History Main / LawOfDisproportionateResponse

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

* The entire premise of ''WesternAnimation/DanVs'': Dan, a very proud CardCarryingJerkass, will blow his top every episode for a very petty reason at someone and will go to supervillain levels of mayhem to get back at them (and in fact, in the series' SuperheroEpisode he declared himself an actual supervillain). Over the course of the series, he declared war on everything from squirrels to Canada.

* ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'': "Sno-Balls? Sno-Balls?! Where's the fucking Twinkies?!"

* In ''Film/HotFuzz'' police officer Nicholas Angel is convinced that the reason behind all the murders is a complex scheme to buy soon-to-be valuable land carried out by [[spoiler: Simon Skinner]]. But it turns out to be [[spoiler:a whole conspiracy by the entire Neighborhood Watch Alliance to kill the people who may make the town look bad for the Village of the Year Contest]]. The charges which led to the executions are exactly as follows: [[spoiler:Martin Blower: being an appalling actor; Eve Draper: having a very annoying laugh and having an affair with an older man (the aforementioned Martin Blower) ; George Merchant: having an awful house; Tim Messenger: editing the Sandford Citizen Newspaper, riddling it with tabloid journalism and persistent (spelling) errors; Leslie Tiller: being set on moving away and possibly sharing her green thumb skills with a rival town.]]

%% * The entire premise of ''WesternAnimation/DanVs''.

* In the ''Film/PitchPerfect'' ''[[Film/Ghostbusters1984 Ghostbusters]]'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12550096/1/Paranormal-Aca-tivity Paranormal Aca-tivity]]", the Ghostbusters (Becca, Benji and Jesse) unintentionally prevent Bumper from introducing himself to John Mayer at the Sedgewick Hotel when Bumper slips on slime Beca accidentally dripped into the lobby while Mayer was talking to Beca and Jesse after their first ghost capture. In response, Bumper goes so far as to accuse the team of plotting a terrorist attack, getting them arrested and shutting down the containment unit to release all of their previously-captured ghosts, when the Ghostbusters never did anything to Bumper on purpose and Becca notes that it's unlikely John Mayer even remembers the incident.

* In ''Film/HotFuzz'' police officer Nicholas Angel is convinced that the reason behind all the murders is a complex scheme to buy soon-to-be valuable land carried out by [[spoiler: Simon Skinner]]. But it turns out to be [[spoiler:a whole conspiracy by the entire Neighborhood Watch Alliance to kill the people who may make the town look bad for the Village of the Year Contest]]. The charges which led to the executions are exactly as follows: [[spoiler:Martin Blower: being an apalling actor; Eve Draper: having a very annoying laugh; George Merchant: having an awful house; Tim Messenger: editing the Sandford Citizen Newspaper, riddling it with tabloid journalism and persistent (spelling) errors; Leslie Tiller: being set on moving away and might give her green thumb skills to another town.]]

* Clive Owen's character in ''ShootEmUp'' takes gun fights, leaping out of planes and women giving birth in his stride, but people who don't indicate when switching lanes, have unkempt fingernails or yell at their children in public can send him dangerously close to the edge.

* In ''Film/PulpFiction'', Vincent Vega tells his heroin dealer about how someone vandalized his car's paint job by scratching his car. The dealer more-or-less agrees how horrible this crime was unforgivable and deserved immediate execution. Vincent says he wishes he could have caught the guy, and in fact, it would have been worth getting the damage to his expensive paint job to be able to catch the guy. As Vincent's regular job is mob hit man, it isn't hard to figure out what he'd do to the guy who deliberately vandalized his car.

* ''Film/FallingDown'': every single obstacle that gets in the way of "D-Fens" Foster, no matter how small or inconsequential, for him is worth attacking or pulling a pistol over (anything from people trying to mug him to people being annoying to the fact that he arrived too late to a fast food joint to get a breakfast menu or ''being overcharged for a can of soda''). It is shown later on that he had a ''seriously'' explosive personality long before the movie started (to the point that his ex-wife feared for her and her daughter's life... and it's not quite unsubtly implied that he was going to her home to [[PaterFamilicide kill them and then kill himself]]).

* In ''ComicBook/SupermanBrainiac'', ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} accidentally reveals that Daily Planet's journalist Cat Grant has fake boobs. Later, [[ComicBook/Supergirl2005 in her own book]], Supergirl accidentally gets Cat slightly bruised while saving her. As a result of this, Cat spends one whole year slandering Supergirl in the hope that her tripe drives the young hero away from Metropolis.

** Homer goes as far as suing the owners of a seafood restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet because they threw him out after closing time, even though he hadn’t yet had “all he could eat”. Marge is dragged along through the whole ordeal against her will and much to her embarrassment.

* In ''WesternAnimation/KimPossibleMovieSoTheDrama'', after losing his want-to-be girlfriend to a RomanticFalseLead, and having his favorite restaurant turned into a kiddie joint by a new owner, Ron finally goes insane (well, for a second time) after they replace the bendy straws with regular ones, though that was probably just [[RageBreakingPoint the straw that broke the camel's back]] ([[IncrediblyLamePun no pun intended]]).

* In the ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' fic "[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/34973494 These Foolish Things]]", Felicity is so consumed by jealousy when she learns that Laurel still has a sweater Oliver gave her (specifically, he gave her the sweater because she was cold during a date to the cinema before he was trapped on Lian Yu) that she hacks Oliver's bank account going at least back to Oliver's prom night to try and identify any expensive gifts he might have given Laurel so that she can demand them back. As Laurel points out, such an act would be a serious breach of Oliver's privacy even if he and Felicity now had a joint bank account (which they don't), and if Felicity is this insecure about past gifts than she needs to question her own reasons for getting involved with Oliver in the first place.

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' - "You spilled my egg. I needed that egg."
** What's impressive is that the reason the egg was such a big deal to him should have prevented him from being able to do what he did to the guys who spilled it.
** Specifically, he needed it for a hangover cure. Just in case you wanted to know.
** Think that's supposed to show how good Spike is at fighting, and fighting like that negated the need for the egg. He was just looking for a non-violent solution?

* ''ComicBook/TheSandman'': Dream of the Endless cast Nada into Hell because she didn't want to get into a MayflyDecemberRomance. There are undoubtedly other examples within the series, but that is the one that stands out the most. To be fair, he did let her out... ''after several thousand years, and being bugged about it by various people the whole time''.
* In some versions of Franchise/{{Superman}}, ComicBook/LexLuthor hates Superman so much because Superman accidentally caused Lex's baldness (among other reasons). Other versions have him being hated just because he ''exists''.
* In ''Comicbook/SupermanBrainiac'', Comicbook/{{Supergirl}} accidentally reveals that Daily Planet's journalist Cat Grant has fake boobs. Later ''[[Comicbook/{{Supergirl 2005}} in her own book]]'' Supergirl accidentally gets Cat slightly bruised while saving her. As a result of this, Cat spends one whole year slandering Supergirl in the hope that her tripe drives the young hero away from Metropolis.

* Death The Kid from ''Manga/SoulEater'', largely thanks to having SuperOCD, hates ''anything'' that isn't symmetrical. When he saw how the pharaoh demon was asymmetrical, he blasted it to smithereens.

* David Sedaris describes his sister as thus: "Tiffany is big on rules but allows a pretty wide margin when it comes to mortal sin. Rape, murder, the abandonment of children: these are taken on a case-by-case basis. What riles her are the small things, and in denouncing them, she tends towards proclamations, most beginning with the words 'A person doesn't". "A person doesn't just go around ''making'' things out of pinecones' or 'A person doesn't use the word ''weenie'' when talking about a hot dog. It isn't cute. It isn't funny. It isn't done'" Also a lot of humor in David Sedaris essays in general encompasses this trope.

'''Stewie''': (under couch) ''[[LampshadeHanging Yeah, so that's an appropriate response.]]''

** Vetinari is used to the absurdities of the Disc, Ankh-Morpork being Ankh-Morpork. But don't be a mime... or else. He does, however, prefer corrective measures against practitioners of that form of art. Rather than the ham-fisted "[[KillEmAll kill them all]]" approach of lesser patricians, Vetinari uses a scorpion pit on whose wall is painted the advice: "Learn The Words".