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Sometimes, trying to Break The Cutie can have consequences. Sometimes, the nicest person in a given show, movie or series gets pushed to the limit of what he or she can take. And the results...are not pretty.
The sweeter, gentler, more polite, and overall nicer a character is, especially if they're female, the worse it will be for the planet when they're subjected to one too many rounds of Break The Cutie, or Dude Wheres My Respect, Rant Inducing Slight, or hitting their Berserk Button. What was once a sweet and nice individual suddenly snaps and becomes something far worse then the Big Bad could have expected.
It's called Unstoppable Rage for a reason, you know.
Things get even worse if they're a Technical Pacifist, and worse still if they're an Actual Pacifist, since outright villains will only kill you. If a sweet, gentle soul snaps, all you can do is pray for a quick death.
This is also why pushing the Gentle Giant too far is generally a bad idea, and why Teaching Him Anger is a suicidal idea.
More unpredictable is the prediction and worry a completely serene character will go off the deep end, and clumsy attempts to avoid doing so. Likewise, the causes behind this Hidden Depth are rarely explored and vary depending on the show's genre. When it's used in a comedy it's usually just there, or explained as a "narrow" Berserk Button from a previous very traumatic and Hilarity Ensuing experience, or as the valve that will release all the pent up rage they repress in order to be nice in the first place. In a "straight" setting it's usually far more complex; commonly they are either damaged inside from a previous trauma and/or sitting on a very powerful "natural" rage instinct. They manage to cope well and control it albeit without completely excising it from their psyche, leading to being mistaken for a plain old Nice Guy. Least commonly, this is "just there", and will go off if the right (or wrong) line is crossed. One thing all causes have in common is that it's commonly very easy for the character to put the rage "back in the box". It may shock them and others to discover it's there, leading to much Character Development, but the rage rarely dictates the character's actions afterwards.
See also Good Is Not Nice, where one condition is when a normally nice character realizes that nice will not get things done in a situation. They can coincide, if the realization and the outrage are triggered at the same time.
Lets Get Dangerous, Crouching Moron Hidden Badass, Crouching Scholar Hidden Badass, The So Called Coward, and Who's Laughing Now can be seen as subtropes of this. The polar opposite of I Feel Angry. See also: Yandere, Mama Bear, Killer Rabbit, and Action Santa. While Mike Nelson may be a destroyer of worlds in his own right, he's not a woobie...we think.
Examples:
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Anime/Manga
- Belldandy from Ah My Goddess is a prime candidate, with her always presenting a quiet and gentle personality. Her sisters in particular treat her actually getting upset as dangerous and genuine cause for worry, because Belldandy's self-control IS largely why she's allowed access to tremendous powers, and the instances where this slips range from blowing out the lights in buildings to vaporizing an enormous summoned demon.
- Ray and Charles from Eureka Seven at first were perfect "parents" for Renton after he runs away. Especially compared to the captain of the ship he ran away from, Holland, who had been physically abusive. They were so nice and so perfect, you knew the writers were up to something, because they had to reestablish who the Designated Hero and the Designated Villain are.
- Grell Sutcliffe from Kuroshitsuji. Through most of the Jack the Ripper arc, he's the quiet/suicidal/crossdressing butler of Madame Red who more or less functions as comedy relief through his epic failure at being a butler. Until you catch him, of course. Then he pulls a grin that can be nightmare-inducing at best (In this troper's opinion, the anime version is worse but YMMV), proceeds to change his appearance dramatically and turns into a chainsaw-wielding transvestite psychopath that is very forward about his attraction to Sebastian, within the same five minutes talking about both wanting to cut him into pieces and bear his child. It's revealed that he's a shinigami gone pseudo-rogue, and has been the half of Jack the Ripper allowing Madame Red to commit her crimes without being under notice. He possesses supernatural speed allowing him to move across the city rapidly. The useless butler routine was just to keep suspicion off of him. He helps Madame Red kill the prostitutes because it's a distraction and he's bored with sticking to his list.
- Baccano seems to like this trope a lot: many of the characters come across as very amiable individuals, that is until you push them too far. For example: The resident shrinking violet Jacuzzi Splot once shot up eighteen Mafia speakeasies single-handedly, in one day, on a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge after the Russo family kills several of his friends.
- Claire Stanfield wasn't planning to kill you — no, siree. All he wanted to do was conduct his train, ogle that cute girl in the first class car, and tell silly ghost stories to pass the time. But no, you just had bring this whole "train hijacking" thing into this. And Tony — did you really have to kill Tony? What did he ever do to you? Oh well, it's too late now. He's just gonna have to teach you a lesson now. A very painful, bloody lesson...
- In the Light Novels, Eve Genoard also enacts this trope. When Gustavo Baggeta brags to her that he killed her father and oldest brother, she almost immediately casts aside her status as The Ingenue, picks up a dropped revolver, and tries to blow his head off.
- Bleach: The more straight example of this one is probably Captain Unohana Retsu. She is generally considered as a 'motherly' captain of a squad full of healers, often bullied by the battle-happy Squad 11. But apparently, the data book entry for her indicates she is the third most powerful captain, and when her squad gets bullied, one twisted look from her is enough to drive the bullies away. Also notable is that it has been revealed in the prologue arc that she is one of the original captains; the Fourth Division has never, ever had a captain besides her. Basically her personality does not fit her division, her division fits her personality.
- In particular near the end of the Soul Society arc, a pair of 11th Division members were complaining about not being treated like kings by the hospital staff. Unohana shows up and makes a few veiled threats against their physical well-being and they start pissing themselves.
- Also, towards the end of the Hueco Mundo arc, a group of Arrancar show up to kill Chad, and Unohana shows up with her Vice-Captain Isane. The leader of the Arrancar group scornfully demands to know who they are. Captain Unohana calmly and quietly states her name, her squad number, and her purpose. The leader calmly takes in this information, then starts practically screaming for his men to retreat.
- And also? Do not piss Orihime Inoue off. If you're lucky, you'll get an Armor Piercing Slap to the face; if you're unlucky, you'll be outright torn to pieces. Haha, just kidding. We're kidding. Maybe not.
- Even if she hasn't done anything too obviously violent yet, it's probably a bad idea to push someone whose powers involve retconning the fabric of reality into anything she wants.
- Gentle Giant Hachigen Ushoda manages to stay calm and polite even when he reveals himself to be pure Bad Ass.
- Monkey D. Luffy is generally a happy-go-lucky guy, and very cheerful...until you hurt his nakama, or his friends...or your nakama. Heaven help you if you do. It's about the only time that he ever takes off his Nice Hat.
- One notable example is when he gained a 100,000,000 million berry bounty, but he let Bellamy and his crew give him and Roronoa Zoro a beating because they said they don't believe Sky Island exists and thus weren't in the way of his journey. Then the bastards just had to beat up Cricket and steal his gold. Then, Luffy decided to get serious. What was scary about what came next was that Luffy didn't return screaming and calling names (with the exception of calling out Bellamy). He simply stood there and talked to him calmly, all while Bellamy was using his powers to bounce around him, insulting Luffy and the friends he attacked. Luffy calmly repeated Bellamy's question: "Do I know how to throw a punch?" before cracking his knuckles, and when Bellamy bounced to him, he gave him a single, powerful punch to the ground, leaving a nasty imprint of his knuckles in his face, before putting his hat back on. This troper almost thought Bellamy was dead. Luffy did get the gold back, Bellamy's first mate Sarquiss asked where he thought he was going (with his voice soaked in cowardice) Luffy simply raised his fist (still covered in the blood of his opponent), pointed up and said "The sky." They couldn't do or say shit. Turns out they found out the hard way that Luffy's bounty was Serious Business.
- Hayate Yagami from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is the master of a dangerous book that her guardians want to complete, as well as a sweet and caring girl that wouldn't hurt anyone. You can see where this is going. It does take a massive Xanatos Gambit to both give her the power to do this and a reason to snap, but snap she does.
- Then we have Nanoha herself, whose sweet and innocent persona distracts from the fact that she has the power of a Physical God. Her favorite method of making friends seems to be beating them to near death and asking questions while she does it.
- And the battle nuns of the Saint Church, who can go from caring nurse to hard-boiled soldier in a matter of seconds.
- Most of Riot Force 6's combatants are generally nice people that have combat capability equal with (at least) heavy artillery. And they can be really, really scary when they snap out.
- We also have another Hayate, this time the eponymous Hayate the Combat Butler who does this in both the anime and the manga whenever Nagi gets kidnapped. First during the first episode and more comically when he takes down a giant mecha with an machine gun.
- Maria certainly qualifies, arguably in a greater extent. Just say something about her age.
- When Nausicaa's father the King was murdered in Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind, the Kind Hearted Princess becomes a monstrous embodiment of hatred who slaughters the entire battalion responsible in an orgy of blood.
- Of course, that's just in the movie. In the manga, where her father dies much later, she merely attacks the invading battalion in defense of her home, and, for some reason, seems to be enjoying herself when she kills one of them, until Yupa stops her.
- In a flashback, we see Kaede Fuyou from SHUFFLE! go off the deep end on the male lead after her mother's death (Boxcutter Kaede), an effect that is repeated near the end of the series when the lead starts seriously going out with another girl. Kaede and the lead, Rin, have been living as husband and wife for close to ten years, which can be seen as Kaede trying to repair the damage her other self caused to Rin.
- Mai-HiME positively ADORES this trope:
- Polite and graceful Schoolgirl Lesbian Shizuru Fujino had been nothing but kind and supportive to her best friend and object of her affections, Natsuki Kuga, for half of the show. Near the end, though, that same love made her evil, sending her on a rampage to eliminate anyone who came between her and Natsuki. Shizuru's fandom remained loyal, though irritated that the writers went a cliched route, and because it happened so close to the end of the series to have any real emotional impact. Consider for a moment that she gets so depressed that she kills herself in the Dating Sim based on the anime if the protagonist decides to wind up with Natsuki, and the previous event may not seem quite as Wall Banger-y. Her popularity possibly gives her ending a note of hope, though, as well as a more sympathetic role in Mai-Otome.
- Similarly, the normally bubbly and cheerful Shiho Munakata lets her jealousy overcome her sanity, eventually leading to a showdown with the female lead Mai over a guy whom they both share as a Love Interest... leading to a no-win situation for poor Yuuichi. Who ends up pulling an Heroic Sacrifice in the end to stop both Mai and Shiho from fighting..
- Oh, and Reito Kanzaki? Mai's other love interest? The soft-spoken guy who wears all black? It turns out he's had the Big Bad living inside him for quite some time. One Post Episode Trailer has Nagi lampshade this by saying something like "Come on...you mean to tell me he didn't seem suspicious from the start?"
- Hell, Mai herself went into snap-out mode when she learned that Mikoto's actions led to Takumi's death. When you see her biting her lip and drawing blood, you know you screwed up big time.
- Don't forget Wataru Ishigami, Sister Yukariko's controversial love interest. One of his earlier apparitions had him dorkily spinning around Mai's brother Takumi and begging him to be his model for his next painting... And later he worms his way into Yukariko's heart, turns her against the other girls, harasses Yukino through text messages to break her, etc.
- Joked around with in Mahoraba because it has two such characters. The first is Tamami who has her eyes closed and generally acts nefarious to the protagonist and to others. The second is the protagonist's teacher, Shirogane-sensei, who throws bad students into "the Closet".
- Saki, one of Kozue's alternate personalities, could arguably apply, though she wouldn't necessarily become a threat to health and sanity. Her Break The Cutie threshold is insanely low.
- Used in Ranma 1/2 with regards to Kasumi: When the family goes out to dinner without her, everyone is terrified that, since she's usually angelically nice, this will mean that she'll snap and go psycho. When a knife is found stuck in the floor the all make for the door. It turned out that she dropped the knife when she noticed the neighbor's cat. When Ranma gets blamed for the ordeal, she merely gently pokes Ranma in the forehead while telling him "Bad", something that is generally done to young children, and then she wonders out loud if she went too far.
- This is also used straight in one of the manga chapters and an OAV ("Faster, Kasumi! Kill, kill!"). Kasumi is possessed by a vengeful ogre and everyone is afraid of her, but she acts as sweet as always... well, with a twist. She gains small ogre horns and longer nails, and performs her daily routine but adds something "evil" to it. i.e.: when she checks on Ranma's ripped shirt to sew it, she embroiders the word "Okama" ("queer" in Japanese) on its back instead. Since she's so angelic and sweet even when possessed, everyone is shit scared of her.
- Fan Fic writers seem to like this trope in regards to Kasumi.
- Your Mileage May Vary, but Akane Tendo can come off as one of these as opposed to being a Tsundere. With just about everyone, she's kind, forgiving, patient, sweet and generally easy to get on with unless you happen to make her mad. Ranma, however, actually seems to be able to tick her off with even greater ease then Spoiled Brat and (un)Loveable Sex Maniac Kuno, who routinely Glomps and otherwise harasses her. And when Ranma gets her mad, he usually ends up getting pummeled for it.
- Ranma's mother Nodoka Saotome is a rather nasty swing on this trope. She's a kindly, sweet woman whom both Ranma and Akane look up to, with the latter being implied to consider her almost a substitute mother... however, she is even more prone to put Honour Before Reason than any of the other cast members. Even though the Seppuku pledge her husband made is so vague that nobody else would even consider it to be worth the paper it was scrawled on, she's so devoted to it that she carries a sword everywhere she goes, just in case she meets Ranma and she decides he's unmanly. And this troper means everywhere- she's even shown sleeping and bathing with it. And it doesn't exactly take much for her to start pulling it out, either.
- Son Gohan in most of Dragonball Z, is apparently a pacifist, but, when provoked, can fly into a near psychotic rage and suddenly increase his strength to colossal heights. Through this, he was the first to achieve the level of Super Saiyan 2, although this ability seemed to be removed after the end of the Cell Saga...
- Part of that was because the power was channeled into his new Ultimate form in the Buu saga. He was also much more mature now, and not as easily angered. However, he almost did this again when Videl was getting her ass kicked by Spopovich.
- His father Goku qualifies, being a fairly nice guy even when beating - and occasionally killing - the people who threaten him and his loved ones. He always manages to keep fairly coolheaded about it and treats it all like sport, even when the stakes are deadly serious. Then he meets Freeza, who admits to enslaving and killing Goku's entire race, makes Vegeta cry in humiliation before killing him when he's helpless, seriously wounds Piccolo while trying to kill Goku's son, and then blows up Goku's best friend Krillin just for the sadistic hell of it. This finally pushes Goku over the edge and triggers his Super Saiyan transformation. After a couple minutes of humiliating, torturing, and smacking Freeza around, he regains his composure, though. This just makes him more dangerous.
- In the last episode of Death Note, The Ditz character Matsuda, upon learning that Light is actually Kira, breaks emotionally and shoots Light's hand when he tries to use a piece of the Death Note. When Light tries again, Matsuda flies into a furious rage and then seriously wounds Light with a barrage of bullets, only prevented from delivering the Coup De Grace by the other officers.
- Nyu from Elfen Lied counts: she's usually a bubbly, cheerful, super-cute blank slate girl, but try to hurt her and she will become Lucy, she will suddenly get Hidden Eyes and start speaking in a low, ominous voice, and it's instant Head A Splode for you! (in fact, the first time that happens, Lucy gouges out Bando's eyes and rips his arm off).
- Naruto. The title character, who recently refused to give in to his emotions and extract vengeance upon the man who just killed both of his teachers and leveled his village with the ground in order to break the chain of hatered has a malevolent, nine-tailed demon fox of unmeasurable power sealed into himself and this fox's power has a habit of seeping out of him whenever he loses his temper.
- After getting forced to play the sycophantic second fiddle to Akira Kogami for 19 episodes only to get sent out to hike up Mount Fuji for three weeks and lose his spot to a dumb bishounen, Minoru Shiraishi of LuckyStar's Show Within A Show finally lets Akira and her new assistant have it and trashes the set.
- He's even drawn slightly differently after the event, changing from his permanent closed eyes to tiny, pissed off ones. Even when he's not pissed off.
- Komachi in Yes! Precure 5 is easily the most passive member of the cast, and her power is just a shield. Near the end of the series, someone manages to really piss her off. Turns out that shield can be used as an offensive weapon after all—and she carves out an interesting new feature in the landscape.
- At the start of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Shinji Ikari is a loner and obviously has issues, but he's still generally quiet, kind and courteous. However, throughout the series, when the pressure on him proves to be too much, there's several occasions where he completely snaps and shows a violent, rage-filled side to his personality.
- Let's not forget that this manic rage is mirrored in his Eva's attitude, as Shinji goes insane with bloodlust, so does Unit 01, actually snapping off the limiters controlling it, after eating Zeruel.
- Kotonoha Katsura from School Days is polite, shy, naďve and gentle, as well as somewhat of a doormat. But if you push her too far? See Kotonoha get Mind Control Eyes, grab her saw and show you how well she can use it.
- Wolfgang Grimmer from Monster is possibly one of the nicest people you will ever meet... But do not upset him. Really, don't
- In Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, Rika herself notes, regarding the main cast, that, "They are all caring, gentle individuals. And yet, once the wheels of fate go awry, they become controlled by delusion and start committing deadly acts of violence." Considering how much this anime seems to enjoy breaking cuties, this shouldn't come as a surprise.
- In the end however, the Big Bad plotting all the terrible occurences turns out to be an apparent Nice One as well, even if she (Miyo Takano) looks half-stoned at all times, moonlights as a nurse, and apparently dies early into every cycle.
- Quatre Raberba Winner, The Smart Guy of the Gundam Wing team, is sweet, sensitive, and polite, but once he loses his father and one of this sisters and the people in his colony turns against him, he goes pretty much into an Unstoppable Rage, destroying an entire space colony. Until he almost kills his
crush best friend.
- Gentle, selfless, fatherly Shuuichirou Oishi from The Prince Of Tennis is pretty much the Team Mom of the Seigaku team. But press the very few buttons that can make him lose it when pressed? Let's just say that pretty much ''no one'' can stop him when he throws one of his extremely rare hissy fits.
- And it's not only Oishi, either! Shuusuke Fuji also looks and acts cheerful, pleasant and polite, but if you do anything to piss him off (specially if you threaten his friends or his little brother Yuuta), you should pray he's not your next tennis opponent or isn't near to you for quite a while.
- Outside of Seigaku, there's little Data Player Taichi Dan from Yamabuki. Sweet, feminine-looking, naďve, etc - and is capable of yelling at Jin Akutsu, one of the most violent players in the whole circuit.
- Code Geass's Princess Euphemia doesn't count since her genocidal rampage was caused by Geass and not any of her own pent-up aggression, but shy little fangirl Nina Einstein certainly does. She's almost perfectly normal, aside from her deep-seated fear of Japanese people and her rather obvious crush on Princess Euphemia, who intervened to save her from Japanese terrorists. When Euphinator was killed by Zero, though, she promptly turns a previous one note mention of her technical skill in a prior episode into building a hybrid nuclear/sakuradite bomb that causes an instant stalemate between Britannia and the Black Knights, as it's theoretically powerful enough to destroy all of the Tokyo Settlement if she triggers it, which the emotionally distraught girl is perfectly willing to do just for a chance to kill Zero.
- A running gag among certain circles is that the sweetest, most innocent character, Nunnally Lamperouge, actually hides a horrible dark side
 ◊ that will surface if she ever gets a Geass of her own or indeed regains sight.
- Considering what happens in the Nightmare of Nunnally Alternate Universe manga and what happened in episode 22 of R2, the possibility is out there.
- In Dangaioh, an ex Ordinary High School Student and Shrinking Violet is the leader of the group that pilots the huge Super Robot that gives its name to the series. Why? Because Miya Alice is capable of unleashing ENORMOUS Psychic Powers once she's mad, frightened, or determined to fight and protect her partners: Roll, Pai and Lamda.
- Rika from Kare Kano for most part is a quiet, unassuming girl but when she was a kindergartener, Rika found out that Kyo, an older boy who usually looks after her, was getting picked on, she saved Kyo from the high school bully by bashing him with a baseball bat. She really must have done a number on the guy, as she had blood splatter over her face.
- In Digimon Tamers, Takato is the least Hot Blooded out of all the goggle boys of the series. Guilmon was this by default (naive, yet a powerful fighter, voiced by Masako Nozawa — remind you of anyone on this page?), but Takato snaps when Beelzemon kills Leomon permanently...he was already not willing to forgive Beelzemon right before that moment, but what happens next is reminiscent of Adventure.
- Well, reminiscent... Taichi forced Greymon to evolve into a mindless monster that attacked everything in sight due to hotblood. Takato made WarGrowlmon turn into the EMBODIMENT OF APOCALYPSE itself, whose mere existance was a hazard to the integrity of the world, and sent it to EAT his opponent.
- Chrono of Chrono Crusade is a Cute Shotaro Boy that often gives speeches about The Power Of Friendship and behaves politely even to people that don't trust him because he's a demon. But he is a demon, and when his powers are unsealed he turns into his true form—a bishounen powerhouse with massive amounts of power. When his Berserk Button is pushed, he's been known to fly into Unstoppable Rage fits with little thought to any collateral damage that may occur.
- Don't mess with Simon the Digger. Seriously, don't.
- Played completely straight near the end of Inukami. The local Yamato Nadeshiko (appropriately named Nadeshiko) finally snaps when the Big Bad of the series kills her "master" and love interest, Kaoru, after leading him in a massive Xanatos Gambit designed solely to cause Kaoru to suffer utter despair. Nadeshiko prays to the Heavens for a power that she gave up because of nearly killing an entire human village after losing herself in bloodlust and proceeds to wail on the Big Bad for some time.
- Narutaru loves this trope, but the best example by far would have to be the local Lonely Rich Kid, Hiroko "Hiro-chan" Kaizuka. She's a quiet Ojou in sixth grade who is mercilessly bullied at school over her excellent grades, while at home her parents berate her whenever she gets anything less than a perfect score on any test (even though she's pressured by the bullies to do badly lest they torture her more). She tries enduring this abuse as best she can while remaining unconfrontational, but when the bullies take their actions to monstrous degrees and her father tries cutting off her ties with her only friend... well, let's just say she puts her new shadow dragon to very good use. The results are messy, to say the least.
- Currently being toyed with in Detective Conan with Okiya Subaru, a friendly Sherlock Holmes-loving grad student living in Conan/Shinichi's house who also gives Sherry the chills, which only happens around Black Organization members. Most likely it's just a "friends close, enemies closer" plan.
- Conan's excuse for letting the fox-faced Subaru stay at his house: "A person who loves Sherlock Holmes couldn't possibly be evil!"
- Stepford Smiler Kafuka Fuura from Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei hides a bloodlust that makes those who are acutely aware of her cheerful facade mortally terrified of her. Her classmate Meru takes one look in Kafuka's eyes and is confident that one day, she will kill them all.
- Hitohira. Beware of Nono when she's angry.
- Negi-sensei is a prime example. Normally the ten year-old teacher is kindly to the point of adorable, but in more recent manga chapters he has been a particularly awesome example of this trope. At one point, he finds that three of his students have been enslaved, and one is being tortured by shock collars. Negi gives exactly one warning, and proceeds to beat the guy to a pulp when he chooses not to listen. In addition, his recent acceptance of the power of darkness makes him so fearsome that even his students are uneasy.
- There's also an incident where Satsuki freaks out a couple of guys who try to start a fight in her restaurant.
- Subaru from .hack//SIGN is about the most likeable character in the show. Then in comes the GIFT Affectionate Parody OVA where she poleaxes Ginkan for disregarding her orders so brutally that Censor Steam is employed in the scene (implying that it wouldn't be appropriate even for 17+ audiences).
- Kurama of Yu Yu Hakusho is generally polite to everybody else and arguably the nicest member of the cast... unless you piss him off (threatening his mother is a good way to do that). Then he will kill your ass in very brutal and bloody way that involves lots of pretty flowers. Or worse.
- Henrietta in Gunslinger Girl is as cute as a button... until an assault on her beloved handler Giuseppe brings back subconscious memories of her own childhood trauma. Then she proceeds to kill everyone in sight.
- In Axis Powers Hetalia, Hungary, the cute young girl who was Austria's maid and later advisor before marrying him, will not hesitate to invoke her massive fighting skills (which she acquired when she was a pint-sized warrior girl) and maul you if you hurt her husband (Well, she might hesitate if you're a cute male and you're molesting him. And not always, mind you. You're warned, France)
- And Lithuania? That nice guy? Quite a good spy and fighter who won't hesitate to put a knife to your neck if your threaten someone he cares for, specially his old friend Poland. You're warned, Prussia.
- As a child, Italy at one point completely kicked Turkey's ass. Turkey's 'I really hate kids' says it all. Greece is amused.◊
- Let's not forget that, if you make the sweet Meganekko Canada lose his patience, you'll find yourself on the receiving end of an hilarious yet absolutely epic The Reason You Suck Speech. If America couldn't get his brother off his back for three hours straight, then so won't you.
- Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka from Ouran High School Host Club is a short, blond cutie with a love of sweets and cute things, and is classified as the "lolishota type" member of the club. Renge cheerfully squeals about how he's so Moe. Harmless, right? WRONG! Honey just happens to be a black belt and heir to a family of VERY skilled martial artists. He's kicked the ass of grown soldiers twice his size, and strikes terror with a single look into the other hosts when they accidentally spill tea on his favorite stuffed rabbit.
- That's his dark side, Dark Honey.
- Nadeshiko Fujisaki: sweet, calm, polite, and all around pleasant...that is, unless, you happen to spark her character change. Note: I know Nadeshiko is actually a boy but I don't want to spoil people who don't know this yet
- Shiho from Zettai Karen Children gets more and more aggressive tendencies as the series progresses—sometimes to sadistic levels. You really don't want her to use her telepathic abilities on you when she is in one of those moods.
- Episode 40 confirms that this applies to Minamoto as well. Piss him off and you risk getting a bottle smashed against your skull or having him remotely operate a giant drill vehicle and demolish the premises.
- Haruka Minami from Minami-ke is actually the scariest character in the entire franchise... in addition to being a Yamato Nadeshiko in development (and an Onee Sama). She acts as a mother towards her two younger sisters. Remember how scared you got when you messed up & your mother lost her temper?
- Hotaru Tomoe in Sailor Moon S is a nice, peaceful girl... who can beat the demons just by looking funny at them.
- Gundam SEED: Kira Yamato is generally a polite, soft-spoken person who cries easily, and as The Messiah, he's careful not to kill his enemies in combat, preferring to just disable their mobile suits, at least after he gets the Freedom. However, when the Big Bad needlessly kills his Fallen Princess ex-girlfriend Flay right in front of him (and right after they had just found each other, after much misfortune), Kira chucks his "No Killing" rule out the window, resulting in a spectacular fight sequence that culminates with him ramming a beam saber through the villain's cockpit and leaving him in front of his Kill Sat as it fires.
- Another Gundam SEED example would be Miriallia Haw. As Gundam pilot Dearka Elsman finds out, Do Not make a snide remark to her when she's grieving and there is a sharp object nearby. You WILL regret it.
- Mirajane. Read the most recent two chapters and... well, yeah...
- Fuyuki from Keroro Gunsou fits this tropes.
- Cho Hakkai in Saiyuki is polite and quiet-spoken and generally the nicest of the protagonists... unless he's pushed too far. When he really lets loose, he terrifies even Goku.
- For the most part, Major Alex-Louis Armstrong is the epitome of a Large Ham Gentle Giant. Emotionally scarred by the idea of killing civilians, always trying to give his opponents the chance of surrendering, had a terrible Heroic BSOD during the Massacre of Ishbal, etc... Then a homunculus goes and tries to kill his older sister. BAD idea.
- Also, do NOT piss off Alphonse "Al" Elric. Seriously, DON'T. If his older brother Ed can't beat him in a fight, you won't.
- Galaxy Fraulein Yuna's title character: sweet, bubbly, loves making friends with everyone she meets, whether they started out hostile or not. If you value your continued existence, absolutely do not kill any of her friends. Beating them up but letting them survive is apparently okay, but Genmu crossed the line and paid for it.
- Tsubaki from Soul Eater is usually shy and humble. Thus, when she finally and truly stands up for herself in the fight against her brother, the result was pure awesome.
- Similarly, this series' personification of Death is not only a good guy, he's funny-looking and goofy — but that's just a form he uses to avoid scaring his students. Pity the villain who's dangerous enough to make Shinigami-sama go old-school.
- Same goes for Demon Hammer Marie Mjolnir, a lovely, sweet lady who is also known as the 'Crushing Weapon' for a reason. When confronting the murderer of BJ, Justin Law, she reacts to the possibility of him harming her students by landing a punch on his chest so hard he's thrown into the air. This comes after Justin, having clearly forgotten what series he's in, points out that though he and Marie are both Death Scythes, she has only a "woman's power"..
- When it comes down to it, Yamamoto Takeshi from Katekyo Hitman Reborn definitely fits this. Put a baseball in his hands, or tell him to throw or hit something, expect him to get a serious samurai look and go absolutely all out on a simple game or task. Ask a poor, injured Lambo who just wanted to play catch. Though... This comes in handy sometimes.
- Gon from Hunter X Hunter. Cute, lovable, Gon. . .don't hurt or threaten any of his Nakama. Seriously, don't. He's scarier then Killua when pissed.
- Fruits Basket has at least two examples, if not more. Kagura Souma is usually a cute, sweet girl with a cheerful disposition, but she actually shows her love for Kyou by beating him to a pulp on sight, especially if he refuses her advances. This frequently leads to Shigure's house being broken, and when they were both little kids apparently she got Kyou to propose to her by threatening him with a knife (or a big rock in the anime). Hatsuharu Souma is usually kind, if eccentric and a little out of it, but when he snaps, he turns into "Black Hatsuharu," a bloodthirsty version of himself with a whole lot of attitude. Both are not to be trifled with, and whatever you do, do NOT touch their love interests.
- Andromeda Shun of Saint Seiya is a Technical Pacifist and is, on more than on occasion, called the kindest and gentlest of the five main Saints. He's the kind of guy who begs his enemies not to fight and lets them beat him within an inch of his life rather than fight a battle he doesn't believe in. That is, until you try to kill one of his friends. And lord help you if you're the bastard who murdered his teacher...
- In Yu Gi Oh 5D's, Carly Negisa is a sweet, eccentric girl whose love of The Lancer Jack Atlas is incredibly cute. However, when she gets killed in a Psychic Duel trying to get information about the Arcadia Movement to help him, she turns into a Dark Signer and unleashes a certified, factory-sealed can of whoop-ass on her murderer, Divine, for robbing her of a chance to be happy with Jack. This is done in a fashion that would be Nightmare Fuel if the bastard didn't completely deserve it.
- Somehow, Divine survives the whole thing, but still. 'Dang.'
- Kamijou Maki from Hayate Cross Blade is perhaps the most notable example in her series. For almost 6 volumes, the readers hardly ever see her making an appearance for more than a couple of pages (which was even lampshaded in a side story), and when they do, she's portrayed as a whipped, mild-mannered, low-profile dork. Then one opponent breaks her right arm. Her response? "The judges can't stop me here. How lucky."
Comic Books
- Subverted at least twice in Superman comics (perhaps to be expected, featuring as it does the ultimate Nice Guy):
- An issue of Superman entitled 'What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?' sees Superman challenged by a Darker And Edgier superteam who aren't afraid to kill and maim their enemies, and deride Superman as a moral weakling who's past it and afraid to deal with issues 'properly'. Eventually, challenging Superman to a fight, they pound and pound and seamingly break him — but, in a completely unstoppable explosion of pure superhuman rage, he seemingly destroys and kills each one of them, and uses his X-ray vision to completely destroy the tumor in the head of his opponent that was giving him his powers. However, it's revealed that Superman was still holding back. Each member of the 'dark' team is alive and well (if somewhat battered) and the leader's powers still remain, and he has merely given them "a psychic concussion" — because, as he explains to the leader, he wanted to give them a sense of what it felt to be powerless under such unstoppable brutality (namely, the feeling their victims had and a sense of what it would be like if he was actually like that. It wouldn't be pretty.
- A sequel to this story sees the leader of this team, in an attempt to yet again break Superman, apparently kill Lois Lane, and the issue follows an enraged Superman beating the leader to a pulp before killing him. However, in yet another subversion, it's revealed that this was just a momentary fantasy, and Superman, although enraged and grief-stricken, merely intends to arrest the leader and then mourn his wife. Astonished, the leader asks him why — and Superman merely replies that neither beating nor killing him would bring Lois back, and would in fact shame her memory. Broken when he realizes that Superman is the genuine article, the leader reveals that Lois' death was merely an illusion.
- In an actual example, there's the Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything", in which Mongul traps Superman in a Lotus Eater Dream of a Krypton that never blew up by means of an evil plant called the Black Mercy. The dream gradually turns into a nightmare as the Justice League battles Mongul, and when Batman finally frees him from the plant, Superman proceeds to unleash his rage in full upon Mongul, including one memorable scene in which he blasts the tyrant with his heat-vision: "BURN."
- Probably the best Superman example was the famous "Death of Superman" arc. Losing to a monster that took out the entire Justice League with one hand tied behing its back, he comes to a grim decision. "To stop him I'll have to be as ruthless as he is." To which Lois replied with "But he wants to kill, and you CAN'T" also qualifies as a Last Stand, as he truly intended it to be a fight to the finish that would claim the lives of both combatants.
- Then there's Alan Moore 's Silver Age Superman swan song, 'Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow'. The alt-future adult Legion Of Super-Villains joins the attack on the historically-doomed Man Of Steel killing the empowered Jimmy and Lana as they go. When Cosmic King taunts him to toss them Lois, so that so that they can kill her like his 'other girlfriend' his eyes burn red—the heat vision is a mirror of the pure rage on his face. He burns Lightning Lord's arm, and then, Saturn Queen reveals via telepathy that he's not kidding, and means to kill them all. Their locked-in victory no longer certain, they beat a very hasty retreat to the future.
- In the second issue of John Byrne's Alpha Flight, the 'til now sweet and innocent Marrina figures out she's an alien. Another of her teammates is still in hospital three issues later...
- In issue 42 of Marvel's "What If?" comic, we see an alternate universe where Susan Richards perishes in childbirth due to actions by the villain Annihilus. Driven mad with grief, Reed Richards turns his considerable mental chops from creating gadgets to getting the most violent, terrible revenge he can. He proves to be a far deadlier unhinged genius than Doom ever was, and even causes Namor to tell him to calm the heck down. This being an out-of-continuity tale, it doesn't work.
- Another from The DCU: Plastic Man. Although he's normally the team clown, he can get... testy, if pushed. In "The Obsidian Age", he helps the team recover from the psychological effects of time-travel with bad jokes. Then, when Rama Khan sets the Martian Manhunter on fire, Plastic Man uses his own ductile body to choke the dude into unconsciousness ("You like burning? How about the burning on the inside on your lungs right now, like that?") and subsequent brain-damage.
- In the House of M version of New X-Men: Academy X, Laurie Collins (in the original series, something of a Woobie) uses her power to make Quentin Quire commit suicide and then tries to make the opposing squads of New Mutants (her own squad) and Hellions kill each other. It turns out she is The Mole from SHIELD. This troper isn't sure if this is a subversion, or playing it straight, or just the writers having fun royally screwing the characters up.
- Colossus from the X-Men is normally the team's Gentle Giant, except for when Nightcrawler and Shadowcat are gravely injured by Riptide and Harpoon during the Mutant Massacre. On a single page that still gives this troper chills, Colossus snaps Riptide's neck and swears to do the same to Harpoon.
- This troper seems to remember that the incident was a little more like Colossus intentionally putting Riptide in the position of pretty much accidentally snapping his own neck, more or less...
- Or in Days of future past when Wolverine and Storm are killed. One panel focuses on Colossus' grief-striken face. The next panel shows us a sentinel getting thrown through a skyscraper.
- Spider Man. Oh sure, he's a little hot-headed and reckless at times, but for the most part he's a good guy. He's also one of the few superheroes who makes a rule of not killing and manages to be cool in spite (or even because) of it. But if you mess with him, and I mean really mess with him...well let's just say if Norman Osborn's glider hadn't made a Goblin Kabab out of him when he killed Gwen Stacy, Spidey's arm would have.
- And he became downright scary in Back In Black. I doubt Kingpin will ever mess with him again (Oh wait, that didn't happen now). And let's not forget the whole "throwing a Jeep through a wall at the sniper" thing.
- And then there's the What If?: Back In Black issue. He beats the crap out of Iron Man (Multiple times) and murders Kingpin.
- Quick tip for villains - if Spider-Man is fighting you, make sure he's joking around. If he isn't, then congratulations — you've succeeded in really pissing him off. You will now get your ass handed to you. Very painfully.
- Mrs. Jean Grey, also of the X-Men. Despite that she has an occasional temper and she is most known for her tragic sacrifice in the Dark Phoenix Saga, she is mostly a very compassionate and loving woman who cares for just about everyone around her. Mostly is the key word here as when she found out that Rich Bitch Emma Frost had a telepathic affair with her husband Scott, she broke into Emma's mind and humiliated her severely. Also, when a team of mutant organ harvesters known as the U-Men attacked the X-Mansion, she used her powers to make them vomit and defecate in their suits before she tore them off and made them flee.
- Let's not forget Squirrel Girl. Sweet disposition, friendly, a noticeable lack of Angst and apparently the loser in the Superpower Lottery. She's taken down a wide swath of A-list villains.
- Clearbrook in Elf Quest is usually the calmest, most rational elf you could hope to meet, but after her lifemate One-Eye is killed by trolls she briefly becomes a trollicidal berserker during the subsequent elf-troll war. Definitely not played for laughs, as the other elves know her rage could destroy her.
- Of all the Young Avengers, shapeshifter Hulkling is probably the sweetest, most polite guy on the team. But... don't hurt his boyfriend. They don't call him "Hulkling" just because he's green.
- There was once this really nice guy, who had finally come back from the Vietnam War and just wanted to spend it with his family. He was an ordinary retired Marine, who loved his wife and two children wholeheartedly. Then, he took them to a picnic in Central Park....
- DCU's Miss Martian. M'gann is notoriously sweet, charming and really just the kind of person that likes cute puppies, however she is actually a member of the stupefyingly powerful White Martian race, and although she isn't a bad guy in the slightest whether or not she'll succumb to her baser instincts is always up for debate. In later issues she fights and then merges with an evil future version of herself who apparently committed and instigated such unspeakable crimes against humanity that the entire White Martian race was captured and enslaved because of her.
- Dr. Magnus, creator of the DCU's Metal Men, is normally a fairly timid guy. As 52 showed us, though, after being kidnapped, forced to recreate the Plutonium Man, pushed to the breaking point by Chang Tzu, and deprived of his medication, he battles, and defeats, a member of the Great Ten with nothing but a group of makeshift six-inch Metal Men and a particle wave weapon. He even frightens off other Mad Scientists, after they had previously been almost eager to confront the JSA. As he puts it: "I DO CRAZY THINGS WITHOUT MY MEDS!"
- There's also Tin. Tin is a shy, meek little milquetoast with a pronounced stammer and a very slight physique. However, he's got something to prove and is repeatedly shown to actually be the bravest of the Metal Men when it comes down to it. Also, he will fuck you up given half a chance and proper motivation.
- Bruce Banner is usually a pretty nice guy. Just don't get him angry.
Film
- Shaun in Shaun Of The Dead, whilst not exactly sweet and gentle, is almost supernaturally willing to put up with the slobby, selfish and lazy behaviour of his best friend Ed, and will defend Ed to anyone who criticises Ed for these qualities. Then, Shaun has an epiphany, the Dead rise and start to claim the Earth, and Ed makes the mistake of pushing Shaun's tolerance of his self-centred and increasingly reckless behaviour a little too far when he takes a trivial phone call on his mobile and puts everyone at risk:
Shaun: What you doing, you stupid moron?
Ed: Fuck off!
Shaun: You fuck off! Fuck fucking off! I've spent my whole life sticking my neck out for you, and all you ever do is fuck things up! Fuck things up and make me look stupid! Well, I'm not going to put up with it anymore, okay?! Not today!
- In a similar vein, Silent Bob, of the various movies made by Kevin Smith, finally reaches his limit for Jay's abuse and idiocy and yells at Jay. Though the explosion is short-lived, it is the only time Silent Bob raises his voice.
- Similarly, whenever there is fighting to be done in Dogma, Silent Bob is in the thick of it. He knocks out the Golgothan with his trusty deodorant spray, and throws both Bartleby and Loki from the commuter train.
- Yoda, when facing a Sith Lord in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
- Speaking of Star Wars, remember that sweet kid Anakin in Episode I? Whatever happened to him?
- In Sky High, Leila refuses to use her plant-control powers for violence, even when being taunted by the self-replicating cheerleader Penny - until Penny slaps her.
- Repo! The Genetic Opera has Nathan Wallace, a sweet, loving, gentle, somewhat campy man who dotes on his daughter, Shilo. He also happens to be a Repo Man. In 'Let The Monster Rise', when he realises that Rotti has stolen Shilo from him, he completely snaps. It ain't pretty.
- Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Gizmo, tired of the Gremlins abusing his gentle nature, fashions a flaming arrow out of office materials and burns Spider Mohawk alive.
Murray Futterman: What happened to him?
Billy: I don't know. I guess they pushed him too far.
- At the beginning of Death Wish, Paul Kersey is a kind, patient man who loves his wife and daughter. A conscientious objector, he served in the Korean War as a battlefield medic, and currently makes his living as an architect in New York. One day, his home is broken into by three men who rape his daughter and kill his wife. Kersey goes to town on the local criminal scum, killing eleven men before being told by the police to leave town. But it seems there are still thieves and murderers in Chicago...
- John Candy had moments like this in his movies sometimes.
- Pretty much the entire plot of Carrie.
- Optimus Prime in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen. Sure, he's Optimus Prime, who willingly takes orders from humans, and would like nothing more than to find a diplomatic solution to the war that wouldn't mean killing any more of his kind, but let us not forget that he's supposed to be the single greatest Autobot warrior of all time. Don't believe me? In Revenge, he fights Megatron, Starscream and Grindor, all at the same time. To a standstill. And kills Grindor. And comes close to killing Starscream before getting backstabbed by Megatron.
- Lahr the Gelfling from the The Dark Crystal prequel manga. He starts the story as a laidback shepherd. Then Garthim destroy his village, kidnap all of his friends and family, and break his flute. Lahr reacts by stabbing a Garthim to death with the broken flute and wields the flute like a sword for the rest of the book He later helps convince a nearby Gelfling village to take up arms against a Garthim swarm. This when Gelflings were an artistically inclined, peaceful race who had believed Garthim to be indestructible.
Literature
- Discworld has:
- Magrat Garlick, "the nice one" of the main witches of Lancre, a kind, romantic Granola Girl who just wants to help people and who seems used to being treated as a doormat and a wet hen. She's also demonstrated a willingness to fight viciously if pushed too far (witness what she does to the "Sisters" in Witches Abroad, or the elves in Lords and Ladies).
- She's like a small, furry animal. "And the trouble with small furry animals in a corner is that, just occasionally, one of them's a mongoose."
- Though not as obvious as Magrat, Nanny Ogg is definitely someone you don't want to piss off. Contrast to Granny Weatherwax, Nanny is the nicest person you're likely to meet(unless you're one of her daughter-in-laws), but pushing her is a very bad idea, evidenced by her threatening the Elf king.
- "A mind like a buzzsaw behind a face like an old apple. She may actually be more powerful than Granny."
- Heck, for that matter, Granny Weatherwax is a semi-example. She's not exactly what you would picture when you think "nice" but what you see is her nice side. You don't want to see her when she's being mean.
- There's also a rare male example of this trope in Carrot Ironfoundersson, a six-foot-six tall dwarf (adopted human, of course). He is perfectly kind, lawful, and incorruptible in a city that is far from any of the above, always sees the bright side of things, and is friendly to everyone he meets. He can convince bloodthirsty desert tribesmen not to charge (or, as one who knows said tribesmen says, "Make water run uphill"), get rival street gangs to play football, and have a friendly chat with a dictatorial if cultured tyrant. He's also strong and skilled enough to fight hand-to-hand with an alpha male werewolf and survive (in The Fifth Elephant), has a punch that will knock out a troll (those are guys made of solid rock, for those keeping score), and along with having a sword sharp and strong enough to do it, push a sword through a stone pillar like a knife through butter (in Men At Arms). It is not a good idea to give him a reason to take the gloves off, as the man standing between Carrot and said pillar found out.
- Oddly enough, Carrot also subverts the trope by his buttons not being pushable by most personal methods. When his girlfriend/lover/person-with-whom-he-has-an-Understanding is kidnapped (in Jingo) and skips town (in The Fifth Elephant), he informs the proper authority before trying to go after her. This is because he believes with all his heart that personal is not the same as important.
- I'd say this makes him MORE dangerous. How many heroes have been dissuaded from doing in the bad guy by a convenient personal appeal?
- Remember, Boys and Girls; "If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you are going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat ... A good man will kill you with hardly a word."
- At one point Angua asks him if he'd kill her if she'd let her werewolf instincts get the better of her. He ponders the question and replies that yes, he would. It was the answer she wanted to hear, though.
- And Mort in Mort. Death's controlling ways and preference for extreme consequences causes him to challenge the Grim Reaper himself in one-on-one combat. "My name is Mort, you bastard!"
- Stephen King's Carrie, who on top of all the abuse heaped on her at school and by her mother, has one too many things go wrong on prom night, and thus goes on a killing spree.
- Stephen King excels at this trope; Cujo was another example, and Jack Torrance (though he did have a history) in The Shining.
- Not movie Torrance, though. We all know he was crazy from the start. He's played by Jack Nicholson, that should be a warning sign.
- And let's not forget Jake of the Dark Tower series. A nice normal little kid - but capable of being as ruthlessly efficient a killing machine as any other Gunslinger when necessary.
- Near the end of A Storm of Swords, Tyrion Lannister finds out that his horribly abused first wife Tysha, who he thought was a prostitute, actually loved him. This is the last straw, and he swears vengeance on his family and kills his father (on the privy, no less) along with his former concubine (who had humiliated him during a show trial). *And* he tells his older brother Jaime that sooner or later he'll kill him too, for obeying their dad's orders of following the charade.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has at least one lovely example of this. Molly Weasley is normally a pretty sweet-natured lady. However, make the mistake of threatening her baby girl, as Bellatrix Lestrange did, and you'd better hope your life insurance policy is up to date.
- Edmond Dantes from The Count Of Monte Cristo.
- To elaborate, Edmond was a guy who had everything going for him, then lost everything thanks to being screwed over by whom he thought were his friends. What ensues is a gigantic Xanatos Gambit to take revenge on every last one of them and their families.
- In The Dresden Files book Summer Knight, the faerie Aurora, the Lady of the Summer Court (which is generally much, much nicer than its counterpart the Winter Court), gets so sick of seeing the suffering caused by the continual war between the two Courts that she kills Summer's human Knight (their emissiary to the mortal world), stores his power in a changeling girl, turns said girl into a statue, and plans to sacrifice the girl in order to transfer the power to Winter, tipping the balance of power in Winter's favor and causing the end of the world as we know it.
- In the same book, Changeling Fix beats the crap out of the Winter Knight Lloyd Slate with a wrench after he mortally wounds Meryl.
- And now Fix is the new Summer Knight, with the powers that come with the office.
- Don't forget Ivy. A child with all the accumulated knowledge of the entire human race, and more then enough magic to back it up. She effortlessly kills fallen angels while being carried by Harry in Small Favors, her magical prowess allowing her to fight multiple fallen angels at once.
- For that matter, Harry Dresden himself can be considered one of these. He comes off as cheerfully geeky, quoting comics and movies in the middle of dangerous situations, which sometimes leads people to forget he's a damn decent wizard in his own right.
- In the first book of Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts's Empire Trilogy, the basically sweet and gentle Mara, who has had the position of ruler thrust upon her, marries a young man who starts abusing her on their wedding night. In response, she manipulates him into a position where he's forced to commit ritual suicide.
- Heck, messing with Lady Mara is generally a VERY bad idea. Consider the way she snaps in Mistress of the Empire, when she has her spymaster eradicate an entire order of assassins because they killed her son, another not-yet-born child of hers and very nearly herself.
- Honor Harrington in the eponymous series. Even though warfare is her business, when she's not doing that, she pours her personal resources into public and charitable works. She'll even take it when abuse gets heaped on her head. But harm somebody she considers to be under her protection, and you unleash an Unstoppable Rage that will run you to the ground.
- The nicest character in the Wheel Of Time is Perrin Aybara, a henpecked husband, thats basically his wife's bitch. In one memorable scene after his wife has been kidnapped he chops off an Aiel's hand, orders an Aes Sedai to heal the stump, and then tells the Aiel that unless he talks Perrin will cut off his other hand and his feet, and then dump him into a town, so the Aiel can beg for a living. Then he walks away.
- The Ogier are an entire race of nice guys (on the main continent, at least). The saying 'To anger an Ogier and to pull a mountain over your head' is thought to refer to two impossibilities. Events show that it might have originally read 'To anger an Ogier is to pull a mountain over your head.'
- The Betsy The Vampire Queen series gives us Laura, daughter of Satan and one of the nicest people you could meet, since she's trying to be an Anti Anti Christ. Problem is, when she gets mad, she breaks out a sword of hellfire and slaughters everything in the area. Those instincts are a bitch to keep restrained.
- More of a "Nice Civilization" than "Nice Person", The Culture, the society in Iain M. Banks' series of novels, makes a point of being morally and ethically spotless, considers it their mission to find and improve the lives of "lesser species" and likes to ensure its denizens live happy and carefree. When you threaten this mission, they will go to war, and you will lose.
- Not only that, but the Culture is basically a civilisation of space hippies, whose Hat is "Make love, not war": they are so reluctant to go to war that it takes years long debate among its 30.000+ billions citizen to makes the Culture go to war. When the Idiran Empire crossed the line in Consider Phlebas, the war that followed cause the destruction of more that 14,000 space colonies, the death of over 850 billion intelligent beings, and the destruction of more than 50 planets and 6 stars: When you encounter space hippies, remember to be polite, courteous, and do not accuse them of being a threat to your way of life: if pissed off, they will blow up your home solar system. They may be softly spoken, but they carry really big sticks.
- Lampshaded in that one of their spaceships is actually named i said, i've got a big stick (which is supposed to be spoken softly...)
- There's the saying, quoted in several books "Do Not Fuck With The Culture." This is proved rather horrifically in Look to Windward.
- The Mord Sith in the Sword of Truth series are the kindest, gentlest and most sensitive girls that can be found. They make the best torturers once they've been broken, because the greatest cruelty comes from the greatest kindness.
- In the book The Last Knight, Sir Michael is constantly honest, chivalrous and idealistic, much to his streetwise squire Fisk's disgust. But after Michael has spent a few weeks in a dungeon being force-fed experimental potions, even Fisk notes that he "preferred the crazy Sir Michael to the ruthless one."
- Cassie from the Animorphs series. Sure, she might be in a war, but only reluctantly (and she's usually the one pushing for 'plans other than kill them all'). But if you piss her off, heaven help you. Just ask Davis, who made the mistake of calling her the n-word - whereupon she turned into a polar bear and pinned him to a wall.
- Likewise the Chee - immensely strong androids, and hard-wired pacifists. Except the one time Erek was freed from that part of his programming, and proceeded to wipe out an entire strike force single-handed. It's mentioned at some point that he did more damage in one or two hours than the Animorphs themselves did in months of missions.
- And the Hork-Bajir are Beware The Nice Ones writ large: an entire race of peaceful, not-very-smart herbivores that are covered in blades so that they could strip bark from trees. The Yeerks happened to think they would make excellent shock troops, and Aldrea, the lone Andalite on their planet, encouraged them to fight back, instigating a very long, bloody war. They lost that one, but the Hork-Bajir who escaped have "Free or dead!" as their motto, and have become very willing to fight and kill to protect what they have, as Dak Hamee sadly observed.
- Two notable examples within The Lonely Winds : George Manor and Nails. Nails, while generally laid-back, gentle and amiable in spite of his nickname, has had several instances of hitting a berserk button when he sees others being hurt or abused, up to and including a Crowning Moment Of Awesome. George, the ordinarily loopy and silly-seeming mentor, has on occasion been observed to break bones and in one instance to immolate an opponent with magic when his charges or other innocents are threatened or hurt.
- In the Whateley Universe, Jade Sinclair (Generator) qualifies. Normally the cute, shy, wacky 'little sister' figure, when she's pushed too hard one day, and then attacked by Bloodwolf (an avatar of the werewolf spirit) and two fellow Ultraviolents, she snaps. Bloodwolf ends up nailed to a tree. With railroad spikes.
- Lately she seems to be actively considering a potential career as the Psycho Babysitter From Hell — perfectly harmless to her future charges, but woe to whoever thinks to threaten them.
- It bears mentioning that, of those among her circle of friends who have killed other people (which include a terrifyingly powerful mage, a girl who wields a sword that can cut through anything, a soul-eating demon and Tennyo The Motherfucking Destroyer), Jade's kill count exceeds the rest combined by a factor of four. At the very least.
- Speaking of which, Tennyo herself is a very kind, if somewhat somber, person who spends a lot of time worrying about accidentally hurting others with her powers. Considering how powerful she is, she has good reason to worry, so it is generally considered a very bad idea to give her a reason not to care about this.
- In fact, let's put the entirety of Team Kimba, plus Carmilla, on the list.
- The New Testament has Jesus, who is willing to forgive all the sins of humanity. But, when you reject God, turn the temple into a black market bazaar, and in this way prevent believers from worshipping God...I'd say "God help you," but I doubt He will.
- The book series Murphy's Lore takes place in a supernatural pub. The owner of said establishment is a kindly leprechaun named Padriac Moran, or Paddy for short. Normally, he's wise, gentle, and refuses to kill anything, including undead, because all life is sacred in his eyes. However, if you were to, say, desecrate the memory of his dead wife on the anniversary of her death, which the devil unwisely chose to do, at which point he will have enough alcohol in him to pickle a sperm whale, you will probably find yourself getting crushed as Paddy makes the floor beneath you turn into a mouth and bite you.
- Daine is a nice young girl from the mountains with frizzy hair and a good hand with animals. Then tell her that her beloved teacher is murdered. She'll reanimate dinosaur fossils, tear down a palace, specifically destroy tax rolls and imperial records to make the damage last, and get the entire nation's rats to infest the ruins for a year and a day. In the next book, when she finally corners the man responsible, not that Numair actually died, but still: She goes after him buck-ass naked with a badger claw and tears his throat out.
- Ashfur began literary life as a sweet, shy young apprentice. Then he became the series' most shining example of Break The Cutie, when his best friend is abducted by humans (though only temporarily), his mother is brutally murdered, his father (if you believe the family trees) is killed in battle, he loses the love of his life to the son of the cat that killed his mom, and finally is forced to mentor their kit. He'd always been sweet, gentle, and friendly, but then in Book 5 of the Third Series, he goes insane and tries to kill all three main characters, one of which is his own apprentice. No wonder his fangirls were upset.
- The Scolosaurus in The Fantastic Dinosaur Adventure is extremely timid and terrified of humans, but when he is cornered by the Tyrannosaurus, he loses his temper. The results are rather bloody.
- In Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, Vera Claythorne appears to be a very sweet, sensible person... at first. And if you're not scared by the fact that she killed her former pupil so her lover could inherit the child's estate four years before the events of the novel, just wait and see what four days of psychological torture does to her...
- In the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton, the always polite and civilised Edenists go to great lengths to avoid killing, but when Al Capone sends a force to conquer a nearby Edenist habitat it gets wiped out. To the man.
- David Eddings seems to enjoy this one. Belgarion is a generally nice guy who tries to do the right thing, and if you go after his family or murder some farmers, "the right thing" tends to involve you, his BFS, and a demonstration of why he's allowed to put "Godslayer" on his official letterhead. Polgara has spent most of her life as a doctor and taking care of children, but can give you a matinee of your worst nightmare or turn you into a snake, and she isn't afraid to Shoot The Dog. But for the gold, there's Aphrael and Sephrenia in The Tamuli: upon learning that Zalasta had been plotting to kill Aphrael for several centuries, Aphrael begins planning to eat his heart, and Sephrenia enjoys breaking his spells (which hurts, oh sweet Edeamus it hurts) just a bit too much.
- Ender Wiggin isn't "a sweet little kid", he's "even sweeter". He "doesn't want to hurt anyone." He loves everyone he meets the way they love themselves. And if he determines someone should no longer be able to cause harm, that someone dies. Thoroughly.
- The titular society of the Freehold War series. Basically The Culture when it was a kid. Sex-crazed stoner party animals, the lot of them, and they always have room for company. And if you have enough a problem with that to invade their planet over it, they will blast, bomb and terrorize yours back to the Stone Age.
- The Dark Elf Trilogy has Drizzt Do'Urden, who at first is depicted as the Wide Eyed Idealist with a heart of gold. His enemies make the unfortunate mistake of assuming that he's weak and wind up having the living shit being beaten out of him in one of his biggest Unstoppable Rages in the history of dark elves. Oh yeah, did I mention that he's completely outnumbered and severely injured in most of these battles?
Live Action TV
"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I'd look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this. Can you and your associates arrange it for me, Mr. Morden?"
- A milquetoast who, at one point, organizes an underground railroad at the risk of his career and possibly his life. As was lampshaded in the final episode, the story of Vir Cotto is the story of how Flounder became Badass.
- Titular character of Merlin. Think he's just all baby blues and goofy ears? Risk the life of anyone he loves and those ears will the last thing you see.
- Vila Restal is a cowardly drunken safecracker who drops a Federation officer with one punch after she shoots Dayna.
- Stan from In Plain Sight:
Malone: So, Stan McQueen. "Little Jack," I used to call him.
Marshall: Why is that?
Malone: Because he's like a Jack Russell Terrier. Pound for pound, probably the toughest man I know.
Mary and Marshall: Stan?
Malone: Well, you know, he plays that shy, quiet thing pretty well, but you don't want to be the guy he's looking at when the switch flips.
Mary: I didn't even know he had a switch.
Music
- Kenny Roger's classic "Coward of the County". A man who'd turned his back on fighting all his life beats three men to a pulp after they rape his wife.
- Lemon Demon's "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" brings together absolutely everyone in a Battle Royale With Cheese, from Batman to Godzilla to Chuck Norris. The winner? Mr. Rogers in a bloodstained sweater.
Professional Wrestling
- Often used for a Face Heel Turn; for example, when Bob Backlund made his early '90s return to WWE, he was portrayed as a nice older guy who loved to compete and served as a mentor to the younger wrestlers on the roster — right up until he snapped, putting Bret Hart in the crossface chicken-wing out of jealousy, and becoming an uber-reactionary psychopath. WWE owner Vince McMahon's evolution from goofy good-guy announcer to maniacally lecherous and evilly manipulative corporate boss following the Montreal Screwjob (see Dropped A Bridge On Him) is another good example, also an example of Real Life Writes The Plot.
- Though sometimes the face doesn't turn heel, they just reveal that they've TookALevelInBadass. The Undertaker is particularly adept at this.
- John Cena can typically be counted on to be a guy who's pretty calm and relaxed and willing to joke around and playfully mock his opponents, and when competing in fair fights will still find plenty of time to have fun. Piss him off a little too much, though, and he'll start doing things like throwing around 500-pound men and ripping pipes out of the machinery and taking them to someone's face.
Close Professional Wrestling
Videogames
Webcomics
- White Mage from 8-Bit Theater shows this after rebuilding a city and its inhabitants from destruction at various hands (although mostly Black Mage) only to have the city yet again annihilated at the hands of, apparently, Black Mage. Feeling distressed and angered (also mostly due to Black Mage, although Fighter had an unwitting hand in it), she changes her robes and begins bestowing her mediocre evil upon the world for a couple comics until changing back after a strange talk with Fighter.
- A better example would be Fighter, the nicest, friendliest, ditziest character in the comic who has a very potent Berserk Button whenever his friends, especially Black Mage, are threatened. He went into an Unstoppable Rage when Black Mage was killed, fought a fire demon to a standstill after she killed Black Belt, and this comic.
Fighter: Also, I can block any attack and kill anything that bleeds. Hint.
- Thief and Red Mage better watch themselves... they almost made that mistake again.
Thief: Yes, it is a good thing. Leaving him to rot would be wrong.
Red Mage: So very wrong.
Fighter (holding up a sword): Kind of chainsaw wrong.
Thief: Okay, good thing we're all on the same page then!
- While he is in no way a nice one, a case can be made for Sarda given that he used to be the Onion Kid whose life Black Mage repeatedly ruined and seeks revenge against the Light Warriors for doing nothing to stop Black Mage.
- El Goonish Shive has Grace, super cute pacifist who just wishes people wore less clothes. You can tie her up, torture her, even tell her you are going to use her for a breeding program. Make her believe you have hurt one of her friends though and there is no power on Earth or beyond that can save you.
- Rikk, the leader of the Science Fiction Club in Fans!, is as nice, gentle and forgiving a man as you're ever likely to meet. However, during a storyline in Fans! which sees a bitter ex-boyfriend of Alisin's blackmail her into joining him, while simultaneously attempting to destroy the fan-club and replace it with a new, darker version - Rikk is finally pushed too far, and beats the ex-boyfriend to a pulp before someone stops him from going too far.
- Piro from Mega Tokyo is an example, as a group of perverted otaku voyeurs in a restaurant found out. This is more obvious in Piro's online alter-ego Piroko, and associated wallpapers/tshirt with a cute girl carrying a big gun, and the phrase "Ph34r t3h cute ones".
- Ping from the same comic could be an example, as well. She's normally sweet, cute and caring, but get her angry and she proves to have the strength to uproot a street lamp and use it as a weapon against a giant monster.
- Nice people in the Walkyverse usually get this. Joyce is a prime example. So is Walky himself, for that matter. Not to mention Amber... So Yeah, this list could go on for a bit.
Joyce: "This is for the thousands of little comments that are hammered into me every day! "Stop giggling, Joyce!" "Put down your dumb toys, Joyce!" You can only take so much... Until you snap."
- In the Rescue Rangers fan comic Of Mice and Mayhem Gadget, usually the epitome of kindness, attacks the men who were after her when Chip gets shot trying to protect her.
- Lemmy in Fanboys is a genuinely nice guy, but woe be unto anybody that says Nintendo is a kiddy system.
- ANGRY CLOWN MODE.
- An impact to the head can do it. When running from a crazed feral crab in the Beach Episode, he crashes headfirst into a sign, which triggers the aforementioned Angry Clown Mode, allowing him to handily demolish his tormentor.
- Surprisingly, Hannelore, Questionable Content's resident Woobie. Not to mention her dreams.
- Out of Ctrl+Alt+Del's "Four Players" side story, Player Three, the yellow one, is the one to be careful of. Sure, he starts out as the Butt Monkey of the other three players, each more sadistic than the next, but has been known to snap while put under extreme duress. Player Two fell victim to this, as Three grabbed him and slammed him against the wall until he ragdolled all while shouting, "STOP IT<". He then came to and tried to apologize for what he just did.
- In Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures, it's Mab. http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_293.php
- For that matter, Dan. While normally a nice guy with a vague career of adventuring behind him, recent events have shown just how dangerous he really is after being pushed over the edge. It's not pretty.
- In Bun-Bun's continuing feud with Santa Claus in Sluggy Freelance, Mrs. Claus is the one pushing for the two of them to just let it go, but she's also the more dangerous Claus when she has to be. Bun-Bun acknowledges her as a better shot than Santa, and it's her who sets up the Xanatos Gambit that stops Bun-Bun from taking over the world.
- Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. Just... Gilgamesh Wulfenbach.
- Here too.
- To explain, he's a genius who never even bothered to build a death ray, and who will put up with massive annoyance to avoid killing people he neither likes nor respects, but when an enemy army really gets in his way, he smashes it in about five seconds.
- Liza from Tonja Steele is a good example, as she's usually a sweet-natured schoolteacher. Some of it is explained when we meet her parents◊.
- Elan in most of Order Of The Stick; naive, sweet-natured but ditzy Cloudcuckoolander. Elan in strip #594, after Smug Snake Kubota poisons his lackey Thurkla (who was in the midst of a Heel Face Turn) and she dies in Elan's arms; Unstoppable Rage-driven Bad Ass. It's only Kubota's swift-but-slimy opportunism that prevents him from getting a severely lethal ass-kicking at Elan's hands, and even then he still gets a black eye for his trouble.
- Quentyn of Tales Of The Questor gets his sword stolen, and in the course of retrieving it gets arrested multiple times, mugged, shot at, dropped through a roof, stripped naked in front of a crowd of toffs (and his childhood crush), and then violently beaten and tossed in a dumpster. He promptly girds up his loins and proceeds to utterly wreck not one, but TWO street gangs singlehandedly and literally pull an entire building down around their ears... and would have REALLY torn them a new one had the city guard not intervened.
- The Raccoonan nation topped that in the companion strip, Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger. In there, the horrific cannibal species, the Kvrk-Chk, made a public show of what they would do the Raccoonan race when they ate a number of them on camera, The Raccoonans retaliated the next day by destroying one of the heavier populated Kvrk-Chk solar systems and gave the race a very good reason to fear the Raccoonan people.
- Plant Woman. It's one thing if you've only built *two* machines of death and destruction. The first law of robotics is thrown out the window completely when you announce the third.
- This strip from The Adventures of Dr. McNinja playes this straight. Could we make panel #6 the new page image?
Western Animation
Web Animation
Real Life
- The Semai of Malaysia are an anthropological rarity and a good example of this trope. They are a society with almost no interpersonal violence with words for warfare not even existing in their language. During a communist insurrection in Malaysia, some Semai were involved in the fighting and they became effective fighters, almost fanatical ones. The Semai who fought described themselves afterwards as "drunk on blood," and they surprised themselves by their behavior, although they weren't upset by it.
- Canada... though, when you think about it, really dumbed down, and very stereotypical. As peacekeepers, Canadians... well, keep the peace. Canadians are notoriously known as a pacifist country, to only fight if absolutely necessary (e.g. War on terrorism, to keep people from being terrorized). The Canadian military, though very few, are very, very, good at what they do. Military training for Canada makes it so that every soldier that comes out has taken a level in badass. This Canadian Troper's uncle is living proof, though it only shows when someone manages to say something stupid, or insult him. Don't say something stupid and derogatory to a Canadian Soldier. Just don't.
- Credit for the longest confirmed sniper kill in history goes to a soldier from...? Canada. Over a MILE AND A HALF.
- Nearly two miles in fact. That's just over three kilometers. Most snipers and their weapons are considered effective at HALF that range.
- The same goes for any given ANZAC (Australia/New Zealand Army Corps) unit. The Australian and New Zealand Defence Forces take a great deal of pride in having some of the best military forces in the world, despite their small numbers.
- A significant example was the Siege of Tobruk, where 14,000 Australian troops held off the Afrika Korps war machine led by Erwin Rommel, equipped and prepared for an eight-week period between reinforcement, held Tobruk for eight months, not only losing very few troops over the time, but actually bolstering their defences by chasing down enemy tanks on foot, blowing them up, then salvaging their weapons, ammunition, and food from enemy incursions.
- Further, when leading the Afrika Korps (the first real 'tank division' in military history, after being deflected by an ANZAC infantry unit, none other than Erwin Rommel was quoted to say: "If I had to take hell, I would use the Australians to take it and the New Zealanders to hold it."
- The term "Stormtrooper" was coined during World War I, where it was actually used by Kaiser Wilhelm II to describe the Canadian forces.
- Canada is famously the only country ever to successfully invade the Unites States and burn its capital to the ground.
- Well, not really true. A convenient rain put down the fires before the whole place burned. Apparently, the wrath of Canada was so great (this having taken place some decades before the country even existed, that's how badass we are) that God took pity on the Americans.
- The British burned down D.C.... Canada wasn't even a country yet.
- Just remember that Canada is the reason The White House is white.
- No, it's not. The White House was white long before the War of 1812.
- But seriously, the United States (or its immediate predecessor colonies) has had a military with a long and successful record of invading and defeating other nations... with one rather significant exception.
- The first invasion of Canada during the American Revolution failed only because Montreal fell too quickly. The portion of the army intended to take Quebec (the only other important Canadian city at that time) was outpaced by the swarm of retreating troops, and lost the advantage of surprise.
- Most Western militaries can fit this, as they can go from explosively dismantling the place with advanced weaponry, to building schools and handing out candy to kids, and back to the dismantling if provoked.
- German counter-terrorism unit GSG 9 was created in 1973 in response to the complete failure of german police at the olympic games hostage situation in Munich the previous year. In 30 years of service they completed over 1,500 missions, with weapons being fired only during five of them.
- During their very first mission in 1977 they ended a plane hijacking with only one officer and one hostage wounded.
- The Icelandic Víkingasveitin or "the Viking squad" in English, has never had to take a human life in the application of their duties, but have halted hijacked airliners, fought eco-terrorist and regularly train with GSG 9, Norwegian Delta's, and the S.A.S.
- Does anybody else notice that some serious martial artists tend to be pretty swell guys? Guys like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Chuck Norris seem like they could be pals with anyone, even you and me. Bruce was also a fighting man-god who believed the first rule of self defense is that there are no rules, and recommends going for the eyes and groin whenever possible, among other things. Jackie could grab the nearest lampshade and toilet brush and use them to ruin your day in ways you'd rather not even imagine, let alone remember afterward. And Chuck... well, we all know about Chuck.
- Ironically, Chuck Norris has been described as a hugely arrogant asshole by those working with him.
- The Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1939-1940. The big, bad Soviet Union? 1 million men and 6 thousand tanks. The Finnish? 250,000 men, 30 tanks, and Christopher Lee. The winner? Well, it is Christopher Lee. Kinda hard to go up against that.
- While it's hard to say that the Russians didn't lose here (horrific casualties,) the Finns didn't win. Stalin (being Stalin) kept piling up bodies against the Mannerheim Line until they were about to break through; the Finns were forced to sue for peace and hand over territory...which they took back during Operation Barbarossa, while allied with Nazi Germany...but wisely refused to go any further into Russia.
- Pick a school shooting, any school shooting, from Columbine to Virgina Tech. Invariably, the murderer(s) will be described as quiet guys whom no one would ever suspect of committing such a crime.
- Actually, that's pretty much how ANY murderer is described. Psychopaths do not act crazy (perhaps a little 'off') until they are finally pushed past their limits. Even seemingly normal people acting out of anger or revenge do not show why it's never a good idea to mess with them until it's too late.
- George Carlin said that the tendancy of people to say "It's the quiet ones you gotta watch", seemed, to him, "like a very dangerous assumption."
"I will bet you anything that while you're watching a quiet one, a noisy one will fucking kill you! Suppose you're in a bar and one guy's sitting over on the side reading a book, not bothering anybody; another guy's standing up at the front with a machete, banging it on the bar, saying "I'll kill the next motherfucker who comes in here!" Who ya gonna watch?"
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