History Main / SanityHasAdvantages

* This is a big reason that Tai Lung loses to Po at the end of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'1'. Tai Lung is the superior martial artist by far, but he's also completely obsessed with the Dragon Scroll to the point of ignoring Po in the middle of their fight if he sees an opportunity to grab it, while Po is smart enough to take full advantage of this and use the scroll as bait to allow him to get in some seriously debilitating hits (and knows he can afford to do this because [[spoiler:the scroll is a MagicFeather]]). Tai Lung's worsening VillainousBreakdown as the HumiliationConga goes on doesn't help him any either, and neither does Po's [[{{Kevlard}} adipose]] [[NoSell immunity]] to Tai Lung's pressure point attacks.

* This is a big reason that Tai Lung loses to Po at the end of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda''. Tai Lung is the superior martial artist by far, but he's also completely obsessed with the Dragon Scroll to the point of ignoring Po in the middle of their fight if he sees an opportunity to grab it, while Po is smart enough to take full advantage of this and use the scroll as bait to allow him to get in some seriously debilitating hits (and knows he can afford to do this because [[spoiler:the scroll is a MagicFeather]]). Tai Lung's worsening VillainousBreakdown as the HumiliationConga goes on doesn't help him any either, and neither does Po's [[{{Kevlard}} adipose]] [[NoSell immunity]] to Tai Lung's pressure point attacks.

* ''Manga/DeathNote'': While [[VillainProtagonist Light Yagami]] is an intelligent young man, his [[AGodAmI god complex]], [[SmugSnake arrogance]], {{narcissis|t}}m, and eventual SanitySlippage cause him to make increasingly detrimental mistakes that would eventually lead to his undoing. Killing Lind L. Tailor just [[CantTakeCriticism because he called his methods evil]] allowed L to confirm Kira's existence and narrow down his location, his bad habit of EvilGloating ends up exposing him as Kira, and his arrogance leads him to underestimate his opponents to the point he won't consider the possibility of losing at all, making him more careless and unprepared when he's finally OutGambitted.

** When sane, Big Mom is a pragmatic and fairly reasonable capitalist, who runs her nation fairly. Problem is, she's rarely that sane, and her litany of mental problems (ranging from an unspecified "eating disorder" that can drive her into psychotic rages, to serious abandonment issues) make her unpredictable and almost as destructive to her own side as the enemy, as well as giving her openings to exploit. Her [[AnimateInanimateObject Homies]] also only obey her when she's sane -- being made out of [[SoulPower her own soul]], when she has a psychotic break they can work against her.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': Sasuke Uchiha is a better fighter, a calmer thinker and overall a happier person when he isn't plagued by his grief-fueled insanity. During the Five Kage Summit arc, his obsessive need to kill anyone he believes to have wronged him causes Sasuke to get thrashed by pretty much everyone present. At the end of it, he tries to kill Kakashi but collapses from exhaustion and realizes in the aftermath that he's overused his Mangekyo in the few days he's had it to the point of being almost blind.

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', after Aizen fuses with the Hogyoku, he proclaims [[AGodAmI that he is a god]] and throws away [[MasterOfIllusion all]] [[FlawExploitation the]] [[BatmanGambit tactics]] that had previously served him so well in favor of relying on raw power to crush his enemies. This trope comes into play when [[spoiler:he finally comes across someone more powerful than he is -- Ichigo after his latest bout of TrainingFromHell -- at which point Aizen promptly gets curb-stomped. This is shown again in the final battle of the Blood War arc, when [[EnemyMine Aizen and Ichigo join forces against]] the new BigBad. While Hogyoku now "only" gives Aizen CompleteImmortality and otherwise his power level is back to what it was before fusing with it...but his masterful use of illusions is extremely effective even though said new BigBad is a RealityWarper so powerful he's known as "[[TheOmnipotent The Almighty]]"]].

* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'': The ultimate mastermind is a brilliant MagnificentBastard and singlemindedly determined to make sure everyone crosses the DespairEventHorizon... but this same despair obsession that allows them to do such crazy things also means that they will often get distracted from their objective by their need to inflict and feel despair- and in fact, they will occasionally do things directly and ''knowingly'' counter to their main goals because they can't resist the despair of their plans failing. And finally, they're so obsessed with despair that they have a huge hope-related blind spot; for all their planning, they ''never'' account for people who don't fall into despair when they're supposed to.

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': One of the major advantages [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Spider-Man]] has over his RoguesGallery is that most of them are rather crazy and Spider-Man, [[ComicBook/OneMoreDay editorially mandated]] DealWithTheDevil notwithstanding, isn't.

* ''Manga/DeathNote'': While [[VillainProtagonist Light Yagami]] is an intelligent young man, his [[AGodAmI god complex]], [[SmugSnake arrogance]], {{narcissis|t}}m, and eventual SanitySlippage cause him to make increasingly detrimental mistakes that would eventually lead to his undoing. Killing Lind L. Tailor just [[CantTakeCriticism because he called his methods evil]] allowed L to confirm Kira's existence and narrowed down his location, his bad habit of EvilGloating ends up exposing him as Kira, and his arrogance leads him to underestimate his opponents to the point he won't consider the possibility of losing at all, making him more careless and unprepared when he's finally OutGambitted.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', [[spoiler:the climax features an [[DuelToTheDeath Agni Kai]] between Zuko and Azula where Zuko intends to take advantage of his sister's crumbling sanity. It is working perfectly until she throws out the rules of the duel and shoots lightning at Katara. Then it starts working again when her normal hyper-awareness and savviness is suppressed by her derangement and she charges right into Katara's trap]].

* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'': Let's face it: How many times would Zim have conquered or annihilated the Earth if he weren't completely out of his Irken mind?

** The pilot two-parter's villain, Nightmare Moon, has Phenomenal Cosmic Power (TM), telekinesis on a grand scale, super illusion powers, the ability to possess other living things, and perfect shape-shifting... and she uses it to make scary faces on trees and turn into a thorn to piss off a manticore. Or when she completely underestimates Twilight and her friends.
** Discord, of course, is arguably doing everything [[ItAmusedMe because he thinks it's funny,]] being as he is the setting's [[AnthropomorphicPersonification God of Chaos]]. Of course, prior to his [[DefeatMeansFriendship Befriending]] by [[BadassAdorable Fluttershy,]] he ''also'' suffered from a massive superiority complex and a great deal of spite at the idea of friendship and harmony actually being as strong as he is, ''despite'' being [[TakenForGranite turned to stone]] the first time he showed up.

** Queen Chrysalis is a cunning planner, has a lot of story-breaker abilities, and commands a vast army. Unfortunately, she's also a narcissistic sadist and fouls up many of her [[NearVillainVictory Near-Villain Victories]] with her inability to shut up when it counts. Worse, she appears incapable of learning from this; despite several of her plans involving charming and lying to her enemies, she has consistently proven herself poor at both. Instead, she prefers to blame all her defeats on her enemies, and in the comics, she's gotten a bad case of RevengeBeforeReason.
** Starlight Glimmer is extremely savvy to the tricks and plots of the main characters and has established a very efficient system of control over the cult she has gathered. It soon becomes apparent that unlike most cult leaders she genuinely believes in her warped view of the world, and this means she's entirely unable to predict something that conflicts with it. This is subverted in her second appearance where she's ''completely'' lost it, where this actually makes her more dangerous due to paying no heed to the consequences of her actions. Twilight has to instead talk her back to sanity to stand a chance of averting the damage she is causing.

** For a non-Corrupted Gem example, Jasper. She is extremely dangerous, but several months of AndIMustScream trapped at the bottom of the ocean eroded her sanity ''considerably'', and now she's completely obsessed with getting revenge on Steven for what (she perceives) he did to her, and it's rather easy to infuriate her to the point where her accuracy and tactical skills go down quite a lot. [[spoiler:And then her obsession with fusion causes her to fuse with a Corrupted Gem to defeat Smokey Quartz, which infects her with what corrupted the monster. After that, she can be one-shotted by Peridot.]]