History AxCrazy / Literature

* ''Literature/PleaseDontTellMyParentsImASupervillain'': Jagged Bones, one of the villains hired by the Council of Seven and A Half to teach the Inscrutable Machine a lesson. His response to Claire's super-cuteness was to decide he wants to own her skeleton.

* In ''{{Mogworld}}'' Mr. Wonderful was already like this, and the way for the past few years everyone who dies respawns at a church seems to have made him a lot worse. At one point in conversation he cleanly severs his own hand, keeps talking until he dies of blood loss, respawns at a nearby church, and walks back in to continue the conversation while casually gnawing on his own corpse.

* ''{{Belgariad}}'': Taur Urgas, King of Cthol Murgos. Whoo boy. This is a man who beats his wives, {{Bad Boss}}es his underlings, tortures his enemies slowly, encourages his children to murder one another in order to become his heir, froths at the mouth in battle, chews the furniture during fits of madness, and dies screaming for his opponent to "[[BloodKnight come back and fight]]!"
* ''TheElenium'': [[TheBrute Adus]], an ape-faced, [[DumbMuscle frighteningly stupid]] thug and PsychoForHire, who commits rape and murder for kicks, slides into UnstoppableRage in battle, and ''cuts through his own men'' to get to TheHero and TheLancer, all while "bellowing like an enraged bull". Jeez.
* Erik from ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' certainly has more than a few Ax-Crazy moments. His unfortunate habit of garroting anyone that sees him, aside from Christine, is certainly proof of this.

* ''InDeath'': A number of the murderers Eve pursues certainly qualify as this. However, other murderers prove to be perfectly sane.

* Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, in the novel (and BBC miniseries) ''{{Neverwhere}}'' by Creator/NeilGaiman.

* A number of villains in books by Creator/TomHolt display this. For instance, there's the evil genie in ''Literature/DjinnRummy'', or Jupiter in ''Literature/YeGods'', who plans to wipe out the Earth and replace it with a nearly identical one. Neither one is very rational.

* Stygg from [[Literature/{{Dragons}} The Last Dragon Chronicles]]. He kills lots of families, just to replenish [[spoiler:Grella's]] sewing supplies. [[spoiler:He gets worse after ingesting dilute Ix.]]

* ''Film/{{Dread}}'' - [[spoiler:Steve]] becomes ax crazy at the end of CliveBarker's short story. After [[BreakTheCutie enduring psychological torture that causes his mind to snap]], he takes a fire axe from the homeless shelter where he was dropped off, tracks down [[spoiler:Quaid]], and proceeds to [[KarmicDeath slowly hack him to death]] [[BewareTheNiceOnes over the course of the night]].

* WorldWarZ: Subverted. T. Sean Collins is a mercenary who lives to kill, and seems incapable of stopping himself. He was a PrivateMilitaryContractor before World War Z, and switched to zombies when the war broke out. The subversion comes in the fact that he is [[MadHatter deeply introspective and well-aware of his mental state,]] and under no illusion of being able to give up killing. He states an intention to go on hunting zombies for as long has he can, and then killing himself so he will never risk relapsing into killing humans.

* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', all male [[WitchSpecies Channelers]] eventually either go Ax Crazy or die of a hideously disfiguring disease, thanks to a curse levelled on them by [[GodOfEvil the Dark One]] (and the ones who ''do'' go crazy still die eventually- it's a toss-up what order the symptoms manifest in, how strong they are, and when). From the same series, recurring villain Padan Fain is also like this- being an imperfect merge of the original Fain and the ancient, malevolent spirit Mordeth he's about as far from stable as you get and is prone to lashing out violently at anyone unfortunate enough to be in his vicinity, though his real target is [[TheChosenOne Rand]]. Scarily, he can still be charming (in an oily sort of way) when he wants to be, and has even shown the ability to supernaturally infect those he spends time around wit his own Ax Crazy.

* In ''LightNovel/GatheringTheEnchanted'' Bannor ends up going Ax Crazy.. Or more, fire crazy, when his friends are shot.

* WorldWarZ: Subverted. T. Sean Collins is a mercenary who lives to kill, and seems incapable of stopping himself. He was a PrivateMilitaryContractor before World War Z, and switched to zombies when the war broke out. The subversion comes in the fact that he is deeply introspective and well-aware of his mental state, and under no illusion of being able to give up killing. He states an intention to go on hunting zombies for as long has he can, and then killing himself so he will never risk relapsing into killing humans.

* [[spoiler: Gaithim in Literature/TheQuestOfTheUnaligned, [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity as a side effect of becoming a hoshek]]. ]]

* Luca Brasi in ''TheGodfather.'' Literally. Just ask Al Capone.

* No female fits this description better than [[{{Yandere}} Annie Wilkes]] of the Creator/StephenKing novel ''{{Misery}}''. She started out as a mercy killer, killing babies who where not expected to live due to poor birthing. When she was fired from her nursing job, and she was no longer able to perform her 'public service,' she became absolutely bonkers. She has a scrap book containing news articles relevant to her murders, kidnaps her favorite author to force him to write a new book, resurrecting her favorite character which the author had killed (She treats this as if he had actually killed a real person), breaks the author's ankles with a sledgehammer to prevent his escape, and murders a sheriff who discovers her deeds. She's so horrifying, that even after the protagonist has [[spoiler: bashed her head into a fine paste, he can't convince himself she's dead. He sees her every where he goes.]] She was so crazy she was contagious!

* Francis Begbie from the book (and TheFilmOfTheBook) ''Literature/{{Trainspotting}}'', despite being one of the few members of his group to not use drugs, is the token berserker psychopath of the story, once casually injuring a random woman by throwing his beer mug off of a balcony and hitting her in the head, just so he could start a massive BarBrawl.

* Every villain from Literature/AShadowGirlsSummerOfLoveAndMadness.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'''s Gregor Clegane. You know you're insane when even [[BloodKnight The Hound]] is scared of you.

* Drake Merwin from the ''Literature/{{Gone}}'' series, especially once [[spoiler: Sam burns his arm off and gets it replaced by a [[CombatTentacles snake-esque whip arm]]]]. And even worse now that He's back from the dead and SharingABody with Brittany, who Sam won't kill because she's innocent.

* Drake Merwin from the ''Literature/{{Gone}}'' series, especially once [[spoiler: Sam burns his arm off and gets it replaced by a [[CombatTentacles snake-esque whip arm]]]].

* Iida Sadamu from ''TalesOfTheOtori'':

* MalusDarkblade from the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}: Deamons Curse'' series is a shining example of Ax Crazy. He eats the heart of a previous captor, makes his oldest brothers face into a mask, and murders his father for a knife. And that's before the deamon stole his soul.

* Terra from Patricia [=McKillip=]'s ''Fool's Run'' killed [[OneManArmy over a THOUSAND people]] with a laser rifle in a single rampage....though she's surprisingly calm whenever encountered later.

In Rand in particular this progresses to the point that Rand refuses to admit he feels anything at all, leading him to [[spoiler: balefiring Natrim's Barrow out of existence without even blinking about it. Rand thinks balefire kills someone forever, removing them from the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. His only reaction was to double check that his target had been killed. He nearly killed his own father a short time later for trying to help him.]]