History Main / WentCrazyWhenTheyLeft

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns'' has a very creepy example. ComicBook/TheJoker was crazy to begin with but when he contemplates a world without his nemesis and obsession Batman he falls into a catatonic shock and only hearing about Batman's activities in the news is enough to revive him.

* ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns'' has a very creepy example. ComicBook/TheJoker was crazy to begin with but when he contemplates a world without his nemesis and obsession Batman he falls into a catatonic shock and only hearing about Batman's activities in the news is enough to revive him.
* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', a schism grew between the younger and older members of the Endless after their "prodigal sibling", Destruction, abandoned his post for good. Without Destruction, Desire became more and more interested in tormenting Dream, while Destiny and Dream grew aloof and distant from their younger siblings.
* According to her creator and ''ComicBook/XMen'' writer, {{Creator/Chris Claremont}}, this happened to {{ComicBook/Mystique}} after the death of her long time lover Destiny which resulted in her going on a {{Roaring Rampage of Revenge}} against Destiny's killer Legion, despite him being just a child at the time.

Sometimes, if the abandoned character eventually learns the gone character came back or did not actually die, they may regain some of their sense of stability, or not if they are too far gone or resentful from the character's disappearance.

* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'': Griffith gradually becomes obsessed with his best warrior Guts, such that when Guts decides to leave the Hawks after deciding that he's not going to be a part of Griffith's dream, Griffith's thoughts during the resultant duel, about how he would not let him go, are very unhinged; when Guts beats him in the duel and wins his freedom Griffith cannot take it and immediately goes to sleep with Princess Charlotte while thinking about Guts and his leaving the whole time. In fact, the events that set into place his downfall and lead up to the horror that is the Eclipse is caused partly by Guts leaving.

** Gendo Ikari has this mindset. He is obsessed with his dead wife Yui, he doesn't care if [[spoiler:the world is destroyed by his meddling with [[EldritchAbomination Gods who can cause the Apocalypse]]]], as long as he can see Yui again.
** Shinji Ikari takes after his father. In "End of Evangelion", when he sees that [[spoiler:Asuka is dead]] he stops fighting, not caring what happens to the rest of humanity.
** In ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'', when Asuka's Eva is [[spoiler:taken over by an Angel]], Shinji refuses to fight because he doesn't want to hurt her, and when [[spoiler:his father forces his robot to destroy the Angel, seemingly killing Asuka]], Shinji attempts [[spoiler:bringing Nerv down and killing everyone inside the base,]] not caring that it is humanity's last line of defense. And when later it is Rei's turn to [[spoiler:be absorbed for an Angel,]] he activates his robot's full power, even though Ritsuko warned him that it would set off the Third Impact. Basically, Asuka and Rei are two of the few people Shinji cares about. Hurt them and expect pain.

** Guren lost his friends to death once so he sacrificed nearly every human being left after the apocalypse for the chance to revive his friends and give them at least a few years of life.
* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': Kamina and Simon are close like family, and then in one episode [[spoiler:(after Kamina's death, that is) Simon is shown spending his time making statues of Kamina and nearly filling up his room with them]].

** Mutsuki has a horrible past where he was abused by his father and neglected by his other family during it. He snapped and killed them all. As he says, when he joined up with the Quinx afterwards and became close with them he felt almost whole again. He clung especially to Kaneki/Sasaki as his LivingEmotionalCrutch and even loved him. Thus, when the latter leaves to return to the ghoul side (not entirely of his own choice) Mutsuki falls to pieces and loses it.

* The CrapsackWorld inadvertently created by Flash in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'' has [[spoiler:Martha Wayne become Joker in response to [[OutlivingOnesOffspring losing her son]] Bruce, who here dies instead of his parents.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseTheMovie'', Spinel was FunPersonified when she was created, and told by Pink Diamond to wait in one spot until she got back. Six thousand years later, Spinel still hadn't moved, and learned that Pink Diamond was dead, had moved on, and made other friends. This caused Spinel to snap, wanting RevengeByProxy on Steven. Even after being reverted to her old self, the very idea of someone leaving her -- even if it's only for a few minutes -- is so terrifying to Spinel that she lets out a BigNo at the mere suggestion.

* The song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fn36l_z3WY They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!]]" by Music/NapoleonXIV is about the singer blaming his SanitySlippage on his girlfriend[[note]]or pet dog[[/note]] who dumped him, saying that the "nice young men in the clean white coats" are coming to take him to a mental hospital. An alternate song, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m138-Fn5Tw "I'm Glad That They Took You Away"]] takes place from the perspective of his girlfriend, who sent the "nice young men in the clean white coats" to him in the first place.

* In ''VideoGame/EnsembleStars'', Izumi used to be a kind older brother figure to Makoto, but by the time the story starts he has become an obsessive, cruel {{Yandere}}. It's implied that this change was a consequence of the mental breakdown and disappearance of Leo, his closest friend.
* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'': Everything went wrong with the Old World when Ted Faro, the CorruptCorporateExecutive of the world's richest mega-corporation, lost the trust and support of his R&D head / close confidant Elizabet Sobek. It got even worse after she died, with Faro descending into total madness as he [[spoiler:erased all advanced human knowledge from the bunkers, then forced the survivors to make him immortal.]]

* Yggdrasil in ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' went off the deep end when his older sister, his [[PromotionToParent surrogate parent]] and only living relative, was murdered in front of him. His response was to embark on a four thousand year plan to resurrect her while also turning the entire world's population into soulless automatons in order to eliminate racism.

* Akira Nishikiyama in ''VideoGame/Yakuza1'' was truly devoted to his sworn brother Kazuma Kiryu, father figure Kazama, and their mutual friends, Reina and Yumi. He was in love with the latter, but after he murdered Sohei Dojima and Kiryu took the fall for him, she disappeared. He likens their loss to losing a piece of his life. His situation was made no better by becoming boss of his own family, the disrespect from both his underlings and superiors causing him to nurse incredible resentment towards Kazama and especially Kiryu. By the time Kiryu is out of prison, Nishiki has long since snapped and become a cold, ruthlessly effective mob boss, near-totally hostile towards his former friends.[[/folder]]

* ''WebAnimation/LlamasWithHats'': Halfway through the series Paul decides to leave Carl, having grown fed up with how murderous and cruel he is and the increasingly horrifying atrocities he commits. Without Paul, Carl rapidly begins losing what little sanity he had left [[spoiler: leading him to go from an AffablyEvil serial killer into a full blown OmnicidalManiac]].

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Ty Lee and Mai decide they want to be out of the iron grip of Azula and try to leave her. This is the start of her downfall. In the FinaleMovie, the audience learns that Azula's sanity loss is partially attributed to [[spoiler:the disappearance of Azula's and Zuko's mother, Ursa. To make matters worse, Azula believes that her mother abandoned her, because she thinks Azula is a monster.]]

* Simon Laurent in ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain:'' completely plays this trope straight after he goes insane and snaps harder than ever before when he thinks he's killed his best friend and possible crush, Grace by kicking her off of the train into the wheels.

* ''WebAnimation/LlamasWithHats'': Halfway through the series Paul decides to leave Carl, having grown fed up with how murderously psychotic he is and the increasingly horrifying atrocities he commits. Without Paul, Carl rapidly begins losing what little sanity he had left [[spoiler: leading him to go from an AffablyEvil serial killer into a full blown OmnicidalManiac]].

* ''WebAnimation/LlamasWithHats'': Halfway through the series Paul decides to leave Carl, having grown fed up with how murderously psychotic he is and the increasingly horrifying atrocities he commits. Without Paul, Carl rapidly begins losing what little sanity he had left.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan:'' Whenever Eren, who is a reason for living for Mikasa (ie: due to him and his father taking her in and saving her from being sold as a sex slave after some bad people killed her parents) is assumed dead or is kidnapped, Mikasa goes mad with both grief and rage, intending to cut down any enemy in her path to get him back (or simply [[DeathSeeker attack blindly until she's killed]]).
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}:'' Griffith gradually becomes obsessed with his best warrior Guts, such that when Guts decides to leave the Hawks after deciding that he's not going to be a part of Griffith's dream, Griffith's thoughts during the resultant duel, about how he would not let him go, are very unhinged; when Guts beats him in the duel and wins his freedom Griffith cannot take it and immediately goes to sleep with Princess Charlotte while thinking about Guts and his leaving the whole time. In fact, the events that set into place his downfall and lead up to the horror that is the Eclipse is caused partly by Guts leaving.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}:'' Sasuke lost his family from his beloved brother Itachi killing them at a young age. He went crazy understandably and sustained himself with the goal of getting revenge. He eventually does see to it that Itachi dies but learns the truth that Itachi loved him all along and killed their family under an order from the higher-ups for the sake of the Konoha leaf village. Sasuke goes insane from that, in addition to him losing Itachi. His sanity is restored somewhat only when Itachi is briefly brought back to life. When Itachi gives Sasuke a final brotherly goodbye and disappears Sasuke promptly goes crazy again.

* When Mika and Yuu, who are the other's most important person, are separated in ''Manga/SeraphOfTheEnd'' for dramatic purposes involving both being orphans with the rest of the orphans who they considered family being killed before their eyes by the vampires that enslaved them. They cling to the other's memory to use as a source of strength in order to find the other again. However, both can get pretty unhinged when it comes to the other possibly being separated from them again.

* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann:'' Kamina and Simon are close like family, and then in one episode [[spoiler:(after Kamina's death, that is) Simon is shown spending his time making statues of Kamina and nearly filling up his room with them]].
* ''Manga/TokyoGhoul:''

* According to her creator and ''ComicBook/XMen'' writer, {{Creator/Chris Claremont}}, this happened to {{ComicBook/Mystique}} after the death of her long time lover Destiny which resulted in her going on a {{Roaring Rampage of Revenge}} against Destiny's killer {{ComicBook/Legion}}, despite him being just a child at the time.

* ''Series/{{Rectify}}:'' It's revealed that ever since Hannah died in a horrific way, her mother has been unable to get over it, and spends her days religiously walking around and moving things in her daughter's room obsessively with her son watching on, very concerned for her.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender:'' Ty Lee and Mai decide they want to be out of the iron grip of Azula and try to leave her. This is the start of her downfall.
** In the Series Finale Movie, the audience learns that Azula's sanity loss is partially attributed to [[spoiler:the disappearance of Azula's and Zuko's mother, Ursa. To make matters worse, Azula believes that her mother abandoned her, because she thinks Azula is a monster.]]
* Simon Laurent in ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain:'' completely plays this trope straight after he goes insane and snaps harder than ever before when he thinks he's killed his best friend and possible crush, Grace by kicking her off of the train into the wheels.

* Yggdrasil in ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' went off the deep end when his older sister, his [[PromotionToParent surrogate parent]] and only living relative, was murdered in front of him. His response was to embark on a four thousand year plan to resurrect her while also turning the entire world's population into soulless automatons in order to eliminate racism.

* ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'': When [[spoiler:Alicia Testarossa]] died, it made Precia Testarossa completely snap and dedicate her entire life to bringing [[spoiler:her daughter]] back at any cost.

* Akira Nishikiyama in ''VideoGame/Yakuza'' was truly devoted to his sworn brother Kazuma Kiryu, father figure Kazama, and their mutual friends, Reina and Yumi. He was in love with the latter, but after he murdered Sohei Dojima and Kiryu took the fall for him, she disappeared. He likens their loss to losing a piece of his life. His situation was made no better by becoming boss of his own family, the disrespect from both his underlings and superiors causing him to nurse incredible resentment towards Kazama and especially Kiryu. By the time Kiryu is out of prison, Nishiki has long since snapped and become a cold, ruthlessly effective mob boss, near-totally hostile towards his former friends.[[/folder]]

[[/folder]]

This is when a character leaves/abandons someone that they were close to, maybe out of an obligation, personal reasons, or not by their own choice [[note]]like perhaps they died or were kidnapped for example.[[/note]] Maybe a character is a LivingEmotionalCrutch or a MoralityChain to them. Maybe they have implied romantic feelings for them. Maybe they were a pair of TrueCompanions, or family. In some cases, the person left behind [[BelatedLoveEpiphany may not even have realized their feelings until the other left.]]

Sometimes, if the abandoned character eventually learns the gone character came back or did not actually die they may regain some of their sense of stability, or not if they are so far gone or resentful from the character's disappearance.

In any case, the character who is abandoned for whatever reason goes crazy after the other leaves them. So this is more like the end result of a character's LivingEmotionalCrutch leaving them.

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

[[folder: Theatre]]

* ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns'' has a very creepy example. ComicBook/TheJoker was crazy to begin with but when he contemplates a world without his nemesis and [[FoeYay obsession]] Batman he falls into a catatonic shock and only hearing about Batman's activities in the news is enough to revive him.

* The song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fn36l_z3WY They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!]]" by Music/NapoleonXIV is about the singer blaming his SanitySlippage on his girlfriend who dumped him, saying that the "nice young men in the clean white coats" are coming to take him to a mental hospital. An alternate song, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m138-Fn5Tw "I'm Glad That They Took You Away"]] takes place from the perspective of his girlfriend, who sent the "nice young men in the clean white coats" to him in the first place.

* The song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fn36l_z3WY They're Coming to Take Me Away]]" is about the singer blaming his SanitySlippage on his girlfriend who dumped him, saying that the "nice young men in the clean white coats" are coming to take him to a mental hospital. An alternate song, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m138-Fn5Tw "I'm Glad That They Took You Away"]] takes place from the perspective of his girlfriend, who sent the "nice young men in the clean white coats" to him in the first place.
* [[Music/AlanJackson Alan Jackson]]: "Gone Crazy"
* [[Music/GarthBrooks Garth Brooks]]: "Beaches of Cheyenne"

[[folder:Western Animation]]

* According to her creator and ''ComicBook/XMen'' writer, {{Creator/Chris Claremont}}, this happened to {{ComicBook/Mystique}} after the death of her long time lover Destiny which resulted in her going on a {{Roaring Rampage of Revenge}} against Destiny's killer {{ComicBook/Legion}}, despite the him being just a child at the time.

*

* According to her creator and ''ComicBook/XMen'' writer, {{Creator/Chris Claremont}}, this happened to {{ComicBook/Mystique}} after the death of her long time lover Destiny which resulted in her going on a {{Roaring Rampage of Revenge}} against Destiny's killer {{ComicBook/Legion}} despite the him being just a child at the time.