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With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Difference between revisions

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* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'': A common theme in the franchise, most notably ''[[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam|Zeta Gundam]]'' and ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ|Gundam ZZ]]'' where all Newtypes are often mentally unstable in some fashion, may have forms of amnesia, be brainwashed, though in some other cases they're just plain stubborn.
** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED|Gundam SEED]]'' plays on this by giving [[Psycho Serum|performance-enhancing drugs]] and treatments to criminals who are doing it in exchange for a full pardon. Naturally, this drives them to insanity in combat... which is what was planned. As a result, they are given drugs in such doses that by the time combat is over, they are having withdrawal symptoms and are manageable again. Withdrawal will also kill them if they are deprived of the drugs for too long, thus ensuring their loyalty.
** In ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]'', Blue Cosmos has been attempting to create "Artificial Coordinators" through depraved combinations of surgery, hypnosis, [[Training Fromfrom Hell|insane training]], drugs and other horrors. Of the dozens of children selected for the project, only a few survived, and those seen in the series are all, understandably, raving mad and almost incapable of functioning normally in life. Without routine "maintenance" their bodies break down and they die. The sad thing is that in comparison to ''SEED'''s pre-Extended (see above) they're all poster children for Mental Health Week: Stellar Louissier, i.e, is a sweet [[Psychopathic Manchild|if incredibly childish]] [[The Woobie|and still very sympathetic]] young woman who loves to dance, as long as you don't [[Berserk Button|tell her that either she or her friends will die]].
** In ''[[Gundam Wing]]'', the ZERO System gives the person who uses it incredible reaction times and tactical predictions bordering on prescience. If he can't focus on the battle, those violent predictions start afflicting whatever he starts thinking about (like say his girlfriend, or that nice peaceful space colony over there), and soon enough he's a psychopath slaughtering whatever the System says is his enemy.
* Similarly, ''[[Gasaraki]]'' has mecha pilots who were given a cocktail of boosting drugs in order to improve their battle performance (without their knowledge or consent, and said drugs was actually fluid extracted from the muscles of a 1000 year old demon), and the inevitably go berserk from the effects, before either lapsing into a coma or suffering cardiac arrest.
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* At some point in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the Doctor's companion, Donna Noble, {{spoiler|somehow gains every bit of knowledge and power that the Doctor has.}} The Doctor, unfortunately, is forced to give Donna a complete mind wipe of her entire knowledge of the Doctor/the TARDIS/the entire time she was on the show because {{spoiler|being ''the Doctor Donna'', as the Ood called her,}} will slowly turn her so mad that it will kill her. This circumstance means that the Doctor can never see Donna again, as she will remember everything and go batshit insane with power and die.
** Not really. It's not going insane with power that would kill her, it's that humans are physically unequipped to handle a Time Lord mind. Donna was still physically human but with a Time Lord consciousness, and it was going to literally burn her brain out in very short order, certainly before she had time to go mad with power.
** A better example would be the Doctor himself. Despite having, essentially, the power of a god, he mostly averts this trope. Except [[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S4S30/E16 The Waters of Mars|that one time when he was pushed a bit too far]], lost it spectacularly, and became, briefly, an example of this trope.
* In the ''[[The Six Million Dollar Man]]'', Steve Austin adapted to his bionic replacements very well, remaining well-integrated and with his reasonably decent moral sense intact. Not everyone else who was given/forced to take bionics did as well, Jaimee Summers was plagued with amnesia and mental troubles, another bionic man went the 'crazy with power' route as well. The implication was that power didn't necessarily go with madness...but it easily could.
* In the [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]] episode "Earshot," Buffy is contaminated by a telepathic demon. This has only happened to one other person, and it caused him to go insane and live as a hermit. Buffy is heading the same way when the Scoobies undo the effects.
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** There's an even more direct example in [[Elemental Embodiment|Elementals]]. When an Elemental reaches Essence 10, it becomes a [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons|Greater Elemental Dragon]], an entity of ''immense'' destructive power (possibly greater even than the most powerful [[Our Demons Are Different|Demons]]). All Greater Elemental Dragons to date have been utterly insane, to the point where they've needed to be imprisoned behind some of the most powerful safeguards in Creation (the Gardullis, Greater Dragon of Fire, is imprisoned within the Sun itself). It's speculated that this is because Elementals were simply never designed to be capable of coping with that level of power.
** Also justified by [[Word of God]] for the Primordials themselves, most of whom are a) kind of crazy and b) have [[Crippling Overspecialisation]] written into their very beings. They have these traits because for most of their existences, they had been simply too powerful to face consequences to their actions, with even their weak points way outside the power level of anything not prohibited from fighting them. [[Wham! Episode|And then the Exalted came into play]].
* This phrase goes some way to defining ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]''. They've even got a [[Tagline]] for the game that goes: "Only the insane have the strength to prosper. Only those who prosper can judge what is truly sane." At least some of the Chaos forces admit it - "Sanity is for the ''weak.''"
** Even Chaos is very, very thankful that The Outsider is still self-trapped in his box on the outskirts of the galaxy. We only know he's there because the Tyranids [[Oh Crap|give it a hundred light-years of space to itself]].
* In the fluff backstory of ''Mage Knight'', it was stated that mastering the opposing magics of Necromancy and Elementalism would drive a mage insane. The [[Chosen One|one guy who did]] went on to found [[The Empire|the Atlantean Empire]], which practiced slavery and subjugation.
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** And in the first Shadow Hearts we find that with great insanity comes great power, {{spoiler|as the only way to unlock each Fusion's ultimate attack is to deliberately let your sanity points run out, [[Guide Dang It]]}}.
** {{spoiler|And Johnny Garland, who has a very, very powerful Awaker form as a manifestation of the Malice that brought him back from the dead, flips out very easily if he uses it, as he doesn't have the benefit of Shania, Yuri, or Kurando's mental discipline.}}
* Giygas, the [[Big Bad]] from ''[[EarthboundEarthBound]]'', becomes so powerful in the end of the game that he is unbeatable save for one specific trick. On the other hand, his mind is completely shattered, so he attacks randomly while [[Talkative Loon|babbling nonsense.]]
** In ''[[EarthboundEarthBound]]'''s sequel, ''[[Mother 3]]'', {{spoiler|Giygas's "protege" Porky, after gaining the power to travel through time and effective immortality--living for thousands of years--has gone from a mere rotten brat to an insane, murdering [[Psychopathic Manchild]] and [[Evil Overlord]] bent on destroying everyone in the world but himself.}}
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]'', several of the bosses Link faces off with have become corrupted by their possession of darkly powerful artifacts. A number of these, such as Darbus the Goron and Yeta the Yeti, were otherwise mild-mannered, friendly characters; the artifacts in question would grant their bearers extreme power and strength, but rob them of their sense and personality.
** The Triforce itself isn't evil, but it does grant the wishes of those who touch it as a whole, or its parts, whether they are good or evil.
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** Not really an example, once we find out {{spoiler|he's not actually Alex Mercer. He's [[The Virus]] itself assuming Mercer's memories and appearance.}} "Insanity" here is really best classified as [[Loss of Identity]], but you can't really call it that when {{spoiler|you never even ''had'' an original identity ''to begin with.''}}
** Arguably it's completely ''inverted'' since absorbing all of those people and experiencing their thoughts and memories, including their pain and fear, ends up giving him a ''conscience''.
* In ''[[Blaz BlueBlazBlue]]'', we have Arakune, a scientist who sought knowledge from a place known as [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|the Boundary]], and got it. It had the unfortunate side effect destroying his sanity, turning him into, well, [[media:699190-arakune large.jpg|this]], and giving him the power to summon '''[[Memetic Mutation|BEES!]]'''
** Also, Blazblue characters that gained possession of [[Evil Weapon|Nox Nyxtoreses]] as children tend to be mentally unstable, at best, or outright insane, when sufficiently provoked. However, this is averted for characters that gained the said Nox Nyxtoreses after they turned adult - they tend to maintain their initial sanity/insanity.
* Arguably {{spoiler|all three of the Brothers Sun}} in [[Jade Empire]]. When you see the Emperor, he is quite clearly out of his mind, {{spoiler|being undead and powered only by leeching power from the Water Dragon}}. {{spoiler|"Master" Sun Li}} seems pretty sane, and has it together enough to pull one ''spectacular'' [[Xanatos Gambit]] on your character. However, he obtains the {{spoiler|Water Dragon's power}} upon his brother's death and drains it even faster than his brother did. By the time you meet up with him for the final [[Boss Battle]], he is ''very'' clearly out of his mind.
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* In ''[[Dragon Age II]]'', {{spoiler|the lyrium idol that drives Bartrand insane from his possession of it also makes Knight-Commander Meredith insane with her zealotry as she has the idol refashioned into a sword and uses it to animate statues in Kirkwall in order to destroy Hawke and his companions}}.
* Malefor, the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[The Legend of Spyro]]'' trilogy, was the first Purple Dragon and had all the power that Spyro can possess. The difference is he didn't know when to stop and let his power consume him, transforming him into a power hungry [[Complete Monster]]. His hunger for power was such that it forced his masters to banish him just to protect the dragons from him.
* In ''[[StarcraftStarCraft II]]'', the Dominion-loyalist Ghost Nova proclaims that this is what happens to Spectres, an experimental form of "super-Ghost" who have their powers boosted by, among other things, exposure to Terrazine Gas. If the player chooses to ignore Nova's warnings and remain loyal to Tosh, the only free Spectre, and his plans for freeing his captured buddies, they learn that this isn't the case; Spectres are more powerful than Ghosts, but they were scrapped as a Dominion project because the upgrade process automatically blows their [[Restraining Bolt]]. Tosh, in fact, not only chooses only volunteers to become new Spectres, but deliberately screens them to ensure they are as sane and stable as is possible for a human with [[Psychic Powers]] in the [[StarcraftStarCraft]] universe to be.
* In the ''[[Modern Warfare]]'' series, this is what happened to [[Big Bad|Vladimir Makarov]] as the series progressed. Makarov started out as just a soldier in Zakhaev's army, and was promoted to [[The Dragon|Dragon]] status, but once Zakhaev died Makarov no longer had anyone holding his leash, and started a campaign of terror thanks to his newfound power. He eventually reached a point where he had virtual control of the entire Russian military, and was attempting to acquire the launch codes for Russia's nuclear arsenal as he wanted Russia to rule all of Europe, "even if it is just ashes."
* Torque from ''[[The Suffering]]''. Through gameplay, he fills a gauge called the Insanity Meter to transform into a creature that obliterates anything in his path. {{spoiler|It's revealed at the end of the first game that the Creature is just Torque hallucinating, and he's actually tearing monsters apart with his bare hands.}}
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* ''[[Adventure Time]]'' has {{spoiler|the Ice King, or, rather, Simon Petrikov as an example of this}}. An antique merchant from [[Just Before the End]] who put on a magic crown that gave him immense magical power and immortality... but also slowly drove him so insane he doesn't remember being any other way anymore.
** Lemongrab. He's quite... "special," to put it nicely. Let's just say this "specialness" did NOT serve him, or anybody else, well when he inherited the throne to the Candy Kingdom. Being the result of a failed experiment, he has a lot of anger issues, and took out his anger on his subjects. To get him to leave the kingdom, the protagonists decide to play several pranks on him, which made his disposition even worse.
* ''[[Freakazoid!]]'' is the rare heroic example.
* Spider-Carnage of ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series]]'' is an example of this happening to a [[Evil Twin|version]] of Spider-Man himself.
* The EVOs of ''[[Generator Rex]]'' can get hit with this, [[Body Horror]], or ''both''. The clearest example would probably be Breach, though she's at least ''coherent''. No-Face from the Bug Jar also demonstrates a seriously degraded mental state, though not in the same way as Breach. And some EVOS are so far gone, it's easy to forget they were [[Was Once a Man|ever human in the first place]].
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== Web Original ==
* [[Rick Point Blank]]: The plot revolves around a serum that grants a [[Healing Factor]], makes you evil, and possibly makes you crave cookies and milk.
* ''[[Pay Me, Bug!]]'': [[Telepathy|Telepaths]] are in danger of going insane if they aren't trained to handle their power early enough.
* ''[[The Questport Chronicles]]'': The Master of Darkness, one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world, is also utterly insane. It's implied that part of this is due to returning from death.
 
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