Misused: Berserk Button

Hooo boy... Hooo boy.

This is something I've been meaning to bring up for sometime now, but never had the time to fully tackle it in detail. This is a trope that gets pretty commonly referenced throughout TV Tropes, and partly because of that, it needs to finally be said...

Berserk Button has become horribly, horribly misused throughout the entirity of TV Tropes.

First off, allow me to provide the following from the Square Peg Round Trope page on Berserk Button:

"Berserk Button is misused a lot as "something that pisses off anyone, for any reason", but it isn't a hot button issue, it isn't something that annoyed someone when they were in a bad mood, it isn't something done until the person snaps, it isn't a laundry list of things that annoy them nor is it something that would make a hostile response an entirely reasonable reaction. The first one goes under Soapbox Sadie, the second and third ones describe the straw that broke the camel's back, the fourth one is Hair-Trigger Temper, and the last one isn't a trope. The last one generally is misapplied to when a character starts getting much more on edge when their family is threatened - in order for the trope to come under effect they have to be pushed beyond all reason. If it really is a radical change, but they are still reasonable it could fall under Let's Get Dangerous!."

When it mentions "get's misused alot", It's not kidding. It isn't even limited to those above! Some people use it as 'anything that even mildly ticked a character off once'! People even use it to refer to groups of people, despite the fact that such a thing makes no logical sense!

Now, you may think I'm overracting, but it really has gotten to such insane levels. Since listing every single bit of misuse on the subpages would take forever, I'll just provide five misused examples from the ones I tend to check alot to prove my point.

Anime and Manga page:

• Belldandy from Ah! My Goddess is possibly the sweetest gentlest, loves-everythingest creature walking the planet. Mess with Keiichi, however, and you'll be lucky to survive. This is subliminal, by the way. She's not even actively thinking about destroying you, that's just raw power.

So, basically how anyone would react to seeing their loved ones hurt/harrassed/picked on?

• All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku: Do NOT threaten Nuku-Nuku's family. Not even Akiko. If you're lucky, you'll just wind up with a freaking caber where your head used to be.

Again, basically how anyone would react to seeing their loved ones being threaten?

• Titans in general are one giant Berserk Button for Eren Jaeger from Attack on Titan. As one can probably imagine, he's got some pretty big rage issues.

Examples Are Not General, and it's rather justified considering their driving humanity to near extinction.

• Lelouch Lamperouge's Berserk Button is people threatening or harming his little sister or his friends.

Again, like anyone would react to having their friends/family threatened?

• Fairy Tail: The Phantom Lord guild pressed it....a lot by attacking three of their members and bolting them to a tree with their guild insignia on one of their stomachs. This prompts a full on, rage fueled, assault on Fairy Tail's side.

Because that clearly wouldn't piss off anyone even remotely close to those people, amiright?

Fanworks:

• In the fic "Into The Forest'', do not hurt Pete Malloy's girlfriend. When they are captured by a group of criminals while horseback riding, one of them tries to rape Jenny when they camp for the night. Despite being viciously beaten and injured, Pete breaks his bonds in an adrenaline-fueled rage and charges the guy, ready to kill if he has to.

Because seeing your girlfriend nearly raped isn't going to send you into a frenzied rage at all.

• In Field of Innocence, do not ever hurt Lu Ten's little cousins. Ozai learns this the hard way.

Do I even have to say it at this point? :/

• Don't ever insult background character Ditzy Doo's child and expect to get away with it; she doesn't mind the mocking nickname 'Derpy Hooves' but dissing her foal will just lead to her helping Chell wreck you.

/Points to some of the earlier examples about family (I would also like to point out this only happened once, and all the characters were attempting to stop Glados at that point)

• Children of Time: Do not threaten Sherlock Holmes's wife if you value your life. And if you've hurt her... well, may the Lord have mercy on your soul.

/coughs

• Fate/Stay Night: Ultimate Master: just like in the canon, trying to endanger innocents or civilians on front of Ben is a bad idea. When Archer tries to use this against him, he goes berserk and basically throws Archer out the battlefield. Later, when Illya tries to send Berserker to kill Shirou, Ben turns into Way Big and squashes Berserker.

Because heroes are generally fine with villains endangering civilians. :/

Berserk Button:

• Threaten Phoenix Wright's loved ones and you are in for a world of hurt. Nearly invincible scary German prosecutors and actors with possible split personalities beware- you are doomed.

I'm just going to say 'family and loved ones' at this point, considering how common this misuse is.

• Persona 3's and 4's Bonus Bosses Elizabeth and Margaret carry on the tradition, killing you dead on the spot with a 9999-damage Megidolaon if you have a Persona with any sort of immunity.

This qualifies more as No Fair Cheating than Berserk Button.

• Dragon Age: Origins:
  • Do not take Sten's sword. You and everyone within reach will die.

Because having something stolen from you wouldn't piss you off at all. /sarcasm

• Dynasty Warriors:
  • In story, Guan Yu being captured and executed by Wu causes his brother Liu Bei to drop the virtue and benevolence speeches and replaces it with CRUSH WU! KILL WU! DESTROY WU!

Family and loved ones

• Kid Icarus: Uprising:
  • Pit is usually the Nice Guy of the game, quick to wisecrack and joke. But if you hurt Palutena in any way, then the only thing you can do at that point is buy yourself a coffin because he will END YOU! It doesn't matter if he's trapped in a ring for three years. He will hunt you down, he will find you, and he will thoroughly kick your ass with every goddamn weapon in his arsenal. Ask the Chaos Kin. Oh wait, we can't. He's trapped in the Chaos Vortex for all eternity.

Family and loved ones

Western Animation:

• Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: Do not threaten Zachary Foxx's Galaxy Rangers. He will kick your ass. Threaten his kids or bring up his lost wife? You'll be lucky if he stops at just kicking your ass.

Family and loved ones

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: Jimmy gets very angry if he receives an F.

A feat that only happened once. Berserk Buttons are reaccuring, not one offs.

• Adventure Time
  • Make sure you never slap Jake out of Marceline's hands. It would be the WORST mistake you could ever make with her, because she angrily transforms into her One-Winged Angel form and tries to kill you.

Anyone else notice how oddly specific this is? As if it's only happened once in the series specific? Also;

• Lemongrab is a LIVING berserk button. It's nearly impossible to say anything to him or do anything near him that won't result in one of his signature freak-outs.

This is Hair-Trigger Temper.

• American Dad!:
  • Even though Stan is radically different from his children, you still don't want to mess with them. Even his own boss learned that the hard way.

Family and loved ones

• Avatar: The Last Airbender
  • Aang is extremely attached to his pet Sky Bison, Appa. (Understandable, since Appa was trapped in ice 100 years with Aang, and is the only being besides Aang that survived the Air Temple raids.) During "The Chase," he remained calm and good-natured in the face of Toph and Katara's bickering, continued assault by his enemies and sleeplessness, but he screamed at Toph when she dared blame Appa for the problem. This was some Foreshadowing of Aang's huge freakout when Appa is kidnapped, which lasts for two whole episodes, the first one which he spends consumed with uncharacteristic rage and pessimism, and actually goes into the Avatar State when facing the kidnappers, and the second one where he represses his emotions. He snaps out of it eventually, but does scream at the brainwashed Joo Dee when she tries to get in the way of their search for Appa, and shows unrelenting determination to find him. In short, don't mess with the Avatar's bison.

  • Also, NEVER put Katara in danger in front of Aang, or even just PRETEND to do so. It is THE BEST way to push him into the Avatar State and guarantee complete destruction for a hundred meter radius.

Family and loved ones. Also;

• And, don't start a 100 year old war. It's not smart. Otherwise, you get THIS.

Besides that overinflated link "example", this is the overarching plot of the first series! Aang wasn't even angry about that! That was a picture of the climax fight with Ozai!

And this isn't even going into specific, series based Berserk Button pages. Allow me to give you a few examples from The Simpsons page...

• Though few would argue that golden boy Homer Simpson is the greatest example. In fact, Homer's Berserk Button has arguably been a staple of the character since day one, through all the characters' many changes. Homer's primary Berserk Button is his son Bart Simpson. However, many times Homer's thinly subdued insecurity has led to some of his many explosions of anger. Homer may also fall in line with having a Hair-Trigger Temper. One of the show's most time-honored traditions is Homer strangling his son Bart (never in a lethal fashion, most of the time) due to aforementioned boy doing something to either specifically anger Homer, or more often than not being the cause of a vexing situation for Homer. It's iconically complemented with the Catchphrase "WHY YOU LITTLE—!!!" As Homer's explosive temper is almost as iconic a trait as his childish behavior or appetite, there are countless examples of Homer's Berserk Button being pushed throughout the series.

A character specifically antagonising another character is NOT a Berserk Button, as pointed out at the start of this post.

• Homer was one of the prime suspects in the famous 2-parter "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" episode, where Mr. Burns is... shot at the end of the first part, albeit with very good reason as Burns entered monster territory much further than usual. In Homer's case, the old running gag of Burns never remembering Homer's name comes full circle as Homer tries vigorously to get Burns to remember his name in order to put himself on Burns' good side. It's all in vain however, Burns even going as far as to remember every other member of the Simpson household except for Homer. This finally drives an unappreciated-feeling Homer to the brink of murderous rage, nearly beating Burns before being dragged out by security shouting "Oh you're dead, Burns! You're dead!!" Although Homer wasn't the culprit, and he seemed to have one of the simpler, less urgent reasons to kill Burns compared to the rest of Springfield, suspicion of him came ironically from Burns finally remembering Homer's name (albeit in a comatose state) which nearly sealed Homer's supposed guilt. Later Homer visits him and yells at him to take back his accusation, but it turns out while his name is all Burns can say he still can't put it to his face. Homer strangles him to take back the accusation but then Mr. Burns comes and asks Smithers who the man shaking him is, which in turn pushed his Berserk Button once more. Strangely, Burns continues to forget his name for a few seasons, but Homer doesn't seem to care.

So, inother words, 'the straw that broke the camels back'?

• Despite often putting out an attitude of indifference, Homer is actually quite sensitive. He even punched Lenny for no directly personal reason, due to a realization that many of his co-workers laugh at him earlier when at home. This form of mindless anger has often taken Homer into the territory of the Jerkass, most notably in later seasons.

Being sensitive is a Berserk Button now?

• Principal Skinner usually gets annoyed by Bart Simpson's antics, but the episode "Brother's Little Helper" shows just what happens when Bart presses Skinner's berserk button one time too many when he ended up flooding the entire schoolgrounds with a firehose and a gymnasium during a fire safety skit gone awry: He screamed Bart's name while witnessing Bart laughing during the aftermath, and approached him in a menacing manner. In fact, he ended up having to punch a clown-based punching bean in front of Bart's parents in order to calm himself down before addressing them for the parent teacher conference.

Again, character going out of their way to antagonise another character.

• And if you lose a simple sport like Bart did in "The Boys of Bummer", RUN! RUN FAST. RUN FAR.

Something that only happened once, and applied to a crowd of people.

If the Ed, Edd n Eddy Berserk Button page I brought up a few weeks ago is also any indication, a good majority of the series specific pages are like this.

Now, I did a wick check on this... But the worst part was I didn't even have to do this because I know it's so misused all around the site! Here are some misused examples I found just browsing TV Tropes!

Spirited Away: Yubaba is surly at the best of times, but when she discovers her baby is missing she becomes terrifying.

Family and loved ones

Klonoa: Here you have a guy who could give Klonoa a run for his money in the kindness department, but bad mouth his sick son and let's just say you have to be a real beast to be able to out-swear and scare Guntz. Family and loved ones

Futurama

• Zoidberg does the cutting, and you better not forget it!

Something that only happened in one episode

Digimon Adventure 02: (In regards to TK)

• "THE POWERS OF DARKNESS!" in the English some other dubs.

As far as I remember, this only happened once. And considering heroes in general have problems with villains dealing with dark powers... Dragon Ball: Son Goku

• Killing off his friends and family seems to be the only way to truly piss him (Goku) off. In the original series, Tambourine, and eventually King Piccolo, found this out the hard way (this is the only time Goku ever flies off intending to kill someone/thing in the series). Freeza did it too, and it resulted in the Super Saiyan.

Family and loved ones.

Now, I'm sure someone will agrue about the family and loved ones examples; but let me reqoute the quote I made early on:

"Berserk Button is misused a lot as "something that pisses off anyone, for any reason", but it isn't a hot button issue, it isn't something that annoyed someone when they were in a bad mood, it isn't something done until the person snaps, it isn't a laundry list of things that annoy them nor is it something that would make a hostile response an entirely reasonable reaction. The first one goes under Soapbox Sadie, the second and third ones describe the straw that broke the camel's back, the fourth one is Hair-Trigger Temper, and the last one isn't a trope. The last one generally is misapplied to when a character starts getting much more on edge when their family is threatened - in order for the trope to come under effect they have to be pushed beyond all reason. If it really is a radical change, but they are still reasonable it could fall under Let's Get Dangerous!."

Family and loved ones firmly fall under that. Anyone would be pissed off at having their loved ones threaten/harmed/killed, and as made apparent here, something most Tropers seem to forget when adding examples, among other misused examples listed here.

Something needs to be done about this. I really feel it's starting to reach 'I am not making this up!' levels of misuse. I have a few suggestions on how to combat this, and hopefully get it back with it's original Trope description:

• One key feature about Berserk Buttons is the fact that they're reaccuring. They happen many times throughout the series, and always provoke the same result. (Rage. An example being the trope image Edward reacting to being called short, something that happens many times throughout the series.) There not something that only happens once, and would understandably make a character angry. As such, to make that clear, I feel the trope should be renamed to something like 'Reaccuring Rage Inducer', or at least make it more clear that examples have to be reaccuring to fit.

• Make it more clear that anything that would logically make anyone angry in that specific instance doesn't count, with family and loved ones being a major one.

• Finally, cut any and all series / franchise specific Berserk Button pages, as, if the misuse in the Ed Edd n Eddy page I brought up along time ago, and The Simpson page can atest to, it would seem Tropers feel obligated to put examples there whether they fit or not for the sake of having examples.

Sorry if this was a long read, but this elephant really needed to be addressed in detail. If nothing else, the pages desperately need a clean up, even if Tropers quickly end up readding the misused examples later.

edited 25th Feb '15 12:56:14 PM by TokoWH

This is a projects issue, not a "broken page" issue. There's an ongoing clean-up thread here.

Declining to open this TRS.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.