History Main / AngerIsHealthyAesop

* ''VideoGame/AnotherCrabsTreasure'': [[spoiler: After Kril is forced to enter the ocean to get his shell back, it's eventually revealed that he has a lot of repressed rage over having left his safe space and states that he misses the blissful ignorance of living in the tide pool. During the game, Chitan is possessed by the gunk and under the influence of the Praya Dubia. Chitan wanted Kril to surrender to his anger so he and the Praya Dubita would join forces to destroy the rest of the world. After the fight, Chitan realizes she was being a coward and encourages Kril to use his anger to help others, rather than make things worse. Despite everything Kril did to get his shell back, Prawnathan refuses to reward him. Kril, ultimately fed up with Prawnathan's greed and ingratitude, takes his shell back by killing Prawnathan.]]

* ''Literature/TheLongSecret'': [[ShrinkingViolet Shy and meek]] Beth Ellen Hansen is often told by her old-fashioned grandmother that to be a lady, she mustn't get angry--that she must remain composed at all times. Near the end of the book (after Beth Ellen throws an epic tantrum after it's revealed her RichBitch mother wants to take her from her home to Europe), her grandmother walks back on this advice, saying that she should never be afraid to express how she feels, even if it's anger. [[spoiler:It's implied that her earlier inability to express herself (particularly her anger) is the reason she left all those hurtful notes towards the other characters throughout the book.]]

* ''Literature/HarrietTheSpy'': In the sequel, ''The Long Secret'', [[ShrinkingViolet shy and meek]] Beth Ellen Hansen is often told by her old-fashioned grandmother that to be a lady, she mustn't get angry--that she must remain composed at all times. Near the end of the book (after Beth Ellen throws an epic tantrum after it's revealed her RichBitch mother wants to take her from her home to Europe), her grandmother walks back on this advice, saying that she should never be afraid to express how she feels, even if it's anger. [[spoiler:It's implied that her earlier inability to express herself (particularly her anger) is the reason she left all those hurtful notes towards the other characters throughout the book.]]

* ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'': In "[[Recap/BrooklynNineNineS3E09TheSwedes The Swedes]]", Holt asks that Boyle take Kevin's place in a squash championship because he's going away to France in a few weeks. Charles is conflicted because he expects Holt to tell him to be professional but at the same, Boyle is famous in Squash because he's over-aggressive and over-competitive. [[spoiler:After deliberately pulling his punches, Holt reveals that he chose Boyle ''because'' of his competitive nature after identifying him in a newspaper as "Squash's unhinged lunatic". Holt tells Boyle to unleash the beast because Holt promised Kevin they would win and they were failing because Boyle wasn't aggressive enough. Ultimately, Boyle does unleash the beast and becomes a way better squash player because he is so angry and aggressive in the game. However, he and Holt are banned from competition despite winning the championship because of Boyle's behavior.]]

* ''[[Manga/DragonBall Dragon Ball Z]]'': This lesson is imparted to Gohan at the end of the Cell Saga. He had struggled with his anger all series long to that point, but Android 16 points out to him that there’s nothing wrong with getting angry when the alternative is letting others harm you.

* ''Film/MysteryMen'': Mr. Furious, whose power is he gets stronger when he's angry, is advised that he needs to learn how to channel it properly. It doesn't help much as he already knows this. [[spoiler: He just needs to learn what makes him truly angry, not just annoyed.]]

'''Mr. Furious:''' ''[sarcastically]'' Your rage will become your master?

* ''Literature/TheBible'': The Cleansing Of The Temple, where Jesus beats and expels merchants from the House of The Lord, is used to teach the concept of ''righteous indignation'', the anger a good person feels at witnessing injustice. It is very much worth noting that, under Christian doctrine, righteous indignation is the only form of anger that is explicitly non-sinful.

* In the sequel book to ''Literature/HarrietTheSpy'', ''The Long Secret,'' [[ShrinkingViolet shy and meek]] Beth Ellen Hansen is often told by her old-fashioned grandmother that to be a lady, she mustn't get angry—that she must remain composed at all times. Near the end of the book (after Beth Ellen throws an epic tantrum after it's revealed her RichBitch mother wants to take her from her home to Europe), her grandmother walks back on this advice, saying that she should never be afraid to express how she feels, even if it's anger. [[spoiler:It's implied that her earlier inability to express herself (particularly her anger) is the reason she left all those hurtful notes towards the other characters throughout the book.]]
-->'''Mrs. Hansen:''' You know, it’s important to be a lady, but not if you lose everything else, not if you lose yourself in the process. There are times when we ''must'' express what we feel even if it is anger. If you can feel it and not express it… it might be better, but you ''must'' try to know what you feel. If we don’t know what we feel, we get into trouble.

--> I was angry with my friend.\\

* ''Literature/TheMoomins'': In "The Invisible Child", Ninny is an InvisibleIntrovert due to verbal abuse, and gradually becomes visible as she spends time with the Moomins and Moominmamma slowly helps her regain some confidence. Her head remains invisible, and Little My says the problem is she can't get angry. She's proved right when Moominpappa pretends he's going to push Moominmamma into the sea, and Ninny is ''furious''. Not only does this make her visible, but once she's got it out of her system, she also laughs for the first time.

* ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'': In ''[[Recap/BrooklynNineNineS3E09TheSwedes The Swedes]]'', Holt asks that Boyle take Kevin's place in a squash championship because he's going away to France in a few weeks. Charles is conflicted because he expects Holt to tell him to be professional but at the same, Boyle is famous in Squash because he's over-aggressive and over-competitive. [[spoiler: After deliberately pulling his punches, Holt reveals that he chose Boyle ''because'' of his competitive nature after identifying him in a newspaper as "Squash's unhinged lunatic". Holt tells Boyle to unleash the beast because Holt promised Kevin they would win and they were failing because Boyle wasn't aggressive enough. Ultimately, Boyle does unleash the beast and becomes a way better squash player because he is so angry and aggressive in the game. However, he and Holt are banned from competition despite winning the championship because of Boyle's behavior.]]

--> '''Bones''': "We all have our darker side. We need it! It's half of what we are. It's not really ugly. It's Human."

* ''Theatre/LegallyBlonde'': Discussed in "Chip On My Shoulder". After Elle follows her ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law and discovers Warner has moved on and still doesn't take her seriously, Emmett encourages her to get a chip on her shoulder and work hard to prove everyone, especially her ex-boyfriend, wrong. By the end of the number, she has channeled her anger enough to effectively counterargue Warner's argument in class, impressing everyone.
* ''Theatre/MeanGirls'': Discussed in "I'd Rather Be Me", where Janice declares she'd rather fight openly when someone makes her mad than try to hide it with passive-aggressive mind games like the girls around her are socialized to behave, so they can actually work out their problems instead of letting them fester. Others around her cheer this on.

* ''VideoGame/Portal2'': Deconstructed. [[spoiler: After being diagnosed with moon-rock poisoning, Cave Johnson reacts somberly by trying to be positive with his science experiences by trying to use portal experiments to cure himself. However, he eventually changes his tone to anger towards the gods and decides to increase the experiments so he can make a legacy for himself and transfer his consciousness to artificial intelligence so he can survive his illness even if he can't cure himself. However, his determination to survive leads to the creation of [=GLaDOS=], the destruction of Aperture Science, and he even dies of moon-rock poisoning before he even got the chance to achieve immortality through technology.]]
-->'''Cave Johnson''': "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?! Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! WITH THE LEMONS! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that BURNS YOUR HOUSE DOWN!"
* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'': [[spoiler: After going to the tower and trying to send out an emergency signal, the tower begins to fall apart and Emily is clinging to the side and angrily begging for help from Matt. In the game itself, Emily has been taking Matt for granted by having an affair with Mike and treating Matt as someone who should always agree with her. Matt will confront Emily about her treatment of him and can only survive the game at this point by jumping to safety before the tower falls, effectively abandoning Emily. This makes the lesson very clear "Being nice and sugar-coating your words won't always be the most effective strategy, sometimes you need to get angry so people can fully understand and change for the better".]]

--> '''Nostalgia Critic''': (snaps) BECAUSE IT'S TOO EASY!! (pause) It's the easiest thing in the world to do! Any imbecile can hate! It's lazy!! (pause) You wanna know what takes effort? Being nice. It is so hard to be nice to some people! But what am I supposed to do? Call you a jerk over and over and over, and hope that one day, you'll wake up and go (slaps both sides of his head) "I'M CURED!" Yeah, the first million times didn't work, but the millionth and one, that was the magic number! That's what got through! How likely is that gonna happen?! And don't get me wrong, there's times when we need to be angry. We need to fight. If not, we'd be goose-stepping our way to work right now! But, it should be one of the last options, not always the first, because when you get angry, you don't think straight, and people take advantage of that. And maybe you disagree with me. Okay, fine. You know what? I'll listen. I'll listen to what you have to share. And even though so much of what you say feels wrong, I'll still keep it in my mind that you could possibly be right. Because if I'm not willing to change for you, how am I supposed to expect you to change for me? I want to be patient enough to see more how we're similar rather than fear how we're different. And you know what? It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be so hard, and I'm gonna fail a lot. Hell, I've failed a lot already, but this is the one thing I'm certain the more I do it, the better I can get at it. (sighs) I may be a screw-up, but I'm tired of being lazy. And if you're tired, too... maybe we can work on being screw-ups together.

''[God pulls down his glasses revealing a small portion of his eyes]''\\

* ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack'': Played for laughs, in ''Revenge'', K'nuckles notices that Flapjack is being extremely docile with the other sailors and is concerned that Flapjack is being taken advantage of. K'nuckles encourages him to show some anger and get revenge on his enemies but it goes wrong because Flapjack keeps helping them by accident. In the end, K'nuckles gets beaten up after Flapjack reveals that he made him clean the boat so well it shows how ugly the other sailors are, which makes Blubbie the whale say that Flapjack is too nice to have any enemies.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Powerpuff Girls|1998}}'': In the episode "All Chalked Up", Him manipulates Bubbles into venting her frustrations about Buttercup into giant chalk monsters that attack the school.[[note]]Buttercup took issue with Bubbles drawing on the playground since she was getting in the way of a dodgeball game, so she destroyed her chalk as retaliation.[[/note]] Him tries to [[CorruptTheCutie manipulate her even more]] by telling her how good it must've felt to let all that anger out and that she should do it again, and she agrees with him, resulting in her changing the expressions of the chalk monsters and decorating them with cute and funny pictures. Him exclaims why she isn't showing her anger like she did before, to which Bubbles says that she is but in a positive way, and humiliates Him by [[HoistByHisOwnPetard saying he looked better as a butterfly while drawing the wings and antenna on him.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'': In "Think Positive," Pops orders Benson to stop yelling at Mordecai and Rigby. Benson can't help it and keeps yelling. Pops writes him up for demotion, and Benson tries everything he can think of to stop being so angry, but nothing works. Mordecai and Rigby make things worse by being their usual mischievous selves. After bottling up his rage for so long, Benson is surrounded by a fiery orange sphere that sucks in the things around it, until his anger gets released. As bits and chunks of The Park are engulfed by Benson's inferno of containment, Pops realizes that it's not good to bottle up anger and allows Benson to yell at Mordecai and Rigby in the end.

---> '''Homer''': [directly towards mirror] Aw that's it, you just can't insult this guy. You call him a moron and he just sits there, grinning moronly.\\
'''Flanders''': [to mirror] [[NotHelpingYourCase Hi, neighbor]]!\\

-->'''Patricia:''' ''[after Joe chases the whirrels out]'' That was amazing! but how'd you learn to control your temper like that?\\

''[Peri, Entrée, and Patricia laugh [[LockedOutOfTheLoop despite not understanding what Joe means]]]''\\
'''Joe:''' At least he tried to. But he was wrong ''[Wingus shoots him a disapproving look]'', and I had to figure it out for myself. [[BrickJoke But I really wish I had those robot legs!]]\\
'''Peri:''' ''[confused]'' Robot legs??

* ''Literature/TheBible''': The Cleansing Of The Temple, where Jesus beats and expels merchants from the House of The Lord, is used to teach the concept of ''righteous indignation'', the anger a good person feels at witnessing injustice. It is very much worth noting that, under Christian doctrine, righteous indignation is the only form of anger that is explicitly non-sinful.

When this trope is in effect, the lesson is about expression; having a character either stand up for themselves, having them tame their anger so they don't hurt anyone, or learning to express anger through other means (namely [[RelativeButton as]] [[MamaBear protective]] [[PapaWolf instincts]]). Sometimes, it's just a matter of having a character learn to let go of their anger or [[SparedButNotForgiven learning they should refrain from revenge but it doesn't they have to forgive their offender]].

Anger is one of those emotions that are sadly misrepresented. It is often presented as a negative emotion that should never be expressed and it is often taught that you should be the bigger person by suppressing it. At one point, anger was described as temporary insanity and a brief madness that led to sin, even going as far as to name wrath as one of the seven deadly sins. Although a good lesson on the dangers of unrestrained anger, it was a lesson taught too well.

The important thing about applying the trope to the story is finding out what truly makes a character angry and how much of a right they ''have'' to be angry. If a person has a really short fuse, then they are in need of learning how to control their anger before they hurt someone they care about. If a character tries to deny or suppress their anger, then they need to learn that expressing anger in small doses isn't as catastrophic as they think.

When this trope is in effect, the lesson is about expression; having a character either stand up for themselves, having them tame their anger so they don't hurt anyone, or learning to express anger through other means (namely [[RelativeButton as]] [[MamaBear protective]] [[PapaWolf instincts]]). Sometimes, it's just a matter of having a character learn to let go of their anger or [[SparedButNotForgiven learning they should refrain from revenge but it doesn't automatically mean they have to forgive the people who wronged them at the same time]].

** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E8HurricaneNeddy Hurricane Neddy]]" shows that Ned has had behavioral problems since he was a child and [[GoneHorriblyRight the method used to control Ned's anger over-corrected it and caused Ned to bottle up any feeling of anger]], no matter how justified he is to be angry. After a series of unpredictable tragedies, Ned has a breakdown and [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech berates the entire town for failing to help him in his time of need]] (despite a well-intentioned but ultimately flawed attempt at rebuilding his house). During a therapy session, Homer speculates that Ned is afraid to express his anger because it means he hasn't met the high standards of his religion and is therefore unfit to follow his faith. Homer succeeds in getting Ned to voice his anger and hatred by getting him talking about the post office, which eventually leads him to express hatred for his parents, an act that makes Ned feel better and understand that anger can be expressed in small healthy doses.

** The First Wives Club turn their anger and frustration against each other at one point, with Annie considering abandoning the whole plan because they've let bitterness consume them. But Brenda and Elise reason their anger wasn't the problem -- they were just too focused on their own petty problems instead of about something bigger. [[spoiler:Thus, they decide to get back at their exes by blackmailing them to fund a women's crisis center.]]
* ''Film/GraceOfMyHeart'': The protagonist, Denise, is a successful songwriter and would-be singer whose singing career has stalled, and whose rock star husband [[spoiler:has died, possibly accidentally, possibly as a suicide.]] She retreats to a commune (it's the early '70s) where she suppresses all her negative emotions in the name of being enlightened, and does nothing except garden all day. Finally her old boss seeks her out and tells her that she's throwing her career away, whereupon she epically loses her temper and screams at him, calling him a parasite who wouldn't be anywhere without her talent -- and he agrees with her, encouraging her to be angry, because it forces her to feel emotion rather than pretend she's above ordinary grieving. She breaks down in tears and it's clear that this was her strategy all along, because she returns to making music, with him as her friend and manager.

* In ''Literature/TheOneAndOnlyIvan'', Ivan the gorilla has survived [[OrphansOrdeal the deaths of his family]], being raised in a human household, and then shut into a small cage at a [[MenagerieOfMisery themed mall]] by [[CopeByCreating creating art]] and [[CopeByPretending pretending things are fine]]. In his narration he says he doesn't really get angry - for a silverback gorilla, anger is something to be used to protect family, and he has no one to protect. When a baby elephant is brought to the mall and Ivan realizes she's in for the same kind of life he's had, it disturbs him and he becomes increasingly unhappy and agitated. Ultimately he tries [[SavingTheWorldWithArt using art to communicate what he wants]], but as a gorilla his artwork is [[PlayingPictionary hard for most people to interpret]], even for [[StrangeMindsThinkAlike a fellow primate artist]]. Then Ivan finally lets himself express anger. He chest-beats and races around his cage pitching a fit, and the young human stops and reevaluates his work.

* ''Literature/TheMoomins'': In "The Invisible Child", Ninny is an InvisibleIntrovert due to verbal abuse, and gradually becomes visible as she spends time with the Moomins and Moominmamma slowly helps her regain some confidence. Her head remains invisible, and Little My says the problem is she can't get angry. She's proved right when Moominpappa pretends he's going to push Moominmamma in the sea, and Ninny is ''furious''. Not only does this make her visible, but once she's got it out of her system, she also laughs for the first time.

* ''Series/{{American Gods|2017}}'': Exploited. Mr. Nancy appears to the captives aboard a slaver ship going to America. He riles them up from their state of despair ("This guy gets it. I like him. He's getting angry. Angry is good. Angry, gets shit done.") by telling they are staring down the barrel of "300 years of subjugation, racist bullshit, and heart disease". He encourages them to go up, kill the crew and burn the ship down so they can at least die as a worthy sacrifice. In reality, Mr. Nancy is a TricksterGod who ''wants'' that sacrifice.

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': In "Happily Ever After", Ted is still recovering from being left at the altar by Stella, his friends try to support him but collectively agree that Ted needs to release his anger rather than bottle it up or try to be the bigger person. After trying and failing multiple times to get him angry, Ted finally loses his temper when he realized that Stella moved to New York to be with Tony, despite forcing Ted to move to New Jersey. Ted storms out of the car to confront Stella, he quickly comes to his senses when he sees how happy she and her daughter are to be with Tony and just turns around to leave, believing he should just let it go and move on with his life. Future episodes would show that Ted hasn't forgiven Stella for what she did and show that he's right to be angry with her. The primary lesson was that you don't have to choose between two extremes, you can just move on with your life than dwell on these feelings.
* ''Series/KitchenNightmares'': Creator/GordonRamsay is famous for his temper and foul mouth and one of his methods of helping restaurants is to have the staff voice their grievances and anger so they can clear the air and move forward. In "Sam's Kabob Room", Gordon encourages the employees to talk about their frustrations because they were forced to work in their father's restaurant without pay and being overexposed to each other caused so many arguments that it put the business at risk.

* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': After a stressful day at work, Sheldon loses his temper and yells at his family during dinner. When his father talks to him, Sheldon reveals that he's frustrated with his job and how little it pays him. However, rather than punish him, George emphasizes with him and talks about how he got yelled at by his boss, yelled at the parents of a kid he benched, and he was physically injured while breaking up a fight. Although he understands Sheldon's anger and says he's allowed to be angry, George points out that Sheldon is not allowed to take his anger out on his family.

* ''Theatre/MeanGirls'': Discussed in "I'd Rather Be Me", where Janice declares she'd rather fight openly when someone makes her mad than try to hide it with passive aggressive mind games like the girls around her are socialized to behave, so they can actually work out their problems instead of letting them fester. Others around her cheer this on.

* In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV'' Megid, the Forbidden Technique that harnesses the user's anger and hatred sound like an evil technique. However after the SecretTestOfCharacter in the Anger Tower, where [[spoiler:Re-Faze does a pretty nasty thing by separating Chaz from his party, then forcing Chaz to fight a copy of Alys, his dead mentor. When Re-Faze offers to teach Chaz Megid after all that happens, the correct option is for Chaz to refuse. If Chaz refuses, he'll point out that Chaz that anger and hatred are natural human emotions, so as long as he remains true to himself, he won't be corrupted by Megid's power. In contrast, Chaz refusing to acknowledge his anger and accepting Re-Faze's offer causes him to fail the test, with Re-Faze killing him in response.]]

--> '''Cave Johnson''': "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?! Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! WITH THE LEMONS! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that BURNS YOUR HOUSE DOWN!"

* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'': In “Papaganda”, when Bill notices the rest of the family complaining about the annual raspberry harvest, which involves grueling hours of hard work in the hot sun, he adopts a “Live Laugh Love” philosophy that involves deliberately suppressing negative thoughts and forcing positive ones, and forces the rest of the family to adopt it as well. While Cricket and Gramma resist at first, they eventually give in after what is essentially [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything intense cult-like brainwashing]]. When he finally notices that, despite their forced smiles, they’re even more miserable than before, he finally gives up and admits to himself that he hates the blackberry harvest and everything about it, and realizes that he actually feels better after complaining about it, and that denying angry thoughts is unhealthy.

** ZigZagged with Donald. While Donald's HairTriggerTemper sometimes gets him into trouble, he is often able to effectively channel this anger to take down anyone trying to hurt his family. Dewey even once purposely enraged Donald in order to get him to join the fight. Later discussed in "Whatever Happened to Donald Duck?!", where Dewey and Webby discover Donald has been going to anger management counseling for years, and that his anger issues actually used to be worse. This is accompanied by jumpcuts to [[spoiler: Donald fighting Lunaris on the moon in order to get back to Earth to protect the family, underlining Jones's point]].
---> '''Jones:''' Donald's anger issues stems from a fear that the world is out to get him, and that no one understands him, [[QuackingUp quite literally]]. His tendency to lash out was wildly unfocused until you kids came along. He came to me wanting to be the best parent he could, so he channeled his anger into protective instincts. Every outburst is Donald wanting to protect his family. He loves you so much, thought of anything bad happening to you ''infuriates him!''

* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Powerpuff Girls|1998}}'': In the episode "All Chalked Up", Him manipulates Bubbles into venting her frustrations of Buttercup into giant chalk monsters that attack the school.[[note]] Buttercup took issue with Bubbles drawing on the playground since she was getting in the way of a dodgeball game, so she destroyed her chalk as retaliation. [[/note]] Him tries to [[CorruptTheCutie manipulate her even more]] by telling her how good it must've felt to let all that anger out and that she should do it again, and she agrees with him, resulting in her changing the expressions of the chalk monsters and decorating them with cute and funny pictures. Him exclaims why she isn't showing her anger like she did before, to which Bubbles says that she is but in a positive way, and humiliates Him by [[HoistByHisOwnPetard saying he looked better as a butterfly while drawing the wings and antenna on him.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Spliced}}'': In the episode "Stompabout", Two-Legs Joe loses his temper over Peri and Entrée accidentally causing a whirrel to destroy half the town and ends up wrecking the other half chasing the duo, with Joe resigning as mayor and leaving when Patricia and the townsfolk call him out on it. While in his self-imposed exile, Lord Wingus Eternum discusses with Joe that the latter has had anger management issues since he was a kid, and that a mayor does not need a temper to do his job evidenced by Peri and Entrée voluntarily cleaning up without Joe being around to yell at them to do so, and that there would be potentially disastrous consequences if Joe chooses to either just stay angry all the time or never get angry again (Joe becomes a tyrant with giant robot legs and sinks the island in the former situation and everyone is enslaved by Fuzzy Snuggums in the latter, despite Wingus admitting to having made both of them up and [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Joe getting sidetracked by how cool his future self's robot legs were]]). In the end, Joe comes to the conclusion that he should keep his anger in moderation instead of going to one extreme or the other, demonstrated when he lets himself get angry just enough to be able to chase the destructive whirrel pack out of town that were [[TooDumbToLive later summoned by Peri and Entrée out of the idea that more of them would help fix everything that was destroyed by the first one]], all the while choosing not to punish the duo for their mistake.

* ''Literature/TheMoomins'': In "The Invisible Child", Ninny is an InvisibleIntrovert due to verbal abuse, and gradually becomes visible as she spends time with the Moomins and Moominmamma slowly helps her regain some confidence. Her head remains invisible, and Little My says the problem is she can't get angry. She's proved right when Moominpappa pretends he's going to push Moominmamma in the sea, and Ninny is ''furious''. Once she's got that out of her system, she also laughs for the first time.

* In ''Literature/TheOneAndOnlyIvan'', Ivan the gorilla has survived [[OrphansOrdeal the deaths of his family]], being raised in a human household, and then shut into a small cage at a [[MenagerieOfMisery themed mall]] [[CopeByCreating through art]] and [[CopeByPretending pretending things are fine]]. In his narration he says he doesn't really get angry - for a silverback gorilla, anger is something to be used to protect family, and he has no one to protect. When a baby elephant is brought to the mall and Ivan realizes she's in for the same kind of life he's had, it disturbs him and he becomes increasingly unhappy and agitated. Ultimately he tries [[SavingTheWorldWithArt using art to communicate what he wants]], but as a gorilla his artwork is [[PlayingPictionary hard for most people to interpret]], even for [[StrangeMindsThinkAlike Julia]]. Then Ivan finally lets himself express anger. He chest-beats and races around his cage pitching a fit, and Julia stops and reevaluates his work.

* ''Fanfic/CindersAndAshes''' first act deals with this Aesop, pairing it up with RepressionNeverEndsWell. It comes to a head in the final chapter of the first part where the protagonist's aunt, in a flashback, tells him that it's okay to be angry as a part of grief, but to not let it control him but rather to ''use it'' to help people.

Anger is one of those emotions that are sadly misrepresented. It is often presented as a negative emotion that should never be expressed and it is advocated that you should be the bigger person by suppressing it. Anger was also described as temporary insanity and brief madness that leads to sin, even going as far as to name wrath as one of the seven deadly sins. Although a good lesson on the dangers of unrestrained anger, it was a lesson taught too well.

Stifling anger or denying one's anger can be incredibly dangerous and unhealthy. When it's not expressed, repressing anger can lead to accumulating pent-up rage that can lead to overaggressive outbursts. It cannot be emphasised enough that it's not the feeling of anger that's wrong or sinful, it's what anger leads to that's wrong. If anger leads to violence or leads to persecution, then it's a flaw or a sin. If it's consequence-free, then anger is just a powerful yet unpleasant emotion.

When this trope is in effect, it involves 3 methods: learning that expressing anger is healthy and important, controlling your anger is more important than not expressing it at all or letting it run rampant, and learning to express that anger through other means (namely [[RelativeButton as]] [[MamaBear protective]] [[PapaWolf instincts]]). Sometimes, it's just a matter of understanding and accepting when things are over and out of your control, learning that a rampage isn't a healthy solution to being upset.

RevengeIsNotJustice is often paired with this trope as this is when anger is taken too far and it results in the angry person becoming worse than their aggressor. RevengeIsSweet can also be paired with this when the story shows that taking revenge is actually worthwhile and a good thing. ThePowerOfHate also plays into it when the story shows the characters channeling their anger towards someone/something as a legitimate way to solve problems. MisdirectedOutburst is often a result of characters bottling up their anger and releasing it at the worst possible time or releasing it at a person who didn't deserve it.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In "[[Recap/GravityFallsS1E13BossMabel Boss Mabel]]", Mabel makes a bet with Stan that she can make more money for the Mystery Shack by being nice than Stan does by being mean. [[spoiler: However, while Mabel does make money she does eventually snap from stress because she learns why Stan is so angry and mean all the time. Soos's idea of a mascot upsets people because Soos's costume is extremely revealing, Wendy exploits Mabel's leniency to skip work, and Dipper's ideas are so dangerous that a couple is left catatonic because he decides to bring a real monster and use it as an exhibit. Mabel loses her temper and she manages to get Soos and Wendy back in line by barking orders at them. Although she only makes one dollar, she does win the bet but concedes that Stan is better suited to be in charge of the Mystery Shack. The lesson of the episode is that it is important to be nice and good, you need to be assertive and be comfortable with expressing anger when it's necessary.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In ''[[Recap/GravityFallsS1E13BossMabel Boss Mabel]]'', Mabel makes a bet with Stan that she can make more money for the Mystery Shack by being nice than Stan does by being mean. [[spoiler: However, while Mabel does make money she does eventually snap from stress because she learns why Stan is so angry and mean all the time. Soos's idea of a mascot upsets people because Soos's costume is extremely revealing, Wendy exploits Mabel's leniency to skip work, and Dipper's ideas are so dangerous that a couple is left catatonic because he decides to bring a real monster and use it as an exhibit. Mabel loses her temper and she manages to get Soos and Wendy back in line by barking orders at them. Although she only makes one dollar, she does win the bet but concedes that Stan is better suited to be in charge of the Mystery Shack. The lesson of the episode is that it is important to be nice and good, you need to be assertive and be comfortable with expressing anger when it's necessary.]]