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Is This What Anger Feels Like?
aka: I Feel Angry

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Giselle: "No!" "No! "No!" Over and over again! Every word out of your mouth is "No!" It just makes me so... Oh, sometimes you make me so...
Robert: Make you so what?
Giselle: You make me so... so... angry! [laughs] I'm angry! [laughs]

When the all-too-innocent girl (it's usually a girl as an audience tends to read an adult male character with innocence as stupid and/or weak) who's always cheerful and sweet to everyone finally gets pushed too far, it's almost always played for laughs, and one of two things will happen. Either she'll go totally postal, or she'll vent her frustration in polite, often somewhat embarrassed words, without any rage whatsoever, which almost always comes across as "cute."

Two people arguing in this manner will usually take the form of Politeness Judo.

May overlap with That Makes Me Feel Angry, which is the practice of just saying what one feels without showing it, and is usually due more to bad writing than the character simply lacking experience with the emotion.

Compare and contrast Beware the Nice Ones, Let's Get Dangerous!, Baffled by Own Biology, and Berserk Button. A subtrope of What Is This Feeling?


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Princess Nia Teppelin from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. "Are you aware of exactly who I am?!"
    "You... are a pissing-off-person!"
  • The only time the ridiculously sweet-natured Kasumi is seen to lose her temper in Ranma ½ is when her father tries to gamble away her kitchen. She produces a Battle Aura that terrifies everyone, though she still speaks to him in the same level tone and inoffensive words.
  • The Prince of Tennis: "Why does Ryoma-kun have to play with an injured eye? TELL ME! WHY?... Oh, I'm sorry..."
  • Sylphiel in Slayers NEXT goes angry at Phibrizzo when Lina tells her he kidnapped Gourry. This is the first time she is seen angry, and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Cream in Sonic X is ordinarily a sweet little girl who enjoys making flower rings and baking cakes. On one of the few times she gets genuinely angry, she turns out to be highly effective—she takes out a robot that even Sonic and Knuckles couldn't handle.
  • In Inuyasha, at least the Spanish version, has Kagome tell Naraku: "[...] Please allow me to tell you that you are despicable! [...]".
  • In Bleach, sweet-tempered Orihime roughly slaps Ulquiorra when he makes her angry.
  • In The Voynich Hotel, the immortal witch Helena has never had a relationship with a man before, so when a model shows up on the island for a photoshoot and catches the eye of the man she's falling in love with, she experiences jealousy for the first time and becomes so stressed that it makes her throw up.

    Fan Works 
  • Star in the Sonic X fanfic Don't Keep Your Distance, one of Dr. Eggman's robots who has turned good and joined the heroes. When it lands its first kill of another robot who is attacking its friends, it is shocked at its own actions and breaks down and cries.
  • In The Weaver Option, the Necron Sobekhotep lost all emotions during the biotransference. As such he's surprised to realize he can feel anger again when Trazyn sabotages his defenses, an emotion which soon comes to define his character. This is a warning sign that Sobekhotep is succumbing to the Destroyer Curse.

    Films — Animation 
  • In the Disney version of The Reluctant Dragon, the very fey title character tries to get angry enough to be able to breathe fire. When he does (by being called a "punk poet") he reacts by cheerfully skipping and chirping "Ooh, I'm mad, I'm mad!"
  • The LEGO Movie, as Unikitty watches Cloud Cuckoo Land being destroyed, she feels something that she can only describe as "the opposite of happiness."
  • In Frozen II, after Elsa conjures an ice boat sending Anna and Olaf away, Olaf comments that he's sensing anger. As it turns out, it's his own anger, which he has trouble recognizing and understanding at first.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In Enchanted, when the militantly cheerful Giselle, frustrated by Robert's feet-firmly-planted-on-the-ground attitude, finally gets in a big fight with him, she eventually realizes what this strange new feeling inside her is:
    Giselle: Sometimes you make me so... angry! [laughs with surprise]
  • Invoked intentionally by Del Spooner in I, Robot. Del Spooner is a human cop interrogating a robot accused of murder, a robot that is also supposed to have emotions.
    Del: I think you murdered him because he was teaching you to simulate emotions and things got out of control.
    Sonny: [calmly] I did not murder him.
    Del: But emotions don't seem like a very useful simulation for a robot.
    Sonny: [becoming agitated] I did not murder him!
    Del: Hell, I don't want my toaster or vacuum cleaner to get emotional.
    Sonny: [slams his hands on the metal table so hard, it buckles] I DID NOT MURDER HIM!!! [looks down in astonishment]
    Del: That one's called "anger".
  • This happens to Johnny 5 in Short Circuit 2 when he figures out Oscar had betrayed him, Ben, and Fred. He and Fred end up pursuing Oscar across New York City while he is bleeding to death (from a battery leak).
  • Happens to Arnold Schwarzenegger's character Julius in Twins (1988), who spent the movie being an incredibly peaceful, zen, and friendly guy.
    Julius: For the first time in my life, I'm... PISSED OFF!
  • Happens to Miss Bates in the film adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, after the eponymous character throws her an unintentional insult. Of course, with the film being set in Georgian England, it makes the tension thick enough to absorb radiation.

    Literature 
  • In Tea with the Black Dragon, Mayland Long gets very angry when Martha is abducted and has to stop and think about it a bit before he can identify the emotion because he's never been angry before. (He's not innocent. He's a centuries-old dragon, and he's never needed anger before because until he loved Martha there was nothing in the world that could hurt him enough to bother getting angry about.)
  • Ekaterin in the Vorkosigan Saga isn't an all-too-innocent girl but a 30-year-old married woman possessed of such unfailing reserve that she refuses to show visible anger or frustration even after falling headfirst into a pond. After a little less than a year of associating with Miles, under admittedly extreme circumstances, she snaps out "If you die out here, I will not be grieved. I will be pissed." Miles himself remarks "I wouldn't dare die. There's this fierce Vor lady who swore she'd kill me if I did."
  • C. S. Lewis's Perelandra: Variant. The hero, Ransom, has of course felt anger before during his life, but it's only when he's fighting the actual physical incarnation of Evil that he understands what anger is for.
  • In Heart of Steel, Alistair's first taste of anger after not feeling much in the way of strong emotions for ten years frightens him almost as much as it scares Julia.
  • Tales of MU: It happened to Two, while under the influence of the evil rage-inducing cursed pitchfork.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow Rosenberg. Which hilariously carried over to her vampire counterpart. "I don't like you!"
  • While far from sweet and innocent, when Jerry Seinfeld is told that no one's ever actually seen him angry he tries to prove that's not true by shouting at Kramer. Kramer thinks it's part of Jerry's comedy act and just laughs his ass off.
  • Father Mulcahy in M*A*S*H in several different episodes when he's getting screwed over in some way or another.
  • This happened to Dick the first time he felt anger on 3rd Rock from the Sun. Of course, it's due to him being an alien rather than being innocent or timid.
  • Doctor Who: In "A Good Man Goes to War" the Eleventh Doctor's enemies, rather than fight an unbeatable opponent, target the people he loves — and for the first time in this regeneration he loses control.
    The Doctor: Oh, look I'm angry, that's new. I'm really not sure what's going to happen now.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Bob Backlund:
    • When this wrestling superstar of the late 1970s and early 1980s returned to the World Wrestling Federation in 1993, it was as a veteran superstar that graciously was there to mentor the younger superstars and show goodwill toward his longtime fans. However, his "good-two-shoes" persona didn't exactly get over with the fans, and it wasn't long before he adopted the gimmick — that of a crazed individual gone mad over unjustly losing his WWF World Heavyweight Championship 10 years earlier — that he truly made his impact. His newfound anger found many targets, most notably his longtime friend and manager, Arnold Skaaland (the man who threw in the towel to cause Backlund to lose his title to The Iron Shiek) and Bret Hart, from whom he would eventually regain his beloved title. (Hart and Backlund had met earlier in 1994 in a rare "face vs. face" match, but when Hart came out on top, a discouraged Backlund snapped.)
    • Incidentally, during Backlund's original WWF championship run in the early 1980s, there were occasions where he did get angry... but only once — after "Superstar" Billy Graham tore apart his championship belt during a TV taping (incidentally, because Graham thought he was unjustly robbed of the belt, due to having his foot on the rope when Backlund scored his title-winning pinfall) did Backlund scream, rant and rave like a lunatic.

    Puppet Shows 
  • Sesame Street: Bob meets an Anything Muppet man with no facial features except for a mouth. He's feeling blah and asks Bob if he can help. When Bob gives him eyes with furrowed eyebrows, he starts to feel angry.

    Theater 
  • Wicked: What Is This Feeling? Loathing. Unadulterated loathing.

    Video Games 
  • Mass Effect 3 has a brief moment like this when the Normandy’s AI, EDI, comes to the realization that, rather than empathizing with the Reapers (since they’re synthetics like herself), she finds them disgusting and will be happy when they’re defeated.
  • In the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion Mask of the Betrayer, you can gain a party member named Kaelyn the Dove. If you use voice commands and select "cuss," she'll sputter for a moment and end with "I don't know any profanity, how embarrassing." It is adorable.
  • In Planescape: Torment, Nenny Nine-Eyes, an NPC, does not know how to say bad things about people, even ones she doesn't like. You can coax her into experiencing anger so she can express how she really feels about others. At first, she can only give a feeble "I dislike her very, very much!", but if you keep egging her on and tell her to practice saying bad things at you, she goes into a full-on tantrum, ranting about someone going out late at night and getting into fights and what are the children going to think? before laying into you with a whirlwind of weak, lady-like punches.
  • Tales of Symphonia:
    • Colette Brunel has a case of this every now and then. "I'M MAD NOW!!"
    • Played for Drama with Emotionless Girl Presea, whose emotions were magically suppressed for so long that she no longer knows how to identify them clearly.
      Presea: This unsettling irritation... is this... anger?
  • In the XCOM 2: Shen's Last Gift DLC, the rogue AI Julian has this experience as XCOM continues to thwart him.
    Julian: I had thought myself above such things, but I believe you are starting to... piss me off. The sensation is quite pleasant, thank you. You will all still die, of course.

    Web Comics 

    Western Animation 
  • Happens to Minnie in the straight-to-DVD episode Mickey's House of Villains. When Jafar and the other villains take over the club, and Mickey and his sidekicks Donald and Goofy fail to extract them, Minnie tells the boys to step aside and charges right into the mass of villains to take care of the problem in her own special, naive way. Obviously, her delicate attempts are met with a complete lack of concern. Actually, Minnie seems to experience this a lot, be it in the classic cartoons of the past, or in more modern incarnations like "Runaway Brain" — only Mickey seems to cringe when she's angry. And when she is, Minnie has such trouble expressing it that she stomps her high-heeled foot in typical "feminine" fashion, and her words fail to damage anyone.
    Goofy: Gawrsh, I've never seen her so mad.
    Mickey: Oh, I have.
  • In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, be careful to not upset Fluttershy, or she might just scream. Or even worse, kick something. She does "go postal" once, however. She's still surprisingly cute, even when she's in Cute and Psycho-rage mode.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In the first Treehouse of Horror segment "Bad Dream House", when the house rants about what will happen to the family if they don't leave, Marge blows her top and angrily tells the house to get used to them. Afterwards, she feels afraid because she's never been this angry before.
      Homer: At least it's better than your eyeballs melting.
    • In "Hurricane Neddy" when Flanders goes on his big rampage, his insults toward Bart leave the latter feeling this way.
      Flanders: Here's a catchphrase you better learn for your adult years: Hey buddy, GOT A QUARTER?!
      Bart: I am shocked and appalled.
  • In Futurama once the very innocent aliens from Rumbledy-hump discover that Leela has been using their experiences to make a kids show, they don't know how to handle the feelings.
    Lady Buggle: I feel like an upside-down smile.
    Leela: A frown?
    Lady Buggle: We didn't have a word for it!
  • Green Lantern: The Animated Series plays this for drama when Aya, as an AI only just now developing emotion, is completely unable to comprehend or handle harmful emotions like anger or sadness. This leads to her deleting her feelings because she’s terrified and hurt by the experience of them, inadvertently rendering herself a sociopathic Spock who resolves to destroy all emotional beings as a Mercy Kill.

Alternative Title(s): I Feel Angry

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