Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
She ruined her life for the psychotic Joker. And she couldn't be happier!
"Love makes you do the wacky."
"Of course I'm being irrational! I'm in love!"
Being in love can cause a person to behave strangely or irrationally, a tendency which is often exaggerated in television and film. Usually played for laughs in SitComs and anime, it can be used as a motivation for villainous (or at least uncharacteristic) behavior in more serious stories. A special case of this is the Stalker With A Crush, who often shows other irrational behavior as well. Psycho Lesbian is another special case, meeting obvious conditions.
If the writers have a deeper understanding of relationships, they may have "true" love not cause this effect, contrasting it with the crushes we've seen elsewhere in the series. This is relatively rare, though.
If two characters are the romantic rivals in a Love Triangle, one may become a Rival Turned Evil. This is especially common in daytime soaps.
The Chick Magnet and Hello Nurse make everyone they meet crazy.
Of course, things could be worse... or better. Compare Yandere. For the Paolo going crazy to make the relationship easier for the official couple, see Derailing Love Interests.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Film
- In the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, the main supporting character is reduced to stammering and tripping over himself in the presence of women.
- In the classic play and film The Dybbuk, Khonnen, a poor student, and Leye, a rich merchant's daughter, fall in love. But her father makes her marry a rich man's son. So Khonnen studies the Kabbala, and—using what is effectively black magic — dies and becomes a spirit who takes over Leye. (At the wedding, he makes her shout to the groom, "You are not my bridegroom!")
- The central theme of the film Wicker Park.
- Star Wars: Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith.
- The English Patient. The title character, his lover, and her husband were already all a little crazy, but love seems to really bring it out.
- Singing In The Rain. "I'm singing in the rain..."
- Gene Kelly does a similar routine in It's Always Fair Weather...but on roller skates.
Live Action TV
- In Farscape John tells Aeryn she's the reason he's crazy. Of course, all that Mind Rape by evil guys might have something to do with it.
- It doesn't just turn you crazy in Supernatural, it makes you a suicidal martyr willing to sacrifice yourself for the one you love.
- Nearly everyone in Pushing Daisies is a victim of this, and it's not always even romantic love.
- In Jekyll, Tom's mother explains in the final episode. "People think that Hyde is rage. Or hate. Or greed. Or lust. ... But Hyde is far worse. Hyde is love—and love is a psychopath."
Manga and Anime
- Dr. Tofu in Ranma 1/2 would begin acting bizarrely whenever Kasumi Tendo was around, or even simply mentioned. This makes him very dangerous as he'll often be in the middle of treating a patient, and once bent Ranma's neck at a ninety degree angle.
- This also covers Ranma's "other fiancees" (Shampoo and Ukyo) fairly well. When first introduced to the series, they conduct their courtships in a relatively calm, normal fashion. As Ranma continues to ignore them, they slowly grow more desperate- and more extreme. Magic, deception, violence, all of these become legitimate avenues of pursuit towards romantic happiness. Ranma's rivals, meanwhile, enter the series in this state.
- Brock in Pokemon, who is usually the rational Big Brother Mentor to Ash and Misty (or May, Max and Dawn), tended to lose his cool around beautiful women; especially Nurse Joy or Officer Jenny (and since both are frickin' everywhere, this quickly became a running joke with him proclaiming the latest one was the fairest of them all).
- Strawberry Panic: Shizuma (aka Etoile-sama) can make Nagisa freeze or even faint just by looking at her a certain way. Typically the character who has this effect on a person is unaware, but Shizuma knows and seems to like doing this. *Yu-Gi-Oh GX: Manjyome is a loner who seems to want to be the Badass Longcoat Rival, but he loses all control of himself and turns completely insane around Asuka.
- Three years of False Start after False Start when she tries to approach Sakaki have left poor Kaorin of Azumanga Daioh with more neuroses than a Woody Allen film festival. She's fine when she's thinking about something else, but once she sees Sakaki... or thinks about Sakaki... or has a dream about Sakaki... et cetera... she becomes an odd combination of Clingy Jealous Girl and Can Not Spit It Out.
- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni has Shion Sonozaki. This does not end well . A more fitting troupe for her than Yandere due the cause of her craziness.
- One Piece: Boa Hancock badly misinterprets innocuous actions as signs that Luffy reciprocates her love for him. This would seem cute and innocent and so not creepy if she didn't happen to be pushing thirty. Her behavior has a uncomfortable resemblance to a certain Real Life psychological disorder. (Then again, given all the crap she had been through early in life, her screws may not have been put in quite tight enough before she met him anyway...)
- One of the creepiest examples comes from Minoru Murao's Knights manga. Of all people, Nina, the cute Token Loli goes nuts when she assumes that the object of her affection Mist is physically involved with his Ms Fanservice companion Euphemia. Her response is to lead a supernatural agent of the Corrupt Church (the same Church that nearly burned her at the stake after accusing her of being a witch) to kill him. She even shoots him in the leg with a crossbow. Her motivation? To send his soul to Hell, where it will be "purified", then join him in death so they can be together for all eternity. Keep in mind that this guy saved her life in the first few chapters, which is why she's so hung up on him in the first place. This is borderline Love Makes You Evil. To her credit, she does eventually realize just how utterly screwed up she was, and works to undo her actions.
- Kagura Sohma is the sweetest little thing... until something gets between her and Kyo...
- In Basilisk, Action Girl Hotarubi is... well, not exactly "there" when something bad happens to her husband, Yashamaru. And she ends up dead because of it.
- Not to overlook Kagerou, who gets insanely jealous of Oboro enough to even attempt killing Gennosuke. Oboro's choices may also be love-crazy, depending on your perspective.
- Yuno is singlemindedly devoted to Yukiteru.
- Possible example in Bleach: Ichigo's newest transformation at first just seems to be just another power-up, allowing him to rescue Orihime by defeating Ulquiora. Unlike his original full Hollow transformation, which caused him to attack anything that moves and most things that don't, this one seemed to merely make him a bit more brutal to the bad guys. Then his friend Uryu showed up, and Ichigo almost killed him. Apparently, this new transformation causes Ichigo to attack anything that's not Orihime.
- Seimei from Loveless is known to have faked his own death, killed, manipulated and Mind Raped countless people, abandoned his family, tricked everyone with his seemingly polite nature, and basically controlled Ritsuka's (the main character) life. All because, according to him, he is insecure and wanted to test Ritsuka's love for him. Have I mentioned that Ritsuka is only twelve years old?
- Zetsuai1989 is all about this trope. Let's see: when Izumi was five, his mother discovered his father was cheating on her, and murdered him in front of Izumi so that she could "possess him completely". Then there's the Yandere fan Eri, who tries to murder Kouji at his farewell concert. And that's without even mentioning the multiple examples of Kouji being driven to despair, self-mutilation, or generally self-destructive behaviour because of his love for Izumi — who is understandably a bit freaked out by all this. At first. After a while, he starts to join in...
Professional Wrestling
- Many of Randy Savage's angles that involve Miss Elizabeth invoke this trope.
Real Life
Video Games
- Salome, the former disciple of Makai Kingdom's Overlord Zetta, whose crush on said Overlord goes into this trope on the deep end. She willingly started channeling her own mana into Zetta without his knowledge or consent, slowly killing herself to make him stronger. Upon learning that Zetta has been cursed by The One and has only two days to live, Salome, who is dying herself, then tries to make Zetta marry her so they can die together...by crashing her own netherworld into Zetta's and eventually provoking him into killing her.
- Persona 3's Yukari nearly dooms the world in an attempt to see the person she loved again.
- In the new Prince Of Persia the Prince destroys the trees that sealed Ahriman again to revive Elika.
- That's more a case of Love Makes You Dumb.
- Or it might be a case of Love Makes You Genre Savvy, as the epilogue Establishes that he did this because he knows the prison can't hold, and he'd rather face Ahriman now with Elika's help, then to face him without her down the line.
- The ultimate cause of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, as both motivation of the villain Fei Wong (who wants to resurrect the technically-not-dead Yuuko Ichihara and also at one point the motivation of the hero (it's crazy due to what they are both willing to do- it's evil, yes, but also completely fucking bonkers). At a specific point in the backstory the hero, in the madness of love, chose to turn back time so he could save the girl he was in love with. This act borked the entire time-space continuum.
- Since the two series are connected ( as are their heroes), this means that love driving people nutso is also the source of xxxHolic. It is, in fact, the source of the main character, since he is a duplicate of the Tsubasa hero created when time was fucked up.
- Some fans theorize that even Card Captor Sakura was caused by this love driving people nuts, as it is suspected that it was all part of the plan Clow Reed set up to overcome Fei Wong's Xanatos Gambit to resurect the aforementioned not dead person. Needless to say, a plot driven by so many Xanatos-happy nutjobs is not the easiest thing to follow.
- Craft of Mega Man Zero 4 is either this or Love Makes You Evil. He joined Dr. Weil's army only so that he can protect Neige, the girl he loves. When the latter fled from Neo Arcadia because of the iron-fisted rule of the Big Bad, he makes it his mission to bring her back (thinking that she will be safer in Neo Arcadia), all while spearheading Operation Ragnarok, which would obliterate any inhabitable area outside of Neo Arcadia. Neige did eventually talk Craft out of working under the Big Bad, only for him to destroy Neo Arcadia with the namesake of Operation Ragnarok, a Kill Sat, aiming for Dr. Weil. According to the Complete Works, that attack claimed thousands of lives.
- This is how the original Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain begins: When Nupraptor the Mentalist, guardian of the Pillar of the Mind, discovers that his lover Ariel, guardian of the Pillar of Balance, has been murdered in cold blood, he goes completely insane and secludes himself in his mountain retreat. Which wouldn't be so bad by itself, except he has a mental link with all the other Pillar guardians, who all become corrupted by his madness in turn.
- In Half Minute Hero, the so-called "Beautiful Evil Lord" went completely insane after learning that his beloved Millennia was kidnapped by an Evil Sorcerer named Noire, and vowed to cast the spell of destruction because he felt that a world without Millennia wasn't worth living in. You, the Hero, come along and try to calm him down by beating up Noire and returning the Evil Lord's girlfriend to him. You can also attempt to try and tackle him head-on first to snap him out of it by force (and you get a Cosmetic Award title for doing so), but because the Evil Lord is hopped up on equal parts adrenaline and angst, you'll get beaten repeatedly unless you take enough time to Level Grind to the point where you can face him on equal footing.
Visual Novels
- Tsukihime has Roa. Arcueid is so beautiful! How can I make her like me? Oh I know, I'll make her turn me into a Dead Apostle so I gain immortality, steal some of her power, turn her against every other being like her and then turn up in random towns for the next eight hundred years so she has to come find me and kill me! Man I'm smart, this is sure to work.
- To be fair, at least in Ciel's route the implication is that he doesen't KNOW it is love.
- Arcueid actually has the same trouble telling how she feels towards Shiki. She doesn't know why she gets all emotional around him, upset if he breaks a promise and spends so much time thinking about him. The idea is raised that maybe Arcueid hates him or something but that's obviously not the case.
- This is Played For Laughs in George's Image Song, "Ai no Sengen." Yeah, that's right. Played. For. Laughs. If you want the more tragic versions, you can certainly find that in many other parts of the series.
Webcomics
- Oasis from Sluggy Freelance cranks this trope up to 11 until she finally winds up in a mental institution.
Web Original
Western Animation
Other
- In Draw With Me, the boy tries to get through the unbreakable (instantly repairing) glass and loses his hand for it. And then the girl cuts off her own hand to give to him to use to draw (It Makes Sense In Context)
- In Only The Ring Finger Knows, Yuichi Kazuki is known at Wataru Fujii's school for being kind and polite to everyone he meets, despite possessing ridiculous amounts of beauty, wealth, and talent. Yet whenever Wataru crosses paths with him, Yuichi never fails to be snarky and insulting towards him. Karin, Wataru's sister, comments that this must mean that Yuichi either really hates him...or really likes him. Guess which situation turns out to be true.
|
|
