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What happens when an animated hero stops being so animated.


  • Fitz from 12 oz. Mouse goes through a BSoD after his best friend Skillet is killed. He completely gives up on everything, and wanders off to play a game of Pinball.
  • Adventure Time :
    • Billy (voiced by Lou Ferrigno) retires to his legendary crack after reasoning that bad things will keep happening despite his efforts. Finn and Jake help him get better.
    • After Fern pulls a Face–Heel Turn and Finn accidentally kills him in a fight, Finn is traumatized and feels immense guilt. He starts imagining genuinely evil monsters as Fern, preventing him from being able to slay them. Huntress Wizard helps Finn get over it by intentionally putting herself in harm's way, so that Finn imagines her as Fern and it gives him to drive to save her from being killed by a monster.
  • This was the theme in many episodes of Animaniacs, where a historic figure was suffering from one until the three Warner siblings showed up and — inadvertently — gave them inspiration. Abraham Lincoln was questioning his self-worth and purpose until they showed up and helped him write the Gettysburg Address; Albert Einstein was ready to give up his research in frustration until they showed up and triggered his "Eureka!" Moment. (Wakko playfully wrote "acme" backwards, and the R looked like a 2.) And many others.
  • Archie's Weird Mysteries: In "Misfortune Hunters", Betty is devastated when the monster escapes thanks to her "goody-two-shoes" ways and makes up her mind that she's not doing any more altruistic things that could potentially become twisted. Naturally, this only lasts until she sees someone hurt thanks to her unleashing the monster.
  • In the Atomic Puppet episode "Pinched Nerves", Joey is pretty badly shaken when he almost accidentally kills his dad while trying to catch a criminal, so he takes a break from superhero antics for the rest of the episode. AP is left to try catch the criminal and eventually gives Joey the confidence he needs back.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Aang suffers one when Appa is kidnapped during Season 2. He abandons his friends to go find him, and when that fails, he acts much more antagonistic than his normal Keet self. Eventually, he decides that pretending to not feel anything will make things better (it doesn't) and it takes the birth of a baby for him to finally snap out of it.
    • Aang's successor, Korra, doesn't get off easy, either. In Season 3, she is poisoned by the Big Bad and forced into the Avatar State (the villain hoping she'll die and end the Avatar Cycle once and for all). The injuries she sustains from the poison, the battle immediately following that, and her enemies (and allies) telling her the world doesn't need her anymore, drives her into a depression that she doesn't fully recover from until over halfway through Season 4, three years later.
  • Two in the first episode of Batman Beyond, "Rebirth, Part 1"; the first is Bruce realizing that he used a gun to protect himself from a beating while having a heart attack, which prompts his retirement as Batman. The second is Terry after his father's funeral as he looked back at the fact their last moments together involved an argument.
  • Batman: The Animated Series: In the episode "I Am the Night", Batman suffers one when his annual visit to Crime Alley (and the spot where his parents died) leads to him being late for a sting operation, leading to Commissioner Gordon being severely wounded, leading to Bruce quit being Batman. It wasn't until the criminal who shot Gordon escaped and a disgusted Robin decided to go after him that Bruce started to snap out of it and Gordon's own doubts about the sting helped him come to for good.
  • In The Boondocks, Huey Freeman has three of these. The first is when Huey is given a chance to direct the school's Christmas play and crafts it to adhere to his unique vision. The principal however, insists that Jesus not be portrayed as black, despite the name of Huey's play being "The Adventures of Black Jesus", leading to a stymied and demoralized Huey abandoning the project the night before the play.
    • The second time is when Huey tries to save his friend, Shabazz K. Milton Berle from death row. However, his plan is thwarted at the last minute when he can't get a ride from his grandfather, who instead decides to talk some sense into Uncle Ruckus at his "revival" meeting, leading to Huey standing on a hillside and praying to God, while shedding tears for the first time.
    • The third time and probably Huey's biggest Heroic BSoD ever is during Barack Obama's election where Obama is asked about Huey Freeman, to which he responds that Huey doesn't stand for what he stands for, and that he denounces, repudiate, and condemns him. This leads to Huey's indifference towards Obama, where he "retires" from his role as a "domestic terrorist". Of course, this doesn't go well with the public, who are in such awe of Obama at the time, that a simple "Eh" from Huey draws the ire of a large crowd of black people, which leads to a national protests against Huey, where protesters burn an effigy of him. Because of this, Huey feels there is no room for him in Obama's America, so he decides to leave the country. However, he plan is once again thwarted because he once again cannot get a ride. While the Obama phenomenon has died down, Huey still remains retired throughout the rest of the season, including the season finale.
      • Coincidentally, Huey also has a Heroic BSoD is the same degree in the comics, when he receives enough negative responses from his 15-page Santa Conspiracy Report, leading to a series of comic strips where he "officially hates everything".
      • Luckily, Michael Cesar is introduced into the comic strip, restoring Huey's faith in his revolution.
  • Captain Planet and the Planeteers: In "Domes of Doom", after finding out Baron Giftus' secret and consequently being kidnapped, Ma-Ti calls himself foolish for trusting the man. He has to take a few minutes to cry before trying to escape.
  • In Central Park, Season 1 "A Fish Called Snakehead", after learning Bitsy is trying to buy Central Park and she's trying to get him fired, Owen doesn't want to think about it and wants to pretend none of this is happening. But he gets a harsh dose of reality when Bitsy slanders his park management skills in front of the media and tells them someone like her can take better care of the park. He later stares out at a lake upset after everyone leaves because he knows he can't pretend this problem doesn't exist and has to face the reality of the situation.
  • In Codename: Kids Next Door - Operation Zero, Numbuh One rushes alone to the convention center full of villains in an attempt to retrieve the recommissioning module before Father can use it on Grandfather. It turns out to be a Batman Gambit by Father, knowing that Nigel would try to retrieve the device and revealing that it's worthless without an active K.N.D agent's genetic material, gloating that their best agent just handed the villains the key to bringing back the greatest threat they have ever faced. As Grandfather gains his powers back and begins turning all the villains in the room into his zombie minions, Numbuh One slumps to his knees in defeat, despairing over what he's done, and not even his teammates can snap him out of it.
  • Danger Mouse has a BSoD at the end of "Close Encounters Of The Absurd Kind" when he finds out that the craft that kidnapped him and Penfold wasn't Baron Greenback's Frog's Head Flyer but a UFO.
  • Daria: Quinn spends most of the series as Daria's beautiful but shallow and flighty younger sister with an endless string of suitors worshiping the ground she walked on. A turning point in her character development is when she actually gets rejected for the first time. In the tv movie Is It Fall Yet?, dealing with the summer vacation between Seasons 4 and 5, Quinn gets a tutor, a cute nerdy senior, and grows attracted to him during their sessions. As the summer ends, she confesses her feelings to him, but he turns her down because she's not his type, as he prefers more intellectual girls. This deeply hurts Quinn and puts her in a days-long depression. She only breaks out of her funk after going back to school and deciding that she can be fashionable and academic if she so chooses.
  • Dee Dee, though not necessarily a hero, has one in Dexter's Laboratory, in the episode "Down In the Dumps" when she loses Mr. Fuzzums.
  • Main character Tom from Dragons: The Nine Realms repeatedly suffers from this, first in the first episode of Seaon 6 and later in the final season each time one of his plans to take down Jörmungandr fails. It's only thanks to his friends, mainly Jun, that he finds new hope to try again and again.
  • DuckTales (1987)
    • Scrooge McDuck routinely has slumps when events involve him losing (or coming close to losing) all his wealth. "A sea monster ate my ice cream!" anyone? Examples include "The Money Vanishes", "Catch as Cash Can" and "Down and Out in Duckburg."
    • Scrooge also undergoes a number of slumps over something happening to one of the few people he cares about. Examples of this kind of BSOD happen in "Hero for Hire" and "The Golden Goose".
  • DuckTales (2017): In "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser", when the boys question Scrooge on the circumstances of Della's disappearance and he reveals everything, they angrily blame him for what happened, leading to an argument that has Scrooge lashing out at everyone and causing them to leave the mansion and leaving Scrooge to somber over the incident. By the next episode, he's turned himself into a bum with no care for adventuring, and it's only Magica De Spell that snaps him out of it, merely because she wants his adventurous self to be there when she enacts her vengeance.
  • Jimmy from Ed, Edd n Eddy, not a hero per se, goes through this in "Tinker Ed" when he realizes that fairy tales aren't real. Edd goes through this too (for a short time) in the episode "Too Smart for His Own Ed" when he loses a spelling bee to Ed.
  • In the Esme & Roy episode "Party Time" , Esme tries setting up a party for the younger monsters with Roy, but when she messes up, she has a Monster Sitter Meltdown and runs off crying. Notably, this is the only time she has a Monster-Sitter Meltdown, unlike other episodes, where she helps others who have meltdowns.
  • The Fairly OddParents!:
    • Timmy tells the Crimson Chin that he's only a comic book character, resulting in CC going into a Heroic BSoD where he is curled up in a ball crying for most of the episode feeling unimportant. He snaps back to normal when Timmy has a brush with death at the hands of his nemesis.
    • In "The Big Problem", When Timmy has wished he was an adult, he breaks down when the Fairy Bellboy appears for the last time and threatens to take Cosmo and Wanda away, leaving Timmy to call out I Want My Mommy!. This makes him young enough inside to be able to wish himself back to normal.
  • Happens to Leela from Futurama, when Fry jumps in front of her to save her from being impaled on the stinger of a giant killer bee, and apparently dies on the spot. This is made worse by the fact that not only did Fry die for her, but Leela ignored all of Fry's pleas to be careful, as well as all warning signs that their current expedition was a festering death trap, simply in order to appear tough. She spirals into a deep, guilt-ridden depression and loses her mind, becoming more and more deranged and confused as she is shoved through a series of nightmares involving Fry. In the end, it thankfully turns out to be just a coma fantasy, as the stinger went right through Fry (and the worst that happened to him was he had to get a spleen transplant) and pierced her, leaving her in a deep coma.
  • In the Hey Arnold! episode "Phoebe's Little Problem", she unwittingly farts in the microphone after accepting her award at school due to eating a whole tin of Arnold's grandmother's prune cookies, greatly embarrassing herself, leading to Arnold and the others trying to help her through her crisis.
  • Dante Vale from Huntik has a BSoD when he gives up the amulets of power on the off chance that his enemy will save Metz, his mentor. Zahlia has to protect him for most of an episode as he's literally non-responsive.
  • In Infinity Train, after the "monster" turns out to be a mere spider, Tulip bemoans that she may never know the meaning of her mark. Atticus helps talk her out of it, leading to her "Eureka!" Moment about the work light. She later suffers a bigger one in response to the season's Big Bad turning Atticus into a monster, but she recovers after presented with the possibility of being able to change him back.
  • In Kim Possible, both Ron and Drakken have one after finding out that Snowman Hank has been cancelled. In another episode, Kim, when she saw cockroaches at the size of dogs.
  • In King of the Hill, Hank goes through one when the chemicals Dale used to kill some fire ants also kills the grass on his lawn. At one point, Hank sits on a lawn chair and doesn't bother to move when the sprinklers go off, even when he starts sinking into the mud.
  • In The Legend of Vox Machina, Percival shuts down when his Not Quite Dead sister turns out to be a traitor, to the point where he's on the verge of getting subsumed in acid and doesn't react. It takes a slap across the face and an angry, desperate speech from Vex to snap him out of it and save the party's skins.
  • Twilight Sparkle gets a huge one in the second episode of the second season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. After spending half the episode trying to stop Discord, Twilight is finally broken, corrupted, and loses her colors after the initial attempt to use the Elements against him fails and her friends' behavior proves too much for her. She snaps out of it after reading the friendship reports that she originally sent to Princess Celestia one season earlier.
    • In "Flight to the Finish", Scootaloo has this after her failure to fly despite countless tries.
    • In Equestria Games, the revelation that Twilight needed to help Spike light the Equestria Games torch sends him into a depression for a majority of the episode.
    • In Rainbow Rocks, Twilight breaks down and assumes a Troubled Fetal Position after failing to come up with a counterspell and being Locked in a Room with the rest of the Humane Six, who have begun arguing over the mishaps that occured during the Battle of the Bands, allowing the Dazzlings to gain power from their conflict like the rest of the school. She's only snapped out of it when Sunset Shimmer stops the arguing, and Twilight realizes that all the tension was happening and never realized it.
    • In "A Royal Problem", Starlight Glimmer ends up hitting this trope after her My God, What Have I Done? worries in swapping Princess Celestia and Luna's Cutie Marks keep weighing heavily on her (not helped by Twilight's own snooping), ultimately leading to her bursting into tears in her own nightmare as she's tormented by Nightmare Moon and Celestia's own Superpowered Evil Side, Daybreaker.
    • In 'School Daze", Twilight hits this trope big time when her Friendship School is shut down by the EEA for not following the guidelines exactly, causing her students to bail because they couldn't stand such a thing.
    • In "The Ending of The End", Twilight ends up in a depressive state because she has completely failed to find any method of stopping the Legion of Doom, didn't notice the friendship between the three pony tribes was breaking down, and thanks to the revelation that Discord engineered the Mane Six's victory against Sombra, has also begun believing that absolutely none of their past victories were real or meaningful. Thankfully, her friends manage to shake her out of her BSoD by reassuring her that things are not entirely hopeless, and she has in fact made a true difference for the better in their lives.
  • Ninjago:
    • "Tick Tock": Zane suffers a BSOD that he is a real robot.
    • At the end of the episode "The Temple on Haunted Hill", Cole suffers a BSOD after being transformed into a ghost by Sensei Yang because he didn't get out of the temple in time.
  • The Owl House: Luz Noceda has had a couple of moments like these. In "Thanks to Them", months after discovering she was the one who helped Belos rose to power and endangered her friends, Luz gets fed up with her teacher's story about heroism. When blaming the hypothetical hero for "his" flaws, she's actually referring to herself.
    Mr. Sandoval: "Foes vanquished, he trod the shores of his fatherland, family by his side, finally at peace." This epic ends with homecoming of not just a man, but a hero.
    Luz: Hero? Everywhere he went, people ended up suffering.
    Mr. Sandoval: It does get bleak, but no one said his mission would be easy. And when you take into account the ripple effects of his actions—
    Luz: [slams desk] Who cares about the ripple effects? He was just a pawn in someone else's game! And he was never smart enough to realize it! If his friends and family knew about his mission, they'd know that their lives would never have been in danger if it weren't for him. They should hate his guts and it would be better if he LITERALLY NEVER EXISTED!
  • Pocoyo: After letting go of his balloon, Pocoyo just stands there pointing at the sky, staring dumbfounded in that position for a while.
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
    • Blossom had one on when one of her plans backfired, something Mojo Jojo tried to exploit.
    • Buttercup had one in an episode where she lost her Security Blanket.
    • In "All Chalked Up", Bubbles has one of these when her drawings of monsters come to life. Blossom and Buttercup end up having to start the fight without her.
  • In the Recess episode "I Will Kick No More Forever", Vince underwent a massive Heroic BSoD (of the severe depression type) after his best kick was not only beaten out, but beaten out by an Ashley, who not only doesn't even regularly play Kickball, but isn't even playing it seriously (she basically kicked it all the way to Communist Chinanote  nonchalantly while she was speaking on her cell phone). It literally had to take TJ and his friends some severe talks to Vince (as well as almost faking out his kick to making him feel better with a more bouncy ball than usual) to not only get him out of the Heroic BSoD, but also for him to manage in doing an unprecedented account of kicking the ball outside of the stratosphere.
  • The Ren & Stimpy episode, "Son of Stimpy", has Stimpy go through a pretty major one when Stinky leaves. Nearly everything Ren says to him is replied with a depressed "I don't care."
  • Rick and Morty: After Rick's Love Potion goes out of control in the most horrible way possible, turning into a plague of Body Horror, and Rick just writes the reality off, takes them to another universe where their counterparts cured the plague and then died immediately afterwards, makes him bury his own counterpart and replace him, Morty can only look on, almost unresponsive, as he finds himself back to his old, day to day life, with the knowledge those aren't his real parents or sister, merely identical strangers, and that everyone he knew is dead.
  • Otto suffers one in the Rocket Power episode "Bruised Man's Curve" when Lars challenges him to a mountain board race on the titular course, which nobody has ever beaten before. His constant wipeouts break his confidence, and it takes an exaggerated story from Tito to get him to go up to the course to face Lars. At this point, Otto's panic attacks strike again and as he backs out, Lars accidentally steps on his board in a fit of laughter and falls off the course, restoring Otto's confidence completely.
  • Scooby-Doo:
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Mermista takes the destruction and conquest of her home by the Horde hard, retreating to a bathtub to mourn and eat all the ice cream in Bright Moon.
  • South Park:
    • Kyle suffers one of these after Cartman convinces him to see The Passion of the Christ, claiming that it "proves" the Jews killed Jesus. The Jewish Kyle is horrified at what he sees, to the point where he becomes ashamed of his Jewish heritage, just as Cartman had hoped (while Stan and Kenny are pissed that they got ripped off over seeing a Christian snuff film and demand their money back).
    • Kyle goes through an even nastier BSoD in "Cartmanland" where Cartman spends the million dollars he got from his dead grandmother on an amusement park that no one, not even his friends, can go to but him. Kyle tries to sneak into the park, but fails due to the massive pain his hemorrhoids are giving him. Kyle's condition grows worse when he sees a news report of proclaiming Cartman a genius for his business strategy. Kyle then renounces his faith in God and slowly gives up on life, allowing himself to slowly die to his infection. It isn't until Cartman actually suffers for his karma that Kyle snaps out of it.
    • Stan gets a really bad one in "Raisins" after Wendy broke up with him, which made him become one of the Goths. He gets better after Butters gives him and the other Goths a pep talk.
    • Cartman suffers one in "Stunning and Brave" where, after his attempt to strike back at the school's new PC Principal fails and ends with him getting beaten within an inch of his life, admits to his friends on his hospital bed that the new principal has won and that it's best that he needs to accept it and turn over a new leaf.
  • Spongebob Squarepants:
    • SpongeBob is reduced to this in "Squeaky Boots" after Mr. Krabs steals the boots off his feet while he is sleeping, because of how annoying the boots' squeaking is. Seeing the loss of the one thing he has grown attached to over the episode causes the depressed sponge to cry nonstop and repeatedly apologize to Mr. Krabs for letting him down.
    • Squidward goes into a catatonic stupor in "Squid's Visit", after Spongebob urges him to stay at his house until his house gets rebuilt.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
    • "Storm Over Ryloth": Ahsoka gets one when she loses most of her squadron failing to break through the blockade over Ryloth. She snaps out of it in the episode's third act.
    • "Carnage of Krell": Captain Rex has a brief one when he realizes that he and his men have been killing other clones because General Krell tricked them into thinking they were disguised Umbarans.
    • "The Lawless": Obi-Wan gets this when Darth Maul murders Duchess Satine.
  • Star Wars Rebels:
    • "The Siege of Lothal": When trying to forge a mental connection to Darth Vader, the revelation that he is Anakin Skywalker as well as the backlash of the Dark Side causes Ahsoka to pass out.
    • After the events of Malachor in "Twilight of the Apprentice", Kanan completely shuts down for six months until he snaps out of it in "Steps Into Shadow".
    • Ezra falls into one after Kanan's death that takes a Force vision with the Loth-wolves to snap him out of.
  • Star Wars Resistance: In the last scene of "No Escape, Part I", Kaz gets one when he finds out that he just saw his homeworld, and every other planet in the system, destroyed by the First Order. It continues into "Part II", although he pushes it aside as much as he can because he needs to focus on fighting the First Order.
  • Strawberry Shortcake: Strawberry Shortcake is a prime target for this.
    • 1980s:
      • Her first encounter with this trope happens during the first special of the 1980s. Here, she gets the impression that nobody likes her, not knowing that her friends are preparing a surprise party. Fortunately, the Sun helps her recover.
      • She later encounters this after the watering can she got as a birthday present turned out to be rigged to flood the place. Thanks, Peculiar Purple Pieman.
      • The third time she encounters this, Strawberry Shortcake had gotten to the hotel during the events of the second special, but the reservations she made were wiped. Thanks, Peculiar Purple Pieman.
      • Her fourth encounter with this trope comes from her friends' stupidity when the Peculiar Purple Pieman claims that she helped secure his victory. Thanks to SoufflĂ©e the Skunk, she manages to recover and recover her reputation.
    • 2003:
      Strawberry Shortcake: This whole thing is falling apart! The Friendship Festival! Maybe we should just call it off...
      Ginger Snap: But Strawberry Shortcake we can still help...
      Strawberry Shortcake: No, Ginger Snap. It's hopeless...
    • 2021:
      • The episode "Mean Berries" has a moment where Strawberry Shortcake sells out which ends up biting her butt when Raspberry Tart says that Berries who can't run a business must leave. Fortunately, Strawberry Shortcake recovers courtesy of her friends.
      • Strawberry Shortcake suffers another one in "Robot Strawberry!?" when her Robot Duplicate takes over the business that Strawberry Shortcake had run. Fortunately, Strawberry Shortcake recovers when she realises that the Cake-inator is being a stickler, something that the other Berries tell Strawberry Shortcake about.
  • Steven Universe.
    • In "Rose's Scabbard", Pearl spends most of the first half of the episode talking about being Rose's sole confidant before her death, and that she knew all of her secrets. When it turns out she doesn't, she lashes out at the others, runs off, and nearly lets Steven fall to his death as she's too caught up in her own grief to care. This does lead to a heartwarming moment of reconciliation at the end.
      Pearl: Everything I ever did, I did for her. Now she's gone... But I'm still here. Sometimes... I wonder, if she can see me through your (Steven's) eyes. (sigh) What would she think of me now...
      Steven: (hugs her from behind) Well... I think you're pretty great.
      (Pearl starts to cry)
    • A less tearjerky and more horrific case of this comes from "Keeping It Together". While chasing down Peridot, Garnet and Steven uncover exactly what she was working on. Homeworld had been trying to achieve artifical fusion, by combining two or more gem shards together. Crystal Gem shards. This does not only create horrible amalgamations of what were once Garnet's friends, but is also a slap in the face of her entire existence, as Garnet stays fused out of love. For the first half of the battle (if you can even call it one), she can only whimper and shake her head. When the biggest fusion monster grabs her, she just stands there in absolute horror. Eventually, she begins talking to herself, ending with "I'm sorry!" before beginning to fall apart (in a, judging by the sounds she makes, quite painful manner). And she nearly does, before Steven snaps her out of it.
      • After the fusion monster is poofed, Garnet's personality completely loses control for a few seconds, causing Ruby and Sapphire to express their distress out loud through her mouth.
        Garnet (Ruby): (angry) So THIS is what Homeworld thinks of fusion.
        Garnet (Sapphire): (quietly) We couldn't have known they would do this...
        Garnet (Ruby): (furious) THIS is where they've been! ALL the ones we couldn't find! They've been here the whole time!
        Garnet (Sapphire): (shakily) Rose couldn't have known...
        Garnet (Ruby): THIS WAS PUNISHMENT FOR THE REBELLION!
        Garnet (Sapphire): IT'S NOT OUR FAULT!
    • Steven finally has one of these in "Mindful Education", when, while fused with Connie as Stevonnie during training in the Sky Arena, the fusion causes them to vividly hallucinate, which happens if a person in the fusion is mentally or emotionally unstable. Steven is forced to see all the enemies he's failed to save in the fusion's Mental World, and all the trauma and guilt he's been suppressing for weeks starts coming out. Steven starts to break down.
      Stevonnie: [Steven's voice] I tried to help you. You wouldn't listen. I-I told you to stop. I had no choice! I'm sorry, I shouldn't —
      [Connie's voice] It's okay! It's okay to think about it!
      [Steven's voice]I thought I could, but it's so much! I can't do it!
      • Then, the figures burst into rays of light and converge, coruscating and morphing until they become an enormous image of Rose Quartz, Steven's Dead Mother, who's questionable actions of the past made it so Steven's enemies were too untrustworthy of him, mistaking him for Rose (due to them having the same gem) and trying to kill him. Normally seen as kind and calm in pictures and paintings of her, in Steven's mind, she's glaring down on Stevonnie with anger and disapproval. Stevonnie drops their sword and backs away, and can only repeat "no" over and over again while crying, right off the edge of the Sky Arena. Falling through the clouds, Steven and Connie Unfuse.
        Steven: (crying hysterically) I didn't want to hurt anyone! I'm sorry! None of them would let me help them! I had no choice!
        Connie: It's okay!
        Steven: No, it's not!
        Connie: But it's okay to think about it!
      • Connie manages to calm Steven down so they can fuse before they hit the ground, and use Stevonnie's floating powers to land safely, collapsing on the grass.
  • In the TaleSpin episode "A Bad Reflection on You", Baloo does this after a. realizing the award Shere Khan gave him is meaningless and b. getting captured by Don Karnage and his Air Pirates. However, he recovers when he learns that Kit still has faith in him.
    • Rebecca has a more comical variant in "I Only Have Ice For You", breaking down sobbing after she realises her guidebook to flying is useless and has gotten everyone captured by the Sky Pirates. Played more seriously later on when she admits rather humbly to Baloo that she's a much worse pilot than him and (supposedly) ruined their delivery, even he seems rather touched by this.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): This happens to Leonardo twice. The first time occurs after he is badly beaten and almost killed by the Foot Clan, which leaves him comatose and melancholy afterwards. The second time occurs after the turtles are handily defeated and have to resort to sacrificing themselves just to stop the Big Bad from winning. This necessity is fortunately prevented, but just the idea that the situation got that bad disturbs Leonardo. As the Big Brother, he blames himself for failing his family and goes into a self-destructive spiral, training obsessively, forcing his brothers to do likewise, and being surly and moody in general. It takes 13 episodes of not listening to Splinter, a literal journey, and a Star Wars-esque "yourself behind the Vader mask" moment to get Leonardo to recover his senses.
  • Downplayed and Played for Laughs in Teen Titans Go!: The Titans (minus Robin) started playing with files on Robin's desktop. This quickly overloads the PC's processer and causes it to crash with a blue error screen, which is a literal example of this trope.
  • In The Venture Bros., Brock undergoes one after learning that the circumstances of Jonas Venture's death, and the pretense of the Pyramid Wars that he was recruited into OSI to fight, were based on a lie.
  • In W.I.T.C.H., Hay Lin suffers a Heroic BSoD after believing that her grandmother Yan Lin has started serving Nerissa, and that her boyfriend has betrayed her as well. Hay Lin becomes depressed and nearly catatonic, culminating in a Transformation Sequence where her teammates call out their own elements happily, and Hay Lin just stands there, her head bowed. She gets out of it when she learns that the Yan Lin they've been fighting is actually a clone.
  • Young Justice:
    • The events of "Failsafe" cause various Heroic BSODs throughout the episode, from Wally's reaction to Artemis's death to M'Gann's reaction to... well, everything. In fact, the following episode "Disordered" is all about them coming to terms with the trauma and taking steps to get past their respective BSODs. Luckily for them, there are totally therapists.
    • Beast Boy has a small one in Season 2 when he comes across a landscape that causes him to have flashbacks about his mother's murder.
    • Later, M'Gann suffers another in "Before the Dawn" after she mind-rapes Kaldur, realising that he's still good and never killed Artemis, but leaving him comatose. She can barely function for the rest of the episode out of guilt. For many episodes afterwards she's terrified to use her psychic powers for anything other than bare minimum. Even a fellow Martian who specifically gives her permission to probe his mind (to prove he's not lying to them) has to basically force his memories into her instead, because she's too nervous to pry very deeply.

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