training her to become a geisha, trying several tactics to beat Sayuri, showing just how desperate she was, but Mameha would find ways to best ''her'' instead. Once Sayuri became a much more successful geisha than her at such a young age, Hatsumoto really does lose it. And Mameha had no trouble deliberately driving her further off the edge. Which she would eventually succeed.

* ''[[Animorphs]]'' largely averts this by having most of the villains start off [[Ax Crazy|Pre-broken-down]]. However, when [[Sixth Ranger Traitor|David]] finds out he has been deceived and trapped, he begins sliding into this, and when he finds out that his fate is to be [[Baleful Polymorph|trapped in]] [[Body Horror|the body of a rat]] for the rest of his life, he slides over the scale. All through the two hour morph limit, and up until they transport him out to a small island and leave him, he ''never stops screaming the word [[Big No|"No"]], even after they leave.'' Understandable, [[Nightmare Fuel|considering]] the [[Fate Worse Than Death|circumstances.]] Even [[Dark Action Girl|Rachel]] is haunted by that experience throughout the series.