History Main / MomentOfLucidity

* Another Joker-related example at the end of ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke''. Batman [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech deconstructs the Joker's worldview]] and pleads with him to allow Batman to rehabilitate him, as they both know full well that their feud [[MutualKill will eventually kill them both.]] For a long, somber moment Joker seriously considers it, then sincerely apologizes as it's too late for the both of them. He then starts to laugh, being reminded of a joke...

** In ''ComicBook/BatmanCurseOfTheWhiteKnight'', Harley reveals that she created the pills that temporarily cured Jack after she was received a three of diamonds card (representing Harley herself) with a note written on it that said "Don't give up on me. -J". In present day, Jack's personality able to surface long enough to tell her where the Blood Angels are hiding and the dying message Laffy wrote in his crypt.

* ''Film/ShutterIsland'' climaxes with Andrew Laeddis finally breaking though his layers of delusions and acknowledging that he isn't really [[spoiler:US Marshal Teddy Daniels]], that his conspiracy theory has been a fantasy, and that [[spoiler:he murdered his wife after she drowned their children]]. He's then told that this is actually the ''second'' time he's been cured, and that if it doesn't stick this time they'll have no choice but to lobotomize him to keep him from being a danger to the other patients. In the final scene, [[spoiler:he appears to have regressed back into his fantasy again, but as he's being carted away for his lobotomy he drops a line that heavily implies he really is cured for good this time, and is merely faking his regression because he's so guilt-ridden by what he's done that he ''wants'' to be lobotomized]].

* ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'': the finale is a moment of lucidity for Captain Walker after spending most of the game slowly losing his mind. After discovering that [[spoiler: Colonel Konrad is already dead and the voice on the other end of Walker's radio has been a hallucination all along]], Walker is forced to acknowledge that [[NiceJobBreakingItHero he was responsible for most of the atrocities in the game]], that he was being driven by delusions of heroism instead of his orders, and he can no longer [[NeverMyFault blame anyone else for the deaths]]. How well this moment works is dependent on the player: [[spoiler: In the end, Walker can kill himself, provoke the rescue team into killing him, murder the rescue team en mass, or just allow himself to be rescued.]]

* In the final chapter of ''LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners'', when Mikiya confronts the ArcVillain [[spoiler:Lio Shirazumi]], whose mind has, by that point, been completely overtaken by cannibalistic urges, the villain shows a rare moment of lucidity to talk with him and muses that it may actually be [[LivingEmotionalCrutch Mikiya's calming presence]] that gave him this one last moment of clear thinking.

* ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'' features Spamton, a corporeal spambot that talks in broken fractured English and is riddled with {{malaproper}}s, incorrect spam mail merge variables, constant misspellings, and weird nonsensical terms and sayings. [[spoiler:If you defeat his BonusBoss form Spamton NEO though, he apparently snaps out of this long enough to [[TragicVillain lament how he can never be more than a "puppet" and wishes Kris and their friends well]].]]

-->-- ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'', Issue #47

If this occurs on a character's deathbed, that's DyingAsYourself, referred to as "terminal lucidity" on Wiki/TheOtherWiki. When the character was only pretending to be insane in the first place, that's ObfuscatingInsanity. See also BoredWithInsanity. If the character's sanity returns permanently, it's a case of RestorationOfSanity.

* In the season 3 finale of ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'', the dangerously-unstable [[ArcVillain Gyp Rosetti]] plunges to new depths of insanity after he's abandoned by his boss, outmaneuvered by [[VillainProtagonist Nucky Thompson]] and driven out of his own base by [[OneManArmy Richard Harrow]]. In the throes of a VillainousBreakdown, he parrots back Nucky's words to him from the start of the season, then starts miming glasses (while ''[[RecklessGunUsage still holding a loaded gun]]'') and screamingly proclaims himself "[[ComicStrip/SnuffySmith Barney Google with the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes]]." For a moment, Gyp looks as though he's about to kill one of the last ''three'' henchmen he has left... then he calms down. As he puts together an almost-plausible plan to start over in a smaller community, things appear to be looking up for his sanity - right up until he starts singing the Barney Google song in an increasing demented voice. [[spoiler: And then Tonio knifes him in the back.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':
** Shortly before ''Batman: Cacophony'', Maxie Zeus had gotten his act together off-screen and had been pronounced as sane, rather than [[AGodAmI believing he's the actual god Zeus]]. Granted, he's still a criminal, just as VillainWithGoodPublicity; manufacturing a heavily-diluted version of Joker toxin as a party drug. A vengeance-seeking Joker puts an end to this by blowing up a school bus containing Maxie's beloved nephew right in front of him, leading Maxie to grimly order his nearest minion to "Bring me my toga."
** At the ending of the same story, Joker is hospitalized from being stabbed in the heart and is doped up on a ludicrous amount of anti-psychotic drugs. Batman takes the opportunity to have a relatively-sane conversation with him, opening up to his ArchEnemy and even explaining in part why he does what he does. It's [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] slightly in that while Joker is ''lucid'', he's still a sociopathic killer who won't rest until one or both of them is dead.
--->'''Joker:''' I imagine, in your head, you saw this visit as a change to work on the nature of our relationship while I'm temporarily ''not'' a frothing-at-the-mouth, raving lunatic. You probably saw this visit [[HopeSpot as a chance for a new beginning.]] But here's the cold, hard truth, Bats... I don't hate you 'cause I'm crazy... ''[[ThePowerOfHate I'm crazy 'cause I hate you]].''

* In ''ComicBook/JusticeLeague'' storyline "Rock of Ages", ComicBook/MartianManhunter has to put in incredible effort to reorganize Joker's mind long enough for him to give up the cataclysmic power of the Philosopher's Stone. The briefly sane Joker immediately says MyGodWhatHaveIDone verbatim as he hands it back, before quickly losing his mind and reverting to his usual laughing madman state.

* ''ComicBook/TheSandman'': When Dream has an emotional breakdown at the prospect of [[spoiler: talking to his estranged son Orpheus]] in order to find his long-lost brother [[DestroyerDeity Destruction]], Delirium wills herself into a moment of lucidity to tell Destiny off and get Dream to pull himself together. Considering she is the AnthropomorphicPersonification of madness, her lucid state "hurts very muchly".

* ''ComicBook/SecretSix'': When the team is in a heated battle with a large number of superheroes, Mad Hatter spends most of it in [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} his usual oblivious state]]... until, out of nowhere, something in his addled mind just ''clicks'', at which point he uses his mind control abilities to take down the entire ComicBook/DoomPatrol with one word. Then when the fight is over, he goes right back to being delusional and barely aware of his surroundings.

-->-- ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', Issue #47

* ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'' features Spamton, a corporeal spambot that talks in broken fractured English and is riddled with {{malaproper}}s, incorrect spam mail merge variables, constant misspellings, and weird nonsensical terms and sayings. [[spoiler:If you defeat his BonusBoss form Spamton NEO though, he apparently snaps out of this long enough to [[TragicVillain lament how he can never be more than a "puppet" and wishes Kris and his friends well]].]]
--> [[spoiler:'''Spamton:''' It seems after all I couldn't be anything more than a simple puppet. But you three... You're strong. With a power like that... Maybe you three can break your own strings. Let me become your strength.]]

* ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'': [[BigBad King Valentine]] spends much of the game in full-on OmnicidalManiac mode fully intent on undergoing a SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum, but there are moments of lucidity, mostly when he's thinking about his daughter, Princess Ariel, and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone his horror]] at having [[OffingTheOffspring murdered her with his bare hands]]. During the most memorable of these moments, [[spoiler:he outright begs Odin (Ariel's lover) for a MercyKill to put him out of his misery. Odin is tempted but refuses, [[CruelMercy believing that Valentine deserves to suffer for eternity]].]] In the true ending, [[spoiler:Valentine's last such moment is triggered when he has his granddaughter Velvet before him and is poised to kill her when she's too exhausted to fight back, but her [[StrongFamilyResemblance resemblance to Ariel]] causes him to back off doing so, instead leaving her behind as he flies into the sky with [[{{Kaiju}} Leventhan]] to witness TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt and finally die incinerated by Leventhan's own BreathWeapon.]]

* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'': After Monika corrupts the game and turns Yuri into a {{Yandere}}, Yuri still has moments where she realizes she's going crazy. At the end, she even points out that there's something ''wrong'' with her, as if she notices that she's acting out-of-character.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'' gives us the FightingFromTheInside version with [[spoiler:Jill Valentine]], who is under the influence of a mind-controlling serum and forced to attack the heroes against her will. At a certain point in the battle, she manages to fight off the drug's effects long enough to tear open her uniform and reveal a device on her chest keeping her supplied with the serum, showing Chris and Sheva what they'll have to do to save her.

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', Odin is mostly portrayed as a CloudCuckoolander who needs his son Thor to take care of him as a result of divine brain damage (Northernmen in a past universe thought magic was for weaklings and gave him, the god of magic, the wrong kind of worship; his recovery has been slow, but there) but in one of his moments of lucidity, he keeps it together enough to explain why it is a net benefit that GodsHandsAreTied.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'', Miguel's great-grandmother Coco, who is more than a century old, wheelchair-bound, can barely talk, and often mistakes family members for one another. Her advancing dementia becomes plot important because [[spoiler: she's the last living person to still remember her father Héctor, but she's starting to forget, meaning he's going to suffer DeaderThanDead in the afterlife unless Miguel can rouse her memory. Miguel just barely manages to get through to her by singing a lullaby that Héctor wrote for Coco when she was a little girl, finally bringing back her memories of him]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Coco}}'', Miguel's great-grandmother Coco, who is more than a century old, wheelchair-bound, can barely talk, and often mistakes family members for one another. Her advancing dementia becomes plot important because [[spoiler: she's the last living person to still remember her father Héctor, but she's starting to forget, meaning he's going to suffer FinalDeath in the afterlife unless Miguel can rouse her memory. Miguel just barely manages to get through to her by singing a lullaby that Héctor wrote for Coco when she was a little girl, finally bringing back her memories of him]].

* ''Film/ShutterIsland'' climaxes with Andrew Laeddis finally breaking though his layers of delusions and acknowledging that he isn't really [[spoiler: US Marshal Teddy Daniels]], that his conspiracy theory has been a fantasy, and that [[spoiler: he murdered his wife after she drowned their children]]. However, the film ends with him apparently regressing back into his old delusions, though it's hinted that he's faking insanity so that [[SuicideByCop the doctors will be forced to lobotomize him]] for the safety of the other patients.

* Mania and psychosis both tend to occur in episodes.

* UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}}'s madness within ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' is explained as being a "gift" from the Moon goddess Diana, leading him to be summoned as a Berserker-class Servant. However, it is possible for him to loose it depending on the situation like in the Prison Tower event, allowing him to act sane. Unfortunately for him, he cannot do much with his moments of lucidity as he is a Berserker, especially when it comes to his niece Nero.

* In the final chapter of ''LightNovel/KaraNoKyoukai'', when Mikiya confronts the ArcVillain [[spoiler:Lio Shirazumi]], whose mind has, by that point, been completely overtaken by cannibalistic urges, the villain shows a rare moment of lucidity to talk with him and muses that it may actually be [[LivingEmotionalCrutch Mikiya's calming presence]] that gave him this one last moment of clear thinking.

* In ''ComicBook/JusticeLeague'' storyline "Rock of Ages", ComicBook/MartianManhunter has to put in incredible effort to reorganize Joker's mind long enough for him to give up the cataclysmic power of the Philosopher's Stone. The briefly sane Joker immediately says MyGodWhatHaveIDone verbatim as he hands it back, before quickly losing his mind and going back to the laughing madman.

* In ''ComicBook/JusticeLeague'' storyline "Rock of Ages", ComicBook/MartianManhunter has to put in incredible effort to reorganize Joker's mind long enough for him to give up the cataclysmic Philosopher's Stone. The briefly sane Joker immediately says MyGodWhatHaveIDone verbatim as he hands it back, before quickly losing his mind and going back to the laughing madman.