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"Last night was an A-1, tip top clubbing jam fair. It was a sandwich of fun on ecstasy bread, wrapped up in a big ball like disco fudge. It doesn't get much better than that, I just wish that sometimes I could control these FUCKING MOOD SWINGS! So what did youse two do last night?"
"No you go away! Come back! Rraarrghh! I hate her so much! I wish she was my friend!"
A character whose personality isn't marked by any set mood, but by their tendency to swing between moods drastically. Sometimes (if the characters around them are lucky) there's some sort of warning of an impending mood swing — or at least a recognizable cause — but there may just as easily be no warning whatsoever.
Frequently this is combined with emotional lability , so they skip any emotion that isn't extreme. They're never just happy, they're the cheeriest Genki Girl in the world. They're never just sad; they're on the verge of suicide. They're never just angry; they're filled with Unstoppable Rage. And they can flip between any of them at a moment's notice.
Though they may be referred to as "bipolar", their mood swings are generally much more abrupt and frequent than the periods of mania or depression associated with real-life bipolar disorder. This can, however, be a facet of borderline personality disorder.
The Mood Swinger as a Love Interest frequently fills the role of the Tsundere. This is also a common trait of The Caligula.
For even more extreme cases, see Hair Trigger Temper, Split Personality, Jekyll And Hyde, and Yandere.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Kagura from Fruits Basket. She seems cute at first, but whenever Kyo's around she becomes a combination of a Yandere and a Tsundere.
- A good deal of the characters from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Namely Kafuka who's somewhat similar to Rena, except she's even more overly optimistic.
- Rena from Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. This and the fact that she's a Nightmare Fetishist seems innocent enough at first, but then you find out she's a Grotesque Cute Yandere antagonist best known as the "Cleaver Girl" for her Ax Crazy tendencies. Sometimes. The games hint she has a bipolar disorder, but it's exaggerated so it seems freakier.
- Actually she only is exaggerated two arcs and her backstory, in reality, due to the Hate Plague. The rest are Unreliable Narrator moments or Rena playing the intimidation.
- Haruhi Suzumiya comes close. Now she's a cheerful Genki Girl, the next scene she's abrasive, confrontational, dominant and almost narcissistic, after that she may become extremely melancholic. There are reasons for her mood-changes, but sometimes it just appears randomly.
- Naomi in Zettai Karen Children started off being the calm, sweet girl all the time. Once she realized that her supervisor Tanizaki's treatment of her was why she was having trouble with her powers, she lets loose and from then on shows no restraint in throwing him into a wall when he gets too close. Her Code Name even changes from "Kitty Cat" to "Wild Cat" in the process.
- Ayukawa Madoka from Kimagure Orange Road is pretty bad about this, though her swings are more day to day than moment to moment. And of course she's the Tsundere leg of the Love Triangle.
- Karin from Naruto. Karin has a fluctuating personality, at times appearing stern and tough and other times appearing carefree and highly flirtatious, but only around Sasuke.
- King Hamdo from Now And Then Here And There takes this trope to Nightmare Fuel extents. His moods usually switch from petty, to cruel, to violently moody, to pathetic, and back, usually over the course of a few minutes. Regardless of his mood, he is without a doubt, a Complete Monster.
Film
- Boingo from Hoodwinked acts like this once he drops his Tastes Like Diabetes facade and starts acting like a supervillain. The commentary remarks that on one occasion they couldn't decide which take to use (maniacal, verge of tears, etc), so they just decided to string them all together to very good effect.
Literature
Live Action TV
- Dick from Third Rock From The Sun: "I find you pompous, judgemental, and completely self-absorbed. Would you be my friend?"
- I think that indicates more that he finds those traits to be friend-worthy, as he is all those things himself.
- Tyres from Spaced does this frequently, with the camera angle often changing with his mood.
- Explained as a long-term side-effect of taking waaaaaaaaay too much ecstasy.
- Kevin the Teenager from Harry Enfield And Chums is a nightmarish example.
- Cat in Victorious can go from happy to sad in under 4 sentences.
Theatre
- Lucy from 13 has this dialogue with her boyfriend
Brett: (To Cassie, who is walking by) Oh hi Cassie.
Lucy: Are you FLIRTING with her?!
Brett: No, I was just saying Hi
Brett: No
Lucy: Well, you never say anything about how amazing I look anymore.
Brett: Lucy, you are driving me crazy
Lucy: See? Now that was sweet. And sweet makes me sweet. Got it?
Brett: No.
Video Games
- The Happy Mask Salesman in The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask. There are literally no physical transitions between his extreme emotions. It's scary.
- Arcueid from Tsukihime. Nothing too drastic though, unless you make her really angry.
- Tira is either bloodthirsty-cheerful or bloodthirsty-angry. She can change semi-randomly during a fight.
- In her second appearance this escalated from Bipolar, to actual split personalities and her fighting style changes depending the current mood/personality
- While not as extreme as some of the others on the list, Yukari Takeba frequently goes through random moodswings through the course of the game. Said mood swings get worse in The Answer thanks to her grieving over the main character's death
- The Dance Dance Revolution announcer, or at least the one from DDR Hottest Party. He lavishes praise on you when you're doing well or even just okay, but the second your dance meter falls into the red he'll angrily demand that you stop sucking. Also, when you idle on the song menu he demonstrates all the patience of a spoiled six-year-old ("BO-RING!").
Webcomics
- Red from Gunnerkrigg Court veers between smarmy affection, despondency, and rage. If anything, she gets worse after she becomes a human. (Maybe it's the hormones.)
- Zimmy is similar, though her personality is a bit more subdued. (Read: not psychotic.) Her mood swings revolve around Gamma, as far as this troper can tell.
Western Animation
- Avatar The Last Airbender: Theories/jokes about Katara being bipolar really took off after a scene in the ninth episode (after some hints in the first episode) where she explodes at Aang, becomes apologetic in the space of a few seconds ("Oh, my gosh, Aang, I'm so sorry! I don't know what came over me!"), only to turn around a few seconds later and angrily insist "No more apologies!" After her behavior in "The Awakening," a pervasive meme became "must be her time of the month."
- Horrible thought - what if female Water-benders have their menstrual cycle linked to the full moon? So they're extra strong and angry?
- Also Prince Zuko. One minute, he's calm, focused, and disciplined. The next, exploding in a flurry of grunts, growls, and fireballs. Even as a good guy, his mood doesn't improve much until the end.
- Hexadecimal in Re Boot has her mood swings lampshaded - her face consists entirely of a theater mask, and she has to manually wave her hand across it to change its exaggerated expression.
- Lunch Lady from Danny Phantom who switches from kind, grandmotherly figure to full-blown "I'll KEEL you" mode at the drop of a hat. Her alternate future daughter picked up the habit as well.
- Superjail - The Warden.
(sees dead bunny) "You... sick... bastard." (squishes dead bunny, merrily sends the bunny's kidnapper off in a rocket ship, and holds dead bunny up) "Heeey, little guy! Underneath all that precious fur..." (cuddles dead bunny mournfully) "All scared and all alone..." (pets dead bunny contentedly, starts singing) "If only~ they knew~ what it was like~ to be~ yyyyoooOOOOUUUU!" (rips dead bunny's skin off and gleefully wears it as a hat) "Jared, I want one of these for each and every inmate, not a moment to spare!"
- Doctor Drakken from Kim Possible seems to go from mood to mood like an acrobat does on swings.
- AAAHH!! Real Monsters had Ickis, the Ugly Cute lead with serious issues. He could go from nervous stammering to bouncing off the walls to grossly inflated overconfidence and back in minutes. And that doesn't even get into his bouts of wide-eyed idealism and naivete...
- Basil from The Great Mouse Detective certainly swings from manically happy to crushingly depressed and back to manically happy again quickly. Of course, this is because he's based on Sherlock Holmes, who was possibly bipolar, and definitely a massive cocaine addict. So either Basil could use a little lithium, or he's gotten into a bad, mouse-sized vial of seven per cent solution (an expected hazard of living under Holmes' floor).
- Jack Skellington has hints of this, the most prominent example being "Poor Jack".
- Heloise from Jimmy Two-Shoes tends to switch from Ax Crazy Enfant Terrible mode, to sweet and innocent mode, to Deadpan Snarker mode, to flirtatiously lovable mode (around Jimmy), to pissed off mode and back again.
- Ren from The Ren And Stimpy Show.
Real Life
- Rapid cycling bipolar disorder (in which the characteristic mood swings take place in periods of days or even hours, rather than weeks as is more typical) somewhat resembles this trope, and as noted above most fictional characters with bipolar disorder are depicted this way despite it being comparatively rare. Don't expect it to be acknowledged that people with bipolar disorder don't experience the symptoms constantly either.
- One of the key symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder are rapid mood swings that happen within hours, at most a few days. It is clearly stated in the DSM IV manual: "6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)". This trope is so much a core indicator of that disorder, in fact, that it is debated to change its name to "Emotional regulation disorder" or "Emotional dysregulation disorder" because the term "Borderline" is outdated and carries too much social stigma.
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