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Moment of Weakness

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"There are moments when we all become someone else, something other than what we are. It takes only a moment, but we spend the rest of our lives looking back at that moment in shame."
Delenn, Babylon 5

No protagonist is perfect. Every character brings their own unique flaws and difficulties to their role in a story. Often stories will be about a protagonist's struggles to overcome these flaws. However, whether they succeed or fail, many of them will experience at least one Moment of Weakness. That instant in which their emotions or the stress of a situation goes past critical and causes a thoughtless reaction that they would never have if they were thinking clearly.

A Moment of Weakness can come and go, but will usually be recognized very quickly by the perpetrating protagonist. The typical response is usually one of two extremes. Either they'll wonder with horror "My God, What Have I Done?" and try to atone for it or it will be the first step in a running jump off the slippery slope. On occasion, you can even get someone who realizes the horror of their action, but not have that be enough to stop the leap.

To mitigate the potentially subjective nature of this trope: A Moment of Weakness is a single moment in which a character's emotions or stress levels run so high that they act contrary to their usual nature. This action almost always causes damage of some kind, most commonly to someone or something the protagonist truly cares about. This is one cause of O.O.C. Is Serious Business. Do not be surprised if an Oh, Crap! follows.

It is not necessarily something that the character will look back on as My Greatest Failure after the fact, but chances are that they definitely will be thinking of and agonizing over it as one of their more serious personal mistakes.

See My God, What Have I Done? for more long-term examples and Start of Darkness when the Moment of Weakness sends them the other way. If a rash action during such a moment leads to tragedy, see A Tragedy of Impulsiveness. Can potentially result in Insult Friendly Fire or Kick the Morality Pet. Compare In Vino Veritas, when this sort of thing can happen due to drunkenness, and Too Desperate to Be Picky, where they violate their own personal standards for the sake of a need. Contrast Sudden Principled Stand.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Berserk: Given the Dark Fantasy tone of the story, these crop up in abundance due to the Godhand's Reality Warper and Winds of Destiny, Change! gambits. Their Beherits activate once their victims reach their lowest point, offering them back everything they've lost along with immortality and power for the tiny cost of damning the person said victim most loves. These deals also include a newly inhuman mindset to ensure that they have no regrets afterward.
  • Bitter Virgin:
    • Daisuke found himself falling for Hinako. But when she obliviously gives him a Just Friends line, he angrily blurts out that he knows her dark secrets. He gets lucky that Hinako wasn't actually listening to him at that moment but is horribly ashamed of himself afterward.
    • Same with his childhood friend Yuzu, she accidentally overhears Hinako's dark secret. At first she is willing to keep it to herself but after hearing that Daisuke has already confessed to her, she blurts it out. She feels utterly horrified at herself when she discovers that not only is Hinako right behind her, but that Daisuke already knew.
  • Cardfight!! Vanguard:
    • Aichi Sendou has his moment following a Break the Cutie incident revolving around Kai walking out on Team Q4 due to Aichi inadvertantly using Psyqualia. Kai has no idea how to stop it and, as Aichi's been working to become strong enough for Kai to acknowledge him, takes himself out of the picture. That plays right into Ren's hands, who hands Aichi a Shadow Paladin deck, which Aichi can feel the power of due to his ability; resulting in him tossing away the Royal Paladin deck has spent years building, including the Blaster Blade that Kai gave him. For several episodes, Aichi becomes Drunk on the Dark Side and uses tactics that sacrifice his allies, all in the name of his desperation to become stronger quickly - the opposite of his previous and something Aichi would never ordinarily do.
    • Happens to Kai during Season 3. When he realizes that both Aichi and Ren have surpassed him in strength he begins to lose direction. It is when Takuto, who has been possessed by Link Joker, tells him throughout a tense fight that the power of Link Joker will grant him the strength he desires. Kai gives in and becomes Reversed. He then goes on to Reverse many other cardfighters. All of this is in the pursuit of becoming the strongest so he can defeat Aichi and Ren.
  • Code Geass: Lelouch boasted that if he had to abandon his conscience to exact revenge, he'd discard it — mere minutes before abandoning the people who were relying on him to go search for his little sister during the 1st Assault on the Tokyo Settlement (quite literally as soon as he started it).
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • Gohan considers the moment when he cowered behind a rock instead of attacking Nappa back in the Vegeta arc to be this. Moments afterward, Tien dies, and he blames himself for not being strong enough to prevent it. Worse, Piccolo agrees with him and chews him out even more, nearly dismissing him. Even in the Cell arc in the anime, it's shown that he still feels guilt over this, enough for it, and his other insecurities, to push him into a Super Saiyan transformation for the first time.
    • Gohan has another when he lets his Super Saiyan 2-fueled bloodthirst get the better of him during his fight with Cell. Rather than finish Cell off, he decides to drag it out and torture the bioweapon. This leads to Cell getting desperate and self-destructing, forcing Goku to perform a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Before Kayneth's assault on the Einzburns' castle in Fate/Zero, Irisviel is starting to wonder just how much she really knows Kiritsugu. The past few days has seen him return to his Cold Sniper persona, in stark contrast to the loving father and doting husband she'd known for the last few years. As she's wondering, he embraces her and, on the verge of tears, asks her if they can just forfeit the Grail War, rescue Ilya, and live together in peace.
  • Ling in Fullmetal Alchemist knowingly makes a Deal with the Devil and allows himself to become the new Greed because of his obsession with gaining immortality. It overlaps with An Offer You Can't Refuse because Ling would have died otherwise and Greed later did a Heel–Face Turn, so that it ultimately wasn't a bad decision.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable: For Joseph Joestar, it was cheating on his wife and having an illegitimate son, then spending the next 16 years being a Disappeared Dad to said son.
  • My Hero Academia shows one for Rei Todoroki during a flashback in the Sports Festival. In it, she's talking to her mother over the phone about how her husband, Pro hero Endeavor, has been abusing her and her children, to a point that her son Shoto's left side only reminds her of him. She openly states that she thinks she's losing it. The second an eavesdropping Shoto makes himself known, we only see the all-consuming terror and hatred in her eyes before she empties a boiling kettle of water on Shoto's face, creating his distinctive facial scar.
  • Inverted in Nichijou when Yuko throws a compliment to Mio while the two are having a fierce (read: Mundane Made Awesome) argument, which leads to the whole thing defusing.
  • During the Water Seven arc of One Piece, when Luffy and Usopp are arguing over whether or not the Going Merry should be replaced, after Usopp, also in a Moment of Weakness, claims that Luffy was only pretending to care about the Merry, Luffy pins him to the ground and nearly blurts out that if Usopp didn't like the way he did things then he should just leave the crew. Though Sanji kicks him right before he fully finishes his sentence, and Luffy apologizes for his threat, Usopp quickly understands what Luffy was trying to say during his outburst, and took him at his word. This leads to his (temporary) leave, and it signifies that the damage has been done.
  • Overlord (2012): Ainz has exhibited his loneliness as the last Supreme Being and a desire to see his comrades. He shared his selfish reasons for not letting the Floor Guardians fight Shalltear. Albedo was present when he displayed hesitation and uncertainty at rumors that a fellow guild member was in the New World.
  • Kyubey in Puella Magi Madoka Magica is consistently shown trying to take advantage of such moments to score a Magical Girl contract. This is, in fact, how he recruited Mami and Sayaka, coming to the former when she had just experienced a car crash and was clinging to life and the latter after Kyosuke's emotional and mental state drastically declined.
  • Saki's Hajime Kunihiro gave in to the urge to use sleight of hand to win a Mahjong tournament in grade school. Even into high school this act haunts her, undermining her confidence to play without doing so. This is the reason she's Chained by Fashion and wears handcuffs much of the time.
  • In Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, an argument between Sukeroku and his master, the Seventh Yakumo, begins heated already, as Sukeroku thinks Rakugo needs to change survive the modern era while Yakumo feels that would be no different than killing it. Between that and a bit of alcohol, the fight starts in earnest when Sukeroku blurts out that Yakumo's rakugo was old-fashioned and boring. From there things escalate into Yakumo taunting Sukeroku with plans to pass his name to Sukeroku's fellow apprentice, Kikuhiko. Sukeroku gets riled up to the point of nearly attacking his master, which gets him expelled.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!: In the filler Doma arc, Yami does this when he faces off against Raphael for the first time and ends up getting the Seal of Orichalcos card after Raphael plays a card that forces them to swap hands. As Raphael repeatedly chips away at Yugi's lifepoints and backs him into a corner. Yami, against Yugi's protests, play the Orichalcos card, desperate to avoid defeat despite there being no risk in losing as long as the Orichalcos card isn't played. While it gives him an advantage, he constantly sacrifices his monsters to do so. This leads to falling right into Raphael's tactics and losing both the duel and Yugi's soul who went in his place as the seal only needed one of them. Needless to say Yami has a Heroic BSoD for awhile after that.

    Comic Books 
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search: It's revealed that Ursa choose to have her memories of her life as the former Crown Princess of the Fire Nation erased by the Mother of Faces in order to live her life over with Ikem free of the trauma and pain she suffered under Ozai. This includes the memory of her children despite how much she loved them. After deciding to have her memories restored at the end of the book she is left ashamed of herself that she chose to give up her memories of her children and vows to make up for her mistake with Zuko.
  • Black Canary: Implied. During the Cry for Justice & Rise and Fall storylines, Dinah abandons her husband Oliver and her adopted son Speedy I/Arsenal/Red Arrow I (Roy Harper). She left the both of them because Oliver murders Prometheus for destroying Star City and causing the death of his adopted granddaughter Lian, while Roy goes back to using heroin after the pain in his right arm becomes too unbearable because of the infection and the horrible prosthetic Cyborg made, with Dinah officially considering him a lost cause. However, it is hinted that Dinah was traumatized because of the events of the story and was lashing out at them. It is also hinted that Dinah was subconsciously looking for an excuse to abandon them and leave the painful tragedy behind her. In Birds of Prey, it is revealed Dinah harbors a huge amount of guilt for her actions and regrets abandoning them when they needed her the most.
  • Iron Man: During the Manhunt comic arc in Iron Man where Tony Stark is framed for the attacks on the Chinese. FBI agent Neil Streich threatens to draw in Pepper Potts and the hospitalized Happy Hogan unless Pepper agrees to cooperate with him. Pepper agrees and provides Stretch with the code he needs to activate a failsafe which deactivates the Iron Man armor. Pepper is heartbroken and horrified when she gives Neil the code and shamefully admits to a comatose Happy that that was the worst thing she could have done to him. When Tony is able to evade capture and clear his name, he forgives Pepper for her betrayal. Pepper breaks down and cries as Tony hugs her, saying "You don't have to say that. You have every right to think I let you down because I did. Stretch got me worried about Happy and I should have been stronger, or cleverer" as Tony says everything is OK.
  • The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: In "The Empire-Builder From Calisota", Scrooge makes the biggest mistake of his life, the only "sharp deal" he ever made, when he hires a group of criminals and thugs to destroy an African village, then tricking their chief, Foola Zoola, into selling the land to him for a pittance. His sisters state at the beginning of the story that Scrooge had gotten increasingly cynical and harsh over the past decade while building his fortune, but this was the only time he outright crossed the line into villainy, and his family abandons him. It's only after some serious introspection that Scrooge realizes what a bastard he's become, and runs off to try and make amends... but it's too late. Foola Zoola has tracked him down first, and sets a zombie carrying a cursed doll after him before running off into the night. Scrooge escapes, but this one moment would come to haunt him for decades.
  • The final part of the Revenge of the Green Goblin story, "Trick of the Light," has Peter briefly choose the darkness over light, which Norman is happy to gloat over.
  • In the last arc of 2009 Runaways, Chase, having lost his beloved Old Lace, hits his moment of weakness and threatens to break every bone in Klara's body because she won't stop crying, and thus comes dangerously close to becoming an abuser like his old man. This in turn leads to a moment of weakness from Nico, who uses magic to force Klara to stop crying, because she doesn't want to stand up to Chase. Molly, whose own parents used to use their powers in similar fashion, is NOT pleased by this...
  • Spider-Man: This is the reasoning Dan Slott gave as to why Doc Ock was the "superior" one during his Battle in the Center of the Mind with Peter Parker in Superior Spider Man - Peter suffered a Moment of Weakness when he tried to stop Ock from using a device to save a girl that would end up finding him. Octavius is disgusted and uses that justification to erase Peter from his mind.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage): In the future story "Swan Song," Radical, who had become Leonardo's Love Interest by that time, is attacked by her Arch-Enemy Complete Carnage, who snaps her neck right in front of Leo. Many years later, Leo, having become a Buddhist monk, tracks Carnage down to Hong Kong, where he has kidnapped several people, intending to forgive him for Radical's murder and free the hostages. During the ensuing fight, Leo tries to persuade Carnage to give up his evil ways and learn to understand the true value of life... but when Carnage gleefully kills one of his hostages and mocks Radical's death to Leo's face, Leo succumbs to his anger and slices Carnage in half, outright declaring that he's not worthy of forgiveness. Immediately afterwards, Leo, acknowledging his weakness, discards his katana and rededicates himself to spiritual cleansing.
  • In the Trollhunters spinoff graphic novel Trollhunters: The Secret History of Trollkind, Blinky admits that some of the trolls considered breaking the pact and subsisting on the human passengers on the Mayflower, he refuses to disclose who did so. The same panel shows a hysterical Blinky being the one to propose the idea.
  • In his book Writing for Comics and Graphic Novels, Peter David discusses how hard it is to pull off this trope in long-running comics. He explains most people would have no problem believing a real-life upstanding, law-abiding person had, after accidentally running over somebody, panic and flee from the scene of the crime. But people are so attached to their favorite fictional characters that they would strongly oppose a story saying someone like Mary Jane Watson could do it.

    Fan Works 

Crossovers

  • Played for Drama in All For Luz: As much as Camilla loves her daughter, she also wishes that she was better at fitting in so that she didn't have to deal with being socially outcast. This fuels her decision to send Luz to Reality Check Summer Camp, even though she didn't actually want to see her Blithe Spirit crushed. Not only does the camp turn out to be far worse than she'd imagined, Shigaraki suggests this "proves" that her mother is actually a Resentful Guardian.
  • Played for Horror in Avenger of Steel: Raven losing control of her emotions once enabled Trigon to enter Azarath and completely destroy it.
  • Cracked Glass: After being Trapped in Another World filled with man-eating demons, Ojiro attempts to intimidate his captors by boasting about how powerful everybody in his home dimension is. However, this is also fueled by his own desperate desire to feel like he's got some measure of control after being effectively helpless for so long.
  • Danganronpa: In Harmony's Wake features a double example with the sauna incident. After learning that Pinkie Pie was unintentionally responsible for getting Fluttershy killed, Rainbow Dash is so furious that she storms out of the sauna they were using together, slamming the door behind her and spitefully turning up the heat. This incident was witnessed by Trixie, who then gave into the temptation of exploiting this opportunity and framing Dash for Pinkie's murder.
  • Infinity Train: Melancholy Afterlife: Just when Chloe and her father are starting to bridge the gap between them, Ash and Goh interrupt, and the Professor hangs up on her in order to focus on them. This reinforces all of Chloe's worst fears about her father favoring the boys over her, and Specter seizes upon her despair to convince her that she'd be better off on the Train.

Ace Attorney

  • The Great Ace Detective: Just like in the backstory of The Great Ace Attorney, the Professor is confronted by his long-time colleague Genshin Asogi, who offers him an honorable death through a duel and vows to protect the Professor's family afterward. The Point of Divergence is that during their duel, Klint van Ziek felt doubt in Genshin's ability to protect his younger brother Barok and his pregnant wife. This leads him to kill Genshin instead, which continues to trap Klint under the thrall of the game's Big Bad for a decade more.

Danganronpa

Dragon Ball

Fate Series

  • Want And Need: During a one-and-one fight with Kayneth while their servants are battling, Waver finds himself being pushed into a corner, desperately searching for anything he can use to defend himself. Then he notices an odd-looking gun, snatches it up and fires... and is haunted and horrified by the consquences of his actions for the rest of the story.

Fire Emblem

  • Fell Horizon: In order to get close to her sister Veyle, Alear gives up Marth's Emblem Ring, handing it over to the Four Hounds. She feels extremely guilty once she's clear-headed enough to realize what she did, sending her spiraling into despair.

Just Shapes & Beats

  • Shape Shenanigans:
    • Tristan had an intense one after Blue admitted to having accidentally driven Bass to mania. He lost his temper at Blue so much that, to this day, they're terrified of him.
    • He goes on to have another during the blog proper, when his fear of Bass takes over and he threatens her life. Ultimately, though, he's unable to go through with it.

Kirby

The Loud House

  • Syngenesophobia: The Loud Sisters have a collective moment of weakness when Lincoln confronts them over the flaws in the Sister Fight Protocol, as rage and mob mentality spurs them to subject their brother to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • What is a Person Worth?:
    • The whole plot is set off by the Loud Family letting their supersititions override their better judgment to the point of kicking Lincoln out of the house while accusing him of being a jinx.
    • Lynn's Pride makes matters significantly worse; when Lincoln calls her out on her stubbornness and selfishness, she responds by attacking and driving her brother away.
    • Ronnie Anne has one when she's tricked into believing Lincoln was cheating on her.

Mega Man

Miraculous Ladybug

  • Repeatedly Discussed in Back To Us. One of the central conflicts is the rise of a movement intent on condemning anyone who was ever akumatized. So far as Chat Noir and those who agree with him are concerned, those people simply had something horrible hidden inside of them that Hawkmoth was able to exploit, and deserve Cartesian Karma for the things they did as akuma. Ladybug sees this as short-sighted and Dramatically Missing the Point; Hawkmoth exploited people who were having moments of weakness, taking advantage of how they were breaking down beneath the weight of their personal problems, and condemning them as "innately evil" ignores how anyone could have fallen victim to his powers.
  • In BURN THE WITCH, Marinette feels an immense amount of pressure to be an Ideal Heroine, and believes that she should be above any sort of momentary lapses in judgment. This mentality has not been helped by Tikki holding her to impossible standards. Tikki winds up having a Jerkass Realization when she tries to encourage Marinette, only for her holder to smile sadly and declare that she just proved she's under the influence of Witch Hunter, as she knows Tikki would never reassure her like this under normal circumstances.
  • Dodged a Beetle: After her first battle with Stoneheart goes sideways, Marinette blames herself and fears she's not strong enough to be a superheroine. Tikki proves less than helpful on the matter, insisting that Marinette MUST be an Ideal Heroine who can never, ever doubt herself; this only succeeds in convincing Marinette that she's incapable of handling the responsibility and spurs her to slip the Ladybug Earrings into Lila's bag.
  • Hero Chat: Unlike canon, Hawkmoth is actively trying to avoid Jumping Off the Slippery Slope in his efforts to obtain the Ladybug Earrings and Black Cat Ring so he can Make a Wish with their combined powers. After Alya punches him in the face, he angrily manhandles and throws her around; Nooroo calls him out on this afterwards, convincing him to take a break from being Hawkmoth during the Winter Gala.
  • Juleka vs. the Forces of the Universe: Throughout the story, Juleka sees any instance where she snaps and directly confronts others this way, frustrated at letting her anger get the best of her. Downplayed when she considers shoving Alya off the gangplank of the Liberty following a tense confrontation. While she doesn't go through with it, she muses that 'If she were a better person, she wouldn't be having these thoughts. If she were a worse person, she probably would have already given into the temptation and pushed her into the river.'
  • The One to Make It Stay:
    • I Owe You Every Joy of Love follows Alya as she deals with the fallout from her posting a edited video of one of Chat's Love Confessions on the Ladyblog, as well as Marinette insisting that they should take a break from each other over the summer. With Ladybug having benched Rena Rouge as well, she wants to prove that she's still trustworthy, but keeps taking blow after blow as the dominos keep falling. After Nino suggests that they need to spend some time apart as well, Hawkmoth takes advantage of her unhappiness to hit her with an akuma and tempt her into becoming Friend Zone. She manages to resist and reject the butterfly.
    • Luka admits to Marinette that he's afraid of his own anger. While generally pretty calm, his outrage and frustration after seeing Bob Roth dismiss and threaten her was promptly exploited by Hawkmoth to akumatize him into Silencer, and he fears that happening again.

My Hero Academia

  • Dirty Little Secrets: Ever since he first developed his Compelling Voice Quirk, Shinso has constantly dealt with others treating him as creepy and suspicious, and has worked incredibly hard to prove that he's not the sort who would abuse his powers. However, while under the influence of a classmate's Quirk making him drunk by proxy, he gets pushed past his breaking point and uses his Quirk to make Mineta leave him alone. Once he realizes what happened, Shinso then struggles to decide the best way to handle the fallout, not wanting to lose everything due to that single moment of anger.
  • Think Before You Speak: Tensei's little brother is badly injured during his very first training exercise at U.A., and his homeroom teacher claims it was all due to the carelessness of one of his classmates. When asked about the incident, Tensei can't resist the temptation to rant about what happened, despite having been taught to be careful what he says to the media.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

  • Getting Back on Your Hooves: Deliberately Invoked and Exploited against Rainbow Dash and Applejack when Checker Monarch manipulates both into having absolutely terrible days, with the intent of riling them up so much that they reach their Rage Breaking Point and take their frustrations out by snapping at Trixie. Ultimately, Applejack gives into the temptation while Dash subverts it.
  • In A Taste of the Good Life, Scootaloo unexpectedly reunites with her mother, Ebby, whom she wants nothing to do with due to her having been an emotionally abusive alcoholic. Ebby continually pleads to reconcile, even going so far as to bring in Foal Protective Services. When Scootaloo runs away, Ebby pursues her and winds up hanging from a cliff. Scootaloo, absolutely desperate to have her mother out of her life forever, flat-out refuses to try and help her, leaving her to her fate. Scootaloo soon realizes she went too far and her mother (who was rescued anyway) realizes just how much she's hurt her daughter. This leads to a slow but genuine reconciliation.

Naruto

  • A Case Study in the Sturdiness of the Rookie 9: After being bitten by Orochimaru, Kiba's condition gradually degrades... but the tipping point comes when Ino and Naruto break into his room to check on him. Thanks to how Ino had treated him up to this point, her mere presence serves as a Trauma Button, and he gives into the cursed seal's influence out of a desperate desire to simply get away from her.
  • The Echo Remains, But The Song Is Not The Same: When Hinata realizes that she's being targeted by kidnappers who want the Byakugan, she falls into despair and attempts to gouge out her own eyes. Fortunately, Chouji stops her.
  • The Last Prayer: After Chouji accidentally drugs Ino and Naruto unknowingly takes advantage, Ino is left struggling to deal with the fallout. Sakura, unaware of the surrounding circumstances, mocks Ino for hooking up with Naruto; Ino responds by using her family's jutsu to switch bodies with her former friend, then give Naruto a blowjob while in Sakura's body and take pictures of it to Blackmail Sakura with.

Persona

  • The Amamiya Investigation: During The President's Investigation, Ren confronts Makoto over her following him around, calling her out as a stalker. Makoto responds by physically assaulting him, putting him in an armlock and attempting to force him to confess everything he knows about the Phantom Thieves. By the time she actually joins the Thieves herself, Ren has come to regard her as The Dreaded and wants nothing to do with her.

Pokémon

  • A couple of sidestories of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines have examples of this:
    • In the Butterfree Interlude, Ash's Butterfree becomes upset when the group reaches the spot where his species find mates, after having heard the mating Butterfree were caught by criminals. When Ash tries to talk to him, he angrily lashes out, thinking that Ash just dragged him back to his adventure without a care, and leaves in a huff to try and find his mate from the previous timeline. He does find her, but it turns out she's in a relationship with another Butterfree, and she seems happier than she was with him, so he ultimately lets her be. When he comes back, he apologizes to Ash, understanding that he never meant to cause him pain and that he still has a lot to live for.
    • In the Hala & Hau Interlude, the former is getting depressed due to how the current generation is losing interest in the trials, as well as Kukui's proposal of creating an Alolan Pokémon League. When he asks Hau if he thinks the trials are getting old-fashioned, Hau says no, despite how appealing a Pokémon League could be. Hala remarks that he never said anything about a League, and thinking that Hau is losing interest in the trials as well, he lashes out on him, even telling him to leave just like his father did years ago over similar disagreements. This scares Hau so much that he almost follows through with it.

RWBY

  • In What Happens in Vacuo Stays in Vacuo, Jaune and Neo are stuck dealing with a resort employee telling them that "Love love fun time is for private" and trying to make Neo wave her hands to the beat of her saying that. After nearly an hour, Jaune knocks the employee out the moment she looks away. To be fair, his first instinct was to simply let Neo murder the woman.

A Song of Ice and Fire

  • In Purple Days, Joffrey, still unbalanced from the "Groundhog Day" Loop he's trapped in, finally manages to find some time to spend with his confidante Nalia, losing his virginity and just talking with her. However, at one point Lord Petyr Baelish reveals he's Nalia's pimp, and through her he's been gathering evidence to declare Joffrey insane. Driven mad by the revelation, he snaps, killing Baelish and torturing and mutilating Nalia. Once he's done, he's left horrified, both at what he did and the fact he very much enjoyed doing so.

Total Drama

  • In Predator and Prey, Noah witnesses Alejandro rape Bridgette but does nothing to stop the horrific event in fear of attracting attention and believing himself to be too weak to stop Alejandro.

Undertale

  • If We Fall Down: Chara's grandparents, the Pelhams, constantly abused them, insisting they were NOT their grandchild but some kind of demon. Chara also had a sister, Carol, who struggled to support them as best they could... until she finally agreed to join them in blaming "the demon" for breaking a vase, for fear of being subjected to the same horrid treatment. This spurred Chara to disown Carol as their sister.

Xenoblade Chronicles

  • Momentary Weakness: As the title implies, everything started when Nia couldn't help but ask to travel with Mio, since she wanted to stay close to her daughter. From there, it was inevitable that people would start to notice the similarities and realize that Nia is Mio's mother.

    Films — Animated 
  • In Big Hero 6, Hiro discovers the identity of Yokai and, realizing his brother died in vain, angrily tears out Baymax's healthcare chip and orders him to kill Yokai. His teammates have to hold Baymax back to stop Hiro from making a huge mistake, allowing the villain to slip away, and it's only when Hiro sees a video about his brother's intentions for Baymax that he realizes the error of his ways.
  • In The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, Simba, believing that Kovu planned the Outlander ambush that nearly killed him, banishes Kovu from the Pridelands, and defends his rash actions to his daughter Kiara by claiming that his father Mufasa would have done so. Kiara is furious with him, saying that Mufasa wouldn't want that and that he'll never be like him, causing Simba to reconsider his actions.
  • In My Little Pony: The Movie (2017), Twilight Sparkle, the "Princess of Friendship", faces her friends' antics being unhelpful or liabilities in their quest to save Equestria and decides friendship won't work this time. This leads her to resort to dubious means, which in turn leads to her saying a nasty comment she promptly comes to regret.
  • In Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension, upon learning Perry's second life as a secret agent, Phineas gets angry at him and accuses him of using his family as a cover, going as far as to abandon the platypus when he turns himself in to Doofenshmirtz-2 to keep the boys safe. Once Doofenshmirtz-2 announces Perry's capture and that he will be turned into one of his cyborg minions (in order to lure in the boys), Phineas realizes his mistake and decides to go back to save him.
  • Carl Fredricksen in Up suffers two of these. The first at the beginning of the film. In a panic over his mailbox being knocked over, he hits a construction worker with his cane, getting him branded a public menace. The second is near the climax when Charles Muntz sets fire to his house. He drops everything else, including protecting Kevin, the Living MacGuffin bird (which results in her capture), to put the fire out and snaps at Dug and Russel when the latter calls him out.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In End of Days, Jericho's best friend betrays him and makes a Deal with the Devil because "it's amazing what you'll agree to when you're on fire." Especially galling since the Devil was the one who set him on fire in the first place. Near the end he can't bring himself to betray Jericho a second time, and the Devil revokes their deal by setting him on fire again.
  • Star Wars:
    • In Attack of the Clones, Anakin Skywalker was perfectly content to sneak around the Sand Peoples' camp and not start a fight up until his mother died in his arms. His rage at that moment prompted him to murder every Sand Person there. He felt guilt over it afterward, but it didn't stop his fall to the Dark Side. It only got worse from there.
    • In The Last Jedi, Luke reveals what pushed Kylo Ren over the edge. One night, Luke felt the immense darkness inside then-Ben Solo. Overcome by fear, Luke drew his lightsaber, thinking that if he killed Ben, he might stop the evil before it began. Although he instantly felt ashamed and dismissed the idea, Ben awoke, and the sight of Luke standing over him with a lightsaber caused him to draw his own conclusions.
  • Spoofed in Water (1985).
    Reverend: Am I never to be forgiven for one moment of weakness?
    Baxter: According to our latest census you've had at least fourteen moments of weakness, Eric.

    Literature 
  • Animorphs: The Drode appears to Jake one night offering him a deal: make it so he and his friends never crossed the construction site where they'd met Elfangor, lifting the burden of responsibility for fighting the Yeerk invasion from him. Jake accepts, but thanks to the Ellimist "stacking the deck", as the Drode puts it (of the six random people the Ellimist chose to fight the Yeerks, one is Elfangor's brother, one his son, one the son of Visser One's host body, and one with a subconscious ability to sense alternate timelines), the Yeerks are actually on the verge of defeat within a few days, so the Reset Button gets pushed.
  • Carrie: Implied. According to Rita Desjardin, Sue Snell is not a bully by nature and therefore joining her classmates in gleefully taunting Carrie and pelting her with tampons was very out of character. It is implied that Sue only acted under peer pressure, being one of Chris Hargensen's cronies. Sue was actually disgusted with herself; she unfriended Chris, and tried to make up with Carrie by having her boyfriend take her to prom.
  • Discworld: In "The Sea and Little Fishes", Nanny Ogg has a moment where she reflexively thinks that Granny Weatherwax could have hurt a child. The thought makes her deeply ashamed for the rest of the story and underlines just how successful Granny's Paranoia Gambit was.
  • In The Dresden Files book White Night Harry is forced to acknowledge the steadily growing influence of Lash after he loses his cool and destroys part of a building with his magic. Something the nature of Dresden-verse magic would make impossible unless Harry really believed in what he was doing. One of the book's villains, the Skavis, specialized in provoking and manipulating Moments of Weakness to make his victims commit suicide.
  • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it's revealed that it was exactly such a mistake that caused Severus Snape to forever destroy his friendship with the one person he cared for when he called Lilly Potter (then Evans) a mudblood. A mistake like this also sealed Dumbledore's fate when he realized he had the Resurrection Stone in his hands. He immediately put it on hoping to summon his dead family and tell them how sorry he was about his sister's death, forgetting that it was also Voldemort's Horcrux meaning it likely had a powerful curse on it. This curse ensured that Dumbledore would die after about a year or so even after Snape helped him limit it to his hand.
    • Ron has one where the Horcux he was wearing played up his insecurites causing him to start a fight with Harry over the direction of their journey. After Ron takes off the Horcux and cools off, he realizes what he has done, but he's outside of the charms protecting their campsite and can't find Harry and Hermione anymore.
  • Journey to Chaos: Tasio has been waiting for Eric to have a particularly bad day, because only then would he ask for help. The Trickster needs him to do this so he can deliver the Call to Adventure and drop him in another world.
  • Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse: Lilly greatly admires her Cool Teacher, Mr. Slinger, and usually does her best to be a good student. But one day, when she is angry with Mr. Slinger for confiscating her purse, she draws a mean picture of him that says "Big Fat Mean Mr. Stealing Teacher!" and sneaks it into his book bag. She ends up regretting this later.
  • In Memory, Miles covers up an assignment that was horribly botched because of health problems which he had also been keeping from his superiors. Although he's always breaking rules, up to this point it had been for the greater good; this time it was mostly selfish and he is dismissed from imperial service as a result. Later in the novel, when considering the villain, Miles notes that this could have been the point at which he did a Face–Heel Turn, but unlike the villain, he stopped himself.
  • In Well Of Ascension , Vin gets frustrated by her inability to protect Elend and her general feelings of inadequacy at everything except killing and decides to attack Cett and slaughter everyone who gets in her way.
  • In The Pendragon Adventure series, Bobby snaps and pushes a bad guy out of a helicopter. Saint Dane had wanted him to do it, and told him to, and he knew it would end up making things worse, but he was just that angry.
  • In the first Safehold book, Off Armageddon Reef, Merlin acts entirely without thinking when a group of children are attacked by the Safehold equivalent of a shark; in the process revealing a portion of his more-than-human abilities to someone whose trust he needs and could easily view his abilities as demonic. Merlin only realizes this a few seconds after he's already committed to action. Only the fact it was a blatant act of Chronic Hero Syndrome that Merlin never considered not doing allows him to retain the trust he's earned.
  • Where the Crawdads Sing: While Pa was fighting in France during World War II, his sergeant was shot and and fell twenty feet from the foxhole. Everyone scrambled to rescue him except Pa, who was too scared to move. Then a mortar exploded outside the hole, shattering his left femur. It was assumed that he was hit while trying to rescue the sergeant, so he was awarded a medal and a medical discharge. Only he knew the truth. Full of shame, Pa descended into alcoholism and gave up on providing a better life for his family.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Babylon 5:
    • Lennier gets jealous over the romance between Sheridan and Delenn, and when the former gets trapped in a room filling with toxic gas, Lennier leaves him to die. Though he soon comes to his senses and returns to help, Sheridan has already escaped. In his case he pays penance for the rest of his life, apparently dying in the Telepath War.
    • Delenn, enraged after her mentor Dukhat died from a misunderstanding, cast the deciding vote that kicked off the Earth-Minbari war, which she has regretted ever since. Like Lennier, she too pays penance for her tragic mistake.
    • Sheridan learns that Morden knows what happened to his vanished wife Anna, and proceeds to illegally detain and interrogate him in desperate hopes of learning the truth. Unlike the two previous, he's stopped before his actions result in greater tragedy.
  • Cobra Kai: Happens often, the biggest example being in the Season 2 finale. In the school brawl, Robby tries to stop the fight between his girlfriend, Sam, and Tory. Unfortunately Miguel (Tory's boyfriend) mistakes this as him attacking her, and he begins fighting against Robby. Near the end, Robby gets beaten into the ground and has his personal Berserk Buttons all provoked by Miguel. The latter eventually realizes what he's done and lets go of Robby, intending to end the fight there. Unfortunately, Robby, blind with rage over Miguel's words and recalling how Miguel refused him mercy, uses this chance to kick Miguel away, which unfortunately causes him to accidentally fall off the second floor and end up paralyzed, much to Robby's horror. He runs away in fear, and in Season 3 ends up expelled and arrested for these actions, which leads him to a Face–Heel Turn.
  • The short-lived television series G Vs E generally had villains who convinced people to make a Deal with the Devil, and good guys getting them to break those deals at the cost of what they were given. One episode stands out, however, as the bad guy of the episode approached people on the verge of death from accidents and used these deals to save their lives.
  • Kamen Rider Build: Shocked and unable to come to terms with the fact of his father allying with Evolt, Sento attacks Ryuga before he could injure him any further, putting him in a coma, which also leads to him losing Kazumi and Gentoku's trust in him.

    Roleplay 

    Video Games 
  • ANNO: Mutationem: In the Bad Ending, by refusing to accept The Consortium's order, Ann's Moment of Weakness results in Ryan being fatally shot. In that single moment, Amok uses the opportunity to pry on Ann's anger on the promise of reviving Ryan and enacting vengeance, causing Amok to fully take over Ann's body and unleashing a hellstorm of destruction on the entire world.
  • In Dragon Age II, any companion you bring into the Fade in the sidequest 'Night Terrors', no matter how high their friendship or rivalry score is, will fall for the demon's offer and attack you (except for Anders, who's immune due to Justice, and Sebastian, who refuses to go in the first place).
  • Tiamat in Final Fantasy XIV admits to this when she tells her story to the Warrior of Light. Her brother, Bahamut, was killed by the Allagan Empire 5000 years prior. Filled with grief and rage, she consorted with the Ascians and learned how to bring her brother back to life. Said brother came back as a bloodthirsty primal that rampaged across the land and was captured by the Allagans. Realizing the horror she unleashed, Tiamat, who was shackled in place by the Allagans, atones for her actions by keeping herself bound as punishment.
  • In the God of War series, Kratos, as a Spartan, is usually as fearless as he is tough. But there was that one time he pledged himself to Ares, the War God, because he feared dying to a barbarian horde. Kratos' life was saved. Then, Ares tricked him into killing his own family. It only got worse for him from there.
  • The Great Ace Attorney: Ten years ago, Barok van Zieks had all the evidence he needed to realize that his brother Klint was The Professor and the man he prosecuted for being the Professor, his friend Genshin Asogi, was innocent, and even once suspected Klint of being The Professor but he simply couldn't bear the thought of Klint being the violent killer that he himself had been hunting all along and instead ignored his doubt and believed Stronghart's manipulative lies. Kazuma Asogi later repeats the same mistake by having Ryunosuke basically spell out to him that Stronghart, not Barok, is the leader of the Reaper conspiracy but refusing to believe it because Barok convicted his father and he wants the guy to be guilty of something, especially since he's spent years becoming a lawyer just for the purpose of taking Barok down. Thankfully, unlike Barok, Kazuma has friends ready to smack sense into him and make him acknowledge the truth.
  • Katawa Shoujo: Go on. You know you want Misha, don't you? She's right there. All you need to do is say "yes"...
  • In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III, Rean instantly gives in to his Superpowered Evil Side upon witnessing Millium's death, and in a fit of rage and despair ends up unleashed The Great Twilight after killing The Dark Beast.
  • Even Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect series isn't immune to this, though his/her single (so far) Moment Of Weakness potentially happens in a very sheltered environment and doesn't have any lasting consequences: in the end of the Lair of the Shadow Broker storyline, Liara comes to visit Shepard and asks him/her how s/he is truly feeling rather than what s/he tells the crew. The Paragon answer to that is the first and only occasion the Commander expresses any doubt about his/her mission in the entire series (depending on whether this takes place before or after the Suicide Mission, Shepard will refer to the latter or to the impending Reaper invasion). Also, this speaks volumes about Shepard and Liara's relationship (regardless of whether romance was pursued).
    • S/he also shows it if you pick the renegade options (not really renegade but just different emotional responses) where Shepard both talks about just how hopeless his/her war against the Reapers seems and how exhausted s/he is from dealing with Cerberus, the Citadel Council who always treat him/her like s/he's lying or insane, and of his/her closest friends shunning him/her because s/he's working with Cerberus.
    • S/he has a ton of them in Mass Effect 3 where s/he finally starts to crumble, physically and mentally, under the pressure of being the spearhead of a war effort against a nearly unstoppable enemy force. All of his/her friends constantly worry about him/her and do what they can to keep her from going completely past the Despair Event Horizon. S/he very nearly has a Heroic BSoD after the Fall of Thessia.
    • One particularly notable one is during the assault on the Cerberus HQ, when Shepard finds a video describing how bad his/her body's condition was following his/her death at the beginning of 2. Almost completely absentmindedly, without even thinking about what they're in the middle of or the people around him/her, s/he goes into a brief existential crisis over whether or not s/he's the real Shepard or just an advanced VI programmed to think it's Shepard, talking more to him/herself than anyone else. It takes his/her True Companions and possible Love Interest reassuring him/her that they believe s/he is real to snap him/her out of it.
  • Persona:
    • Persona 4: Half of the team becomes blinded by vengeance following Nanako's Disney Death and confronting the person who indirectly caused it. Believing the perpetrator might escape justice, they considered tossing the suspect into the TV world to end this. It takes a swift "calm the hell down!" from the protagonist to make them regain composure.
    • Persona 5:
      • Makoto Niijima, the Student Council President of Shujin Academy. She is under constant pressure from the school and her older sister to succeed in life. Things come to a head after Principal Kobayakawa relegates to her the task of determining the identities of the Phantom Thieves. She takes this opportunity to blackmail the Thieves into stealing the heart of a crime boss in Shibuya, lest she release evidence to both Shujin and the police. After an outburst from Sae, and offhand comments from Goro Akechi and later Ann Takamaki, Makoto tries to prove that she isn't useless to anyone by getting the Thieves into contact with the crime boss—which gets all of them into Kaneshiro's attention. Though things turn out positively in the long run, Makoto acknowledges that her desperation has put her schoolmates into danger, and pleads with the Thieves to let her handle this so as not to further embroil them. They refuse, enlisting her help to infiltrate Kaneshiro's Palace and leading to her joining the team.
      • A party-wide one happens around the start of the third term in Royal. After the group defeats Yaldabaoth, the God of Control, Takuto Maruki uses his Persona powers to rewrite reality and make it ideal for all of the Phantom Thieves; traumas are undone, loved ones are still alive and/or not evil, and dashed dreams are once again achievable. With the exception of Joker and Akechi, the Phantom Thieves accept this reality, until the player asks them the right questions, forcing them to realize what had happened. The Phantom Thieves come to their senses in time to help Joker, but end up feeling ashamed of their actions, believing that they betrayed Joker and everything they fought for.
  • Sonic has a particularly nasty one in Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. After warding a wave of robots outside of Lyric's Tomb, an even larger wave shows up. Whereas Knuckles, Amy and Tails move into place to face them, Sonic just sits there paralyzed; in his panic, he moves to open the door, with Amy telling him not to. Then Metal Sonic shows up, and Sonic caves, opening the tomb and leading everyone inside. Not only does this lead to Lyric getting loose, but Sonic gets on the bad side of everyone watching: Amy, Knuckles, Tails, and even Shadow, who saw the whole thing from above.
    Tails: Uh... I don't think those doors were built to keep us out... they were meant to keep that in!
    Amy: Let's get out of here! Oh, wait I forgot. We can't.
    Knuckles: Not cool, Sonic! You locked us in!
    Sonic: Locked us in? I was saving you!
    Knuckles: We didn't need saving!
    Amy & Tails: Yeah!
    (later)
    Shadow: Saving the world? You? Don't make me laugh. You're weak! And you know what makes you weak? Your loyalty to your pathetic friends! You're not going through that portal... I'm going to show you just how weak you are!
  • In Telepath Tactics, Emma does not take her reunion with Silithis Predat well. In a departure from her normally reserved behavior, she immediately assumes the worst of Silithis and insults her when Silithis tries to apologize for her past abuse. This ends up working out well for her, as it allows Silithis to realize that she really was too hard on Emma. Emma later accepts the apology when Silithis tries again.
  • In her background, as related in Touhou Bougetsushou, Touhou Project's Fujiwara no Mokou followed a troupe of soldiers to the top of Mount Fuji when they were about to dispose of an Immortality Inducer elixir. She kept on going after them as they fell one by one until only one, Iwakasa, remained. When he was about to dump the thing into the volcano, he received a divine message telling him not to, lest he trigger a permanent eruption. Mokou took advantage of the tired soldier and killed him, taking the elixir for herself. Centuries later, she still feels enormous guilt over killing Iwakasa.
  • In Undertale's backstory, the monsters' king, Asgore, declared war on humanity after a group of violent humans directly caused the death of his son within a day of the death of his and his wife's adopted human child. Asgore made the decision in grief and anger, but by the time he realized what he had done, his declaration had given the monsters hope of eventual freedom from the Underground in which they were sealed. This left him feeling unable go back on his decision. He tried to Take a Third Option by just taking the souls of humans who fell into the Underground. However, that accomplished nothing except causing the monsters suffer more because Asgore did not want to dirty his hands. This act so disgusted his wife she left him soon after.

    Web Animation 
  • RWBY: Normally calm in the face of adversity, Professor Ozpin finally snaps in Volume 6 when the heroes confront him about his secrecy. When Yang claims he can trust them because they won't betray him, he furiously retorts that his friend Professor Lionheart claimed the same thing; he's been betrayed too often to risk it. When Oscar intervenes to tell them how to get answers from the Relic of Knowledge, he loses his remaining self-control and charges Ruby, but is stopped by the Relic. Upon learning the Awful Truth, the heroes turn on Ozpin, who disappears in despair. In Volume 8, they reconcile; Ozpin apologises for his behaviour and they admit they better understand how risky trust is after their own attempts to control this information blew up in their faces, too.

    Webcomics 
  • El Goonish Shive:
    • Susan panicked the first time she saw Nanase use her Fairy Doll spell and, in the process of getting help, blurted out to the others the personal issues they had been talking about.
    • When asked for a date by a guy, Susan freaked out: waving her hands, spitting out a bunch of lame excuses to ultimately run away.
  • In Gunnerkrigg Court, Antimony & Reynardine do this to each other. Annie tells Renard that he'd been used by someone he'd cared for when he kept badmouthing her father. He got back by revealing the real reason behind her mother's death.
  • The Order of the Stick, Varsuuvius made the decision to make a Deal with the Devil (and Demon, and Daemon). V knew that dealing with infernals was a bad idea, and they even offered an alternate method where the elf would owe them nothing. However, at that point, V was trance-deprived, guilt ridden, and both pride and body were crushed by a dragon, who was minutes away from killing the elf's family. Varsuuvius, unable to admit defeat like the alternate method would require, makes the deal and takes a step towards The Dark Side. The strip is even titled "The Wrong Reasons" in reference to a prophecy that Varsuuvius would obtain ultimate power by saying the right four words at the right time for all the wrong reasons.
  • Schlock Mercenary: Played for Laughs. While Admiral Chu was auditing all the terrible black-ops projects in his military to drag them into the light, his people found a really big gun. Chu admits that, in a moment of weakness, he code-named it "Zeus" and let them test fire it. The shot could be seen from the other side of the solar system. His superior dryly points out that this isn't going to make the civilians feel better about all those military black-ops projects.

    Western Animation 
  • 6teen: In the opening episode Take This Job and Squeeze It, after dealing with the inexperienced Caitlin's multiple errors, Jen finally snaps at Caitlin and screams at her over her multiple errors. Coach Halder reveals he overheard the outburst and comes extremely close to firing her before Caitlin intervenes.
  • Amphibia: The Season 2 finale "True Colors" reveals that after Marcy Wu learned that her parents would be moving out of state, she ran out of her home in tears and happened to come by the calamity box at a thrift shop. Recalling what the box could do after reading about it and deciding this would be her best opportunity to not be separated from Anne and Sasha, Marcy purposely suggests having the box given to Anne as a gift, leading into the events of the shows. In spite of this, Marcy failed to considered the dangerous repercussions of arriving in an unknown world and how Anne and Sasha would react afterwards, which is exactly what she's called out on after they found out the truth.
  • Arcane: League of Legends: In "The Base Violence Necessary for Change", teenaged Vi has an understandable one, but with terrible consequences. Vi has just watched her adoptive father die in front of her, after already being traumatized seeing her adoptive brothers Mylo and Claggor be killed by an explosion. Hearing her younger sister Powder run in while bragging happily that her bomb finally worked causes Vi to snap, angrily (and to be fair, not incorrectly) blaming her for their deaths. Vi strikes Powder hard enough to draw blood and calls her a jinx. After having a My God, What Have I Done? moment, she stumbles off into the rainy night to cool off. Powder believes Vi's abandoning her and begs her not to leave which Vi ignores. When Silco shows up, Vi is arrested before she can return while the emotionally distraught Powder disowns Vi as her sister to Silco, who's surprised by the similarities between himself and Powder and takes her under his wing. Vi's reaction was only human, but the psychological harm inflicted onto Powder combined with it leaving her emotionally vulnerable to being adopted by Silco creates the perfect storm in creating the Mad Bomber Jinx.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
      • Aang can't let go of his love for Katara; this turns out to be quite the problem.
      • Katara never forgave the Fire Nation for her mother's fate and almost murders a man in a fit of vengeance.
      • Zuko subverts pulling a Heel–Face Turn despite having every reason to do so, which disgusts his uncle Iroh. Later, when Ozai revealed his plan to burn the Earth Kingdom to ashes, Zuko didn't protest it (because he remembered what happened the last time he did). That made Zuko realize that he had lost his courage, and that was the final push he needed to join Aang's side, double-subverting the Heel–Face Turn.
    • The Legend of Korra
  • Batman Beyond:
    • In the first five minutes of the series, an aging Bruce Wayne is forced to pull a gun on a kidnapper who was beating him to death when his heart gives out during the battle. He retires from being Batman immediately afterwards.
    • In "Out of the Past", Talia offers Bruce an opportunity to restore his youth using the Lazarus Pit. He resists the temptation, but changes his mind after he and an innocent bystander are nearly killed in a mugging he once could have handled easily. It was a setup designed to trigger just that reaction.
  • CatDog: In the episode "All You Need is Lube", a tick attaches to Lube's toe. Cliff and Shriek are too afraid of the tick to help Lube and run away, while Cat takes the tick off, so Lube decides to serve Cat for saving his life. When Cliff and Shriek come back, lying that they left to get help, Lube is not fooled and angrily calls them out for abandoning him and tells them he's with Cat now. Cliff and Shriek genuinely feel bad about letting Lube down and do try to make it up to him to earn back their friendship.
  • In the Gravity Falls episode "Dipper and Mabel Vs. The Future", Mabel goes through an extremely bad day realizing Growing Up Sucks, leading her to make a deal to freeze time to prevent this without regard to how it would affect others. Then it turns out that doing so had freed Bill Cipher, allowing him to kickstart Weirdmaggedon.
  • The Great North: In episode "Bee's All That Adventure", Judy is so determined to get Stacy B. to stop bullying her that she makes Jill get a makeover to appear more normal instead of accepting who she is and takes Kima and Amelia for granted and they almost ended her friendship with Judy when she unintentionally said she doesn't have friends in front of them.
  • Infinity Train: Throughout Season 3, Grace becomes a sister figure to Hazel. While at first Grace was manipulating Hazel with kindness, she starts genuinely caring about her. After Simon wheeled Tuba (Hazel's companion and adoptive mother figure), Grace learns that Hazel is a denizen who she and Simon view as inferior to passengers, but she keeps it a secret from Simon to protect Hazel. In a pivotal moment in "The Hey Ho Whoa Car", when Hazel starts stressing out and transforms into her turtle self in front of everyone, Grace acts surprised so Simon wouldn't realize that she already knew. When Simon suggests that they leave Hazel with Amelia, Grace agrees, angrily calling Hazel a Null, breaking her heart. Though immediately horrifed by her backslide, she doesn't apologize. While she comes to regret her decision and tries to recant later, the damage was already down; the bond of trust the girls once shared is gone, and Hazel chooses to stay with Amelia despite Grace begging for her to accompany her instead.
  • Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: When the Mega Mute that took the Scratching Tree appeared, Yumyan Hammerpaw was so terrified he ran up a tree pass the canopy. He spent all the time since then atop a tree, hunting a firefly.
  • Miraculous Ladybug has these moments as the moment Hawk Moth sends a corrupting Akuma to turn someone into a supervillain? Did you just get rejected by your crush and feel hurt? Did you just have your style of music insulted and mocked and are feeling angry? Did you just get your car towed and get yelled at by your boss and feel frustrated? These and more are when Hawk Moth says 'hello'.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Double Subverted in the episode "Sisterhooves Social." Throughout the first half, Rarity is actively trying not to blow her top at little sister Sweetie Belle's Unwanted Assistance. However, Sweetie Belle's frustration at Rarity not wanting to spend time with her eventually reaches a breaking point, prompting her to angrily disown Rarity as a sister, and Rarity finally loses her temper right back.
    • In "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils," Sweetie Belle hits her Rage Breaking Point when she thinks Rarity deliberately upstaged her with costumes so good that the audience of the play she wrote, directed, and starred in found them more memorable than the play itself. In retaliation, she sabotages a headdress made for one of Rarity's most important clients. The episode focuses in getting her to realize her error and fix it before it's too late.
  • The Owl House
    • Lilith Clawthorne accidentally reveals to her sister Eda during their battle in "Agony of a Witch" that she was the one who placed the curse on her. After Eda is captured and Emperor Belos goes back on his deal with Lilith to cure the curse, instead planning to have Eda petrified permanently, Lilith teams up with Luz to rescue her. Luz doesn't trust her until Lilith reveals what happened - they were close as kids, but Eda was the stronger magic user, so when they were pitted against each other in a witch's duel to see which one of them got to enter the Emperor's Coven, Lilith went to the black market and got a curse that was supposed to weaken her powers for one day. However, Eda decided to forfeit the duel and let Lilith win, and as she left, the curse took effect and Eda transformed into an owl beast and was chased away by the crowd. What makes it worse is that the curse did not last one day but appears to be permanent and is slowly overtaking her until she permanently transforms into a mindless beast. In one moment where Lilith tried to have an advance over her sister, she made her an outcast and permanently cursed her for nothing. She's spent much of her life since then trying to fix her mistake.
    • In "For the Future", this is how Camila Noceda views her decision to send Luz off to Summer Camp with the benefit of hindsight, as well as her overall attitude towards Luz's many quirks. She freely admits that it was one of, if not the biggest mistake she made as a parent while giving Luz a pep talk about how making mistakes is part of growing as a person to help console her over her guilt with regards to the events of the Day of Unity and her continual failings.
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In the episode A Very Special Blossom, The Professor unintentionally puts pressure on his daughters to get him the set of limited-edition Pro Excellence 2000 series golf clubs on Father's Day. While cleaning up the aftermath of a battle with Mojo Jojo, Blossom sees the clubs through a broken window in a store, Blossom actually resorts to stealing so that she could make the Professor happy. She pays the consequences of her actions when the Professor is arrested for having a stolen item, and when she tries to frame Mojo for stealing them before she is forced to confess. She has to pay for her crime by doing community service.
  • Rocket Power: In the episode "Rainy Days & Sundaes", Reggie, Otto, and Twister make a huge mess of the Rockets' kitchen when they turn it into a slip and slide with sundae ingredients. When Raymundo comes home, Reggie (not wanting to miss the Junior Triathlon) bails out the window, leaving Otto and Twister to suffer the punishment by themselves. Reggie is left feeling guilty for getting out of getting punished, while Otto and Twister are, for the mess they all made. Even though Otto and Twister agree to keep her role in making the mess a secret until after the Junior Triathlon, Reggie spends the episode feeling guilty until during the Junior Triathlon she decide to leave the sport event and go to her father and confess to him. It turns out he knew all along that she made the mess with Otto and Twister, and was waiting for her to tell him. While he was proud of Reggie for telling the truth, he still punishes all three by having them work at his restaurant during a rush hour.
  • Spongebob Squarepants: Spoken by Spongebob in "All that Glitters" when he tries to use a replacement Spatula after breaking his. The now sentient spatula refuses to acknowledge him after betraying it.
  • In the Steven Universe episode "Rose's Scabbard", the discovery that Steven's mother Rose Quartz had secrets she kept even from Pearl, who thought herself Rose's closest confidante, sends her into a freak-out. When Steven tries to suggest that perhaps Rose was trying to protect Pearl with the information she kept from her, Pearl angrily blurts out that Steven couldn't possibly know that because he never met his mother. After a tense moment, Pearl flees the house, forcing Steven to go after her.
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man: For most of Walter Hardy's career, he prided himself on never hurting anyone. But as he got older and slower, he took to carrying a gun, just in case. He ended up shooting Ben Parker in a moment of panic.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): In "Turtle Temper", Splinter states that one such moment on his part is partially what triggered Shredder's Start of Darkness, which he informs Raph of in an attempt to Tame His Anger. Splinter recounts an incident where Shredder openly and relentlessly insulted him in front of Tang Shen, eventually leading Splinter to lose his temper and attack him. This caused their rivalry to intensify, eventually leading to Shen's death at Shredder's hands. Raph claims that he had no choice but to get angry since Shredder was insulting him, to which Splinter retorts that he did have a choice: he could have just ignored Shredder's taunts and walked away, but he didn't.

 
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Judy Won't Let It Go

Judy is so desperate to get Stacy B to stop bullying her that she unintentionally says that she doesn't have friends, right in front of her actual friends who are mad at her for her comment.

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Main / MomentOfWeakness

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