Basic Trope: A person becomes unbalanced when someone close to them leaves/dies.
- Straight: Alice and Bob go about fighting monsters. When Alice goes off on her own and doesn't return, Bob walks around in a perpetual Heroic BSoD, interrupted by fits of anger and Flashback Nightmares.
- Exaggerated: Alice goes off on her own and doesn't come back on time. Bob has been reduced to a shell of his former self switching between sadness and fury in the blink of an eye, half-starved, and totally unkempt.
- Downplayed:
- Alice goes off on her own and doesn't come back until a few days late. When she returns, she finds Bob has lost weight from not eating all his meals and has been angrier than usual.
- Alice goes off on her own and doesn't return. Bob's previous mental illness reasserts itself from the stress.
- Justified:
- Bob needed Alice's influence to keep from losing his marbles in the first place.
- Alice was the only one that knew how Bob ticked.
- Inverted: Alice and Bob go about fighting monsters, and Bob usually sits and stares at walls outside of fights. When Alice goes off on her own and doesn't come back, Bob comes more alive.
- Subverted:
- Bob is crazy and Dana wonders if it's because Alice left him, but she finds her elsewhere in the house.
- Alice is reluctant to go anywhere on her own for fear of doing this to Bob, but she does so and Adam tells her when she gets back that Bob was no worse for it.
- Double Subverted:
- It's not Alice, or Alice has been turned evil.
- Bob is even worse on days when Alice isn't there.
- Adam lied to Alice.
- Parodied: Alice goes out for groceries, and Bob has this kind of reaction, immediately recovering when she comes back.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: Bob is worried about Alice but it doesn't do that much damage to his mental health.
- Enforced: Bob needs an angst storyline and Alice's actress is unavailable, making this a convenient choice.
- Lampshaded:Eva: What happened to him?Charlie: All of us took Alice's disappearance hard, but Bob ... he went a little nuts.
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz is trying to gaslight Bob into joining him, so he kidnaps Alice knowing that this will take a toll on his sanity and make him suggestible.
- Defied: After Alice disappears, Bob goes into therapy to make sure he can remain stable.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Go back to Went Crazy When They Left before it goes off the deep end.
