You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
You might still like him, but you're screwed anyway.

David Banner: "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

—The Incredible Hulk

A Super-Trope for when you just don't want to tick off a character. Bad things will happen, which can include:

It doesn't matter if the character is the hero, villain, supporting character, or bystander. Just don't piss off this character if you don't want big trouble.

Psychoactive Powers can sometimes involve this.

Compare Madness Tropes and Don't Make Me Destroy You.

Examples of You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry include:

Anime and Manga

  • Dragon Ball:
    • Son Gohan. Any Saiyan for that matter, but Gohan most.
    • Piccolo too.
    • Chichi. She makes the Saiyan squirm, and she's just a human...with a pan.
  • Shizuo Heiwajima from Durarara!!. Granted, it's generally in good form not to piss off people with Super Strength in general, but this one is especially easy to set off.
  • Shinigami in Soul Eater, and his son Kid on a smaller scale. Yes, other characters cause greater damage than usual when angered, but these two spread it around more, whether to pyramids or an entire city.
  • Naruto can give even the Trope Namer himself a run for his money in this department in his kyuubi forms.
  • Natsu of Fairy Tail is an example of this, as the flame of emotion that is the source of power for his Dragon Slayer magic causes him to actually become stronger the angrier he gets.
  • Yuuri from Kyo Kara Maoh is as nice as they come. However if you start hurting innocent people or those close to him...
  • Luffy, from One Piece, is usually a happy-go-lucky type of guy, but if you so much as dare to hurt any of those he cares for, you better have your testament ready.
  • Setsuna, from Mahou Sensei Negima, is a quiet and polite girl who prefers to stay in the background. Usually, she's really calm and composed even in the heat of battle. But don't, just don't you dare harming Konoka unless you want her to butcher you in split-seconds.

Comic Books

  • Named after Marvel Comics's Bruce Banner (a.k.a. the Incredible Hulk), who uses this line to warn people of his Hulking Out ability. It doesn't always work.
  • Superman is one of the nicest guys in the universe. But if someone gets him angry, they find out just how powerful he really is. It says a lot about Lex Luthor that he intentionally does things just to piss Superman off.
  • Crossing over with The Berserker for all intents and purposes is Wolverine who is often stated to be the one man in the Marvel Universe who can get angrier than the Hulk - just ask the Hulk himself. Anyone who does not run for cover when that happens will wish they had, as he has been known to slaughter whole armies at the peak of his rage.

Film

  • City Slickers, when Curly is being buried. The cook can only think of "Lord, we give you Curly. Try not to piss him off." as a eulogy.
  • Making Godzilla angry is a very, very, VERY bad idea. Doing so will result in a major city (often Tokyo) being destroyed.
  • Rocky Horror Picture Show: It's a bad idea to anger Dr. Frank N Furter. Eddie and Janet Weiss SLUT! had to learn this the hard way.
  • The documentary (read: hour-long advertisement) available on the Extended Edition DVD for Underworld featured a self-proclaimed werewolf who named this trope exactly.
  • The 2008 The Incredible Hulk film. Bruce Banner butchers his catchphrase by way of a bad translation and proceeds to fight as normal. In the novelization, he says it to two college girls who just laugh at him, since the phrase is full of Narm. However, the film did also have a variation on the phrase which was pretty good.

"There are aspects of my personality that I can't control, and when I lose control, it's very dangerous to be around me."

Literature

  • In A Hard Day's Knight, John and Suzie use their own variant to intimidate an uncooperative laundromat employee:

Shotgun Suzie: You really want me to get cranky?
John Taylor: You wouldn't like her when she's cranky.

Live-Action TV

  • The Trope Namer is The Incredible Hulk TV series, and its classic implied threat, delivered with a wonderfully understated and grim bemusement. And it's actually said before he becomes the Hulk.

Banner: Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

You'll like her when she's angry!

  • It's been said in later episodes of Torchwood that it's best not to piss Jack off. Take into mind this line from the Children of Earth miniseries (spoken by his daughter to the government spooks who just arrested her and her son):

Alice: I can only assume you're using us as hostages against my father - but if you've done anything to anger him, then God help you.

  • Doctor Who:
    • You really don't want to piss off the Doctor. That seemingly harmless oddball can tear the heavens apart and reshape reality if he really wants to. There's a reason the Daleks, a race of Omnicidal Maniacs capable of wiping out all life in the universe, hate and fear him so much. They have no emotions, and they invented a name to call him; Destroyer of Worlds and The Oncoming Storm.
    • Ditto River Song. Sarcastic, teasing, likes to banter. And - can make a Dalek beg for mercy. Just... don't make her go there.
    • Similarly, in the prequel to "A Good Man Goes to War":

"...I even hear rumours about whose child you've taken. Are you mad? [Pause] You know the stories about the Doctor? The things that man has done? God help us if you've made him angry!"
(from the actual episode)
"If that man has started calling in his debts, then God help you... and God help his debtors."

    • Surprisingly enough, Rory Williams. Kidnap one of his loved ones? Prepare to have the Last Centurion blow up your star-fleet.
    • And then there are the times he gets really angry and shows a side of himself you really don't want to see. One group of villains that made his this angry was the Family of Blood from the third season, four aliens who could possess the bodies of humans, doing so to achieve their goal of immortality. The punishments the Doctor inflicted on them were harsh but deserved: Father of Mine was bound in unbreakable chains and imprisoned in an underground chamber. Mother of Mine was thrown into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy, trapping her there for all eternity. Daughter of Mine was trapped within every mirror in existence (possibly the member who got off easiest, as the Doctor would at least visit her once a year) and Son of Mine was locked in time stasis and forced to act as a scarecrow. Ironically, they got the immortality they had wanted, just not the way they intended.
  • It is also best to not piss Jack from 24 off.
  • Star Trek:
    • Pissing off Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series would be more than illogical. It's very hard to do, but once you manage it, This Is Gonna Suck doesn't cover your fate.
    • Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation (without the emotional chip) is literally impossible to piss off. However, as shown in "The Most Toys", if you threaten him with harming his friends, you'll face a superintelligent, super-strong, nigh-indestructible android who has decided that removing you from existence is the completely logical solution under the current circumstances.
  • The Fonz from Happy Days; the whole reason he was always concerned with "losing his cool" as he put it was because he had a violent side he understandably did not want to show, which becomes obvious whenever an unsavory type tries to pick a fight with him.

Video Games

  • Doc Louis's Punch-Out!! plays this completely straight. Midway through the fight, Louis pulls out a chocolate bar that he'll eat and restore all his health with if not interrupted. However, punching the bar out of his hand is the ultimate way to push his Berserk Button. He immediately flips out with the phrase - "NOOOOOO! NOW You've done it! You won't like Doc when he's angry!", proceeds to rip off his jacket, and his attack speed doubles. Right after pulling out another chocolate bar and healing himself out of your attack range.
  • Zappa from Guilty Gear. Although he's more of a "You Wouldn't Like Me When My Ghosts Are Angry", his profile in the manual mentions this trope by name.

"Don't make him angry! You won't like him when he's angry!"

Web Comics

Web Original

My lord, please do not make me angry. Thou wouldst not like me when I am most angered.

  • The line is used in Lanipator's Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged movie, by Yukina, of all people. It's promptly subverted when the villains ignore her and smash her into a wall.
  • The Nostalgia Critic might still be pathetic when he's having his little boy rages, but he has a tendency to explode buildings accidentally when he's like that.

Western Animation

  • The Avatar State in Avatar: The Last Airbender, as seen in the page pic.
    • Some context: the Avatar is an individual who has the ability to control fire, earth, water, and air. When the Avatar state kicks in, they temporarily gain the combined knowledge and power of all the previous Avatars, of which there has been at least fifty generations. Until the Avatar learns how to control it, it will kick in when he/she is either in danger of dying or highly distressed. At which point, their tactics and moral considerations consist of: destroy threat. With extreme prejudice.
  • Raven from Teen Titans, as a result of being half-demon. The result of ticking her off is a demonic form that is less powerful than the Avatar State above, but probably worse to have as an enemy, as Raven can get downright sadistic when she's like this. Poor Dr. Light never did get over what she did to him...

Dr. Light: Don't! Stop! You win! I surrender!! AHHHHHHH
Demon Raven: What's the matter? Afraid of the dark?

  • Then, a season or two later:

Dr. Light (with a new, more powerful suit): Haha! You can never defeat me!
Raven (best impersonation of her demonic half): Remember me?
Dr. Light: I'd like to go to jail now, please.

  • In an episode of Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter alters his tastebuds so he only like fruits and vegetables, but a side-effect is that he Hulks out when he gets too hungry. He is denied food by someone later on, and uses a variation of the phrase, replacing "angry" with "hungry".
  • Samurai Jack is usually a calm, stoic type, but when something happens to make him angry, run for cover. This side of Jack shows prominently in episodes like "Mad Jack", "Jack and the Smackback", and many episodes of Season 5.
  • Droopy. Whenever he says (in his usual deadpan tone), " You know what? That makes me mad" you know the villain is in for a serious amount of hurt.
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