Offing the Annoyance

"I was late because I had to stop and slaughter two peasants who blocked my way for four whole seconds!"

"Nothing personal; I just had to shut you up."

— The Spy upon dominating a Scout, Team Fortress 2

Our villain has had a bad day.

Maybe The Hero stole his girl, killed his favorite Mook Lieutenant, or blew up the third Elaborate Underground Base this month. Or maybe he's just an angry guy in general.

But whatever the reason, the point is that he's in absolutely no mood to be messed with. So, of course, here comes some pitiable fool to do just that. The unfortunate loudmouth shows up just at the villain's most irate moment and immediately starts pissing him off even further.

...And the villain, being a villain, responds the only way he knows how.

Killing people for being annoying is an interesting way to Kick the Dog: for the audience, it can be either horrifying or cathartic, depending largely on how much of an asshole the victim was being. Though the two can overlap.

The "cathartic" side of this trope is usually used in more lighthearted shows, where the victim will have been bad enough to almost make you think they deserved it. They may even be a reflection of a common real-life annoyance, such as someone loudly talking on their cell phone during a movie or screaming at a waiter. The most extreme examples of this type overlap heavily with Bullying a Dragon — in other words, the victim was intentionally harassing his killer to the point where almost any sane person would've wanted to blast him too.

The "horrific side" sees more use among towards the cynical side of the sliding scale, to show that the villain will kill anyone for the pettiest of reasons, such as speaking without permission or accidentally scuffing their shoes. In the most depressing examples, this trope begins to overlap with Shoot the Messenger: the victim was the Only Sane Man, genuinely trying to provide some very valid advice, and the villain just shot him in the face because he didn't want to hear it.

It also says a lot about the perpetrator. It's usually used to show that a character is Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, is suffering a Villainous Breakdown, or is just a Psychopathic Manchild. If a ruler does it, he just might be The Caligula. In more cynical works, it's often viewed as a Moral Event Horizon because of how petty it is and because the perpetrator feels a sense of self-righteousness in their actions.

Offing the Mouth is a Sub-Trope that deals specifically with characters who die for their snark. Compare Rage Breaking Point, Very Punchable Man, Shut Up, Hannibal!, Shoot the Messenger, You Have Failed Me, and You Have Outlived Your Usefulness, which are often more situation-specific examples of this trope in action. Subtrope of Disproportionate Retribution.

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Examples

Advertising

• An Argentinian printing company called Type & Magic released three commercials in 2000, which featured three guys pranking people in public and end up getting shot by a bald man at the end. The commercials were "hidden camera" pranks involving a mailbox, a a taste test, and falling off a bridge.

Anime & Manga

• In One Piece, Eustass Kidd and his first mate Killer do not like being argued against and will immediately use lethal force against anyone who disagrees with them. Demalo Black attempts to kill the bartender with his flintlock for not serving drinks fast enough and then at Nami when she refuses to sit next to him. The most extreme case are the Celestial Dragons. These guys not only aim their guns at anyone who doesn't bow down and do everything that they're told to do quickly (and often unreasonably so) but will shoot immediately, up to and including firing a cannon and sinking a little boy whose boat happens to cross the path of one of their ships. At least Demalo just hovers his gun without shooting to give the victim another chance.
• Dragon Ball Z: Frieza fatally wounds Vegeta out of annoyance, when Vegeta gloats that Goku will be the one to defeat Frieza.
  • While waiting for Trunks and Goten to prepare for their fight, Super Buu is staring at an hourglass and gets slapped by Chi-Chi, not even reacting. He turns her into an egg, crushes her under his foot, and goes back to staring at the hourglass as if nothing happened.
  • Frieza is known for doing this to any grunt who annoys or even slightly disappoints him, such as a mook who stepped back in fear from Future Trunks' unexpected display of power. It should be noted that his cruelty was greatly exaggerated in the anime; in the manga, he never needlessly killed an underling regardless of how much they annoyed him
• In the last episode of the original Di Gi Charat, Dejiko puts together a bomb disguised as a Christmas cake in order to off her annoying co-worker Hikaru Usada. She repents after Usada expresses gratitude for the cake and heads home with it, but it ends up blowing up anyway right after she returns to share it with everyone, destroying the store but failing to actually kill anyone.
• In Reborn to Master the Blade, Rahl Rambach has recently ascended to Highlander status, granting him magical powers thanks to his new stigmata and great political status over the mundane Midlanders. When he sexually harasses a female Knight at a party, her master, Lord Siony, politely tells him to stop. Rahl responds by burning Siony alive.

Comic Books

• Batman: The Joker does this constantly. It's probably his second most common reason for murder when it isn't just For the Evulz. If he doesn't kill you for a laugh, he kills you for asking a stupid question, saying Batman's name, existing in the same room when he's in a bad mood, calling him "Puddin'" when you're not Harley Quinn, giving him bad drive-thru service, or whatever else happens to set him off that day.
• Foolkiller: In the 2016 version, Sickle murders a tremendously obese woman with a Motor Mouth so he wouldn't have to hear her for the rest of his flight by dunking her head in the toilet.
• In Hero Squared, supervillainess Caliginous has one very obsequious henchbeing. Whenever he annoys her too much, she kills him and activates another clone.
• Judge Dredd: In "Dark Judges: Deliverance", Judge Death immediately decapitates one of his cultists for reading a poem dedicated to him. He's grown to despise poetry after his imprisonment at the end of the previous story forced him to stare at one celebrating life.
• In Kingdom Come, Vandal Savage kills Lex Luthor's secretary with a Neck Snap for the following concerning his coffee:
  Vandal Savage: I said two sugars.
• Lucky Luke: Joe Dalton is notorious for his bad temper and his subtle answer to most sources of irritation is a rain of bullets. A memorable example in The Daltons in a Wedding has him using a gun with blanks to kill the sheriff and failing. While trying to figure out what was wrong, the would-be victim's would be mother-in-law scolded him for failing and he responded by trying to use the gun on her to shut her up.
• The Punisher: Narrowly avoided in the Nixon Island arc, when Frank is on a long flight with a pilot who won't shut up is seen about to strangle the pilot (after a crash landing) and only stops on seeing other people arriving.
• Robin (1993): When Tim goes to deal with a hostage situation only to find the hostage takers have already murdered one of the hostages, he sort of loses himself in the fight in his anger as the lead criminal says they killed the man in front of his little daughter because "he wouldn't shut up".
• In The Sandman (1989), Cain kills Abel for annoying him over and over again, since they're immortal.
• In Wanted, the protagonist (once he's found out about his new powers) kills (among others) his neighbor, who annoyed him by always repeating the same mindlessly optimistic message every morning. His first step to becoming a supervillain is to go down the list of everyone who annoyed him in some way during his life and murder, rape, or torture all of them.

Fanfiction

• In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a dementor sucked Harry's warmth away, leaving him an Empty Shell incapable of warmth or love—but quite capable of annoyance. "X is annoying. They should die." becomes a short-lived catchphrase of his.
• The Harry Potter parody fic Harry Potter and the Something Something has Voldermont kill a series of girls who knock on his door for getting on his nerves. But coming up with a list of ways to annoy the Dark Lord (and then reading it to him) was probably asking for it...
• Near the end of Loved and Lost, King Jewelius seethes over the fact that Twilight Sparkle and Canterlot's citizens have stopped supporting him and returned to rooting for the heroes whose reputations he destroyed. He then gets the sinister idea to wipe out the entire town of Ponyville along with the heroes. All his chief minions are disturbed by this, but when an unnamed guard dares to question if this is a little extreme, Jewelius has a twitchy eye before he chucks the poor guy out of a window. As a Shout-Out to the Batman Returns example, he proceeds to say that it's a lot extreme.
• Downplayed in the Sherlock Holmes fanfic Of Art And Autographs, the story opens with Holmes playing a hideous composition while standing near the window. Watson hypothesizes that the across-the-street neighbors might shoot the violin if he continues.

Films — Animated

• Boogie does this all the time with the titular character. From shooting his nanny in the face for talking about "Boogie's a naughty boy at eight years old" to shoving his gun into the mouth of an anti-cancer activist's face when she tried to talk him out of smoking.
• In Disney's Peter Pan, Captain Hook shoots one of his own pirates for his loud, annoying singing.
  Mr. Smee: Shooting a man in the middle of his cadenza? That ain't good form, you know.
• Downplayed in The Emperor's New Groove; when an old man gets in the way of Emperor Kuzco's intro dance, he gets chucked out the window for "throwing off his groove". He survives because a banner broke his fall.

Films — Live-Action

• In the climax of Korean war film 71: Into the Fire, the Political Commissar who spends much of the entire film rambling on North Korean General Pak berates his strategies after he gets a platoon of his soldiers killed. General Pak, finally tired of the Commissar's nagging, empties a magazine of lead into him.
• If it wasn't just For the Evulz, this was the reason Captain Vidal killed those two farmers in Pan's Labyrinth. He'd told them to be quiet and take their hats off a few times beforehand.
• In Jackie Brown, Louis kills Melanie because she is constantly heckling him for forgetting where he parked their van.
• Broken Arrow (1996), when Big Bad Deakins kills the panicking Pritchett with a heavy flashlight smacked across the throat.
  "Hush!"
• In City of God, a Motor Mouthed gang member called Tuba gets killed by Lil' Ze for talking too much. It may be a case of Too Dumb to Live. When your boss kills people for fun, praising the skills of the guy who just killed a few of his mooks, then shot him in the arm, isn't the best idea.
• The Joker in Batman (1989) kills his most loyal and faithful henchman Bob, just for being in close proximity while Joker was upset about Batman taking away the Deadly Gas-filled balloons he was using to kill the people of the parade. Bob wasn't doing anything to actually annoy him; the Joker is just that bad of a boss. This is by far his biggest Kick the Dog moment in the movie.
  "Bob? Gun."
• Similarly in Batman Returns the Penguin, fresh off the dismantlement of his mayoral campaign by Alfred and Batman and just this side of madder than hell, kills a henchman for questioning the morality of his plan to take revenge on Gotham by killing off their firstborn sons.
  Henchman: I mean, killing sleeping children. Isn't that a little... hmmm?
  *BANG*
  Penguin: No. It's a lot "hmmm"!
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
  John Bigboote: We've had our chance! Your overthruster's for shit! We're lost!
  Lord John Whorfin: One more word out of you, Bigbooty...
  John Bigboote: [screaming] BIG-BOO-TAY! TAY! TAY!
  [Whorfin shoots him]
• Played with example in the film, Donnie Brasco. Nicky is the member of the crew Donnie has infiltrated who always runs his month and tells jokes that his crew often finds funny. But once Sonny takes over the crew, he makes it clear early that he doesn't like Nicky's jokes, even slapping him hard across the face after telling one. However, Nicky is also revealed to be selling drugs in secret, which is a big no-no in the Mafia. Later, he is killed and dismembered after Sonny accuses him of being a rat. Donnie and Lefty have debate about whether Nicky's death was justified. Lefty admits that Nicky's death could of been because he was a rat, or because Sonny simply found him annoying and wanted him gone. Either way, as a boss he can make that choice.
• In the Flash Gordon parody Mom and Dad Save the World, Emperor Spengo is portrayed as a comedic version of The Caligula.
  Spengo: Hey you. What do you think — mutton chops or goatee? Be honest.
  Mook #1: Mutton chops, my lord?
  Spengo: [considers for a moment] No. No, I like the goatee better. Shoot yourself in the head.
  [Beat]
  Spengo: NOW.
  [Mook #1 complies with the order with a blaster pistol to his own head]
  Spengo: [to a second mook] Well? How about you?
  Mook #2: [a beat, then brightly] Mutton chops!
  [Spengo glares at him; Mook #2 sighs, then shoots himself]
• In Time Bandits the character Evil does this twice (but then he is an extremely Bad Boss anyway):
  Evil: What sort of Supreme Being created such riff-raff? Is it not the workings of a complete incompetent?
  Minion 1: But He created you, Evil One.
  Evil: What did you say?
  Minion 1: Well, He created you, so He can't be totally...
  Evil: [blasts Mook 1 out of existence] Never talk to me like that again! No one created me! I am Evil! Evil existed long before Good. I made myself. I cannot be unmade. I am all-powerful!
  Minion 2: But why, if that's the case, [Other minions edge away from him] are you unable to escape from this fortress?
  Evil: [blasts Mook 2 out of existence, before responding earnestly] That's a good question...
• Almost invoked in Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights, when a mime annoys the Sheriff to the point that he just shouts "Kill him!", before he's stopped by Prince John, who says "You know, a mime is a terrible thing to waste."
• In End of Days, Satan murders a rebellious teenager after he accidentally trips the kid off his skateboard. He is pleased at the "Satan Rules" shirt he is wearing, but the teen interprets this as a condescending comment from a middle-aged businessman and tells him to get lost. Satan then causes him to be run over by a bus.
• In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), The Other makes the mistake of trying to intimidate Ronan the Accuser, and immediately gets a Neck Snap for his trouble.
• Scary Movie: Played for laughs when a reporter of the killing spree in the town is annoyed by a teenager who pops up behind her to goof off in front of the camera. She pulls out a gun and shoots him, then immediately changes her report from "1 dead teen" to "2 dead teens".
• In Daredevil: While on his flight to New York, psychopath hit-man Bullseye is sitting next to an elderly lady who won't stop talking. So he chokes her to death by ricocheting an airplane peanut off the back of the seat in front of him into the woman's throat, choking her to death, but making it look like she fell asleep.
  Stewardess: Oh, Look. She's sleeping. Can I get you anything before we land?
  Bullseye: More peanuts... please?
• In Gremlins 2: The New Batch, while the Brain Gremlin is being interviewed by TV host Uncle Fred, he is interrupted by one of the less intelligent brethren who goofs off in front of the camera, so the Brain Gremlin casually pulls out a pistol and shoots him in the head.
  "Now, was that civilized? No, clearly not. Fun, but in no sense civilized."
• In Licence to Kill, financial advisor Truman-Lodge really picks the wrong time to badger his boss Snachez about how much Bond's Roaring Rampage of Revenge is costing them:
  Truman-Lodge: Brilliant! Well done, Franz! Another $80 million write-off!
  Franz Sanchez: Then I guess it's time to start cutting overhead.
  [Sanchez guns him down]
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day: The T-1000, disguised as John's foster mother, is talking to John on the phone and his foster father keeps interrupting, so, not even looking in his direction, it morphs an arm-blade and skewers the man through the head. (Taking out an innocent carton of milk in the process.)
• The climax of The Rocketeer features a Gestapo officer who shows up with a bunch of Nazi soldiers in a Zeppelin and seems to spend pretty much all of his screentime screaming furiously at Nazi turncoat Neville Sinclair about how he's screwed up all their plans to acquire the rocket pack. Guess how long it takes said turncoat to get fed up with this annoying nonsense and shoot him out of the Zeppelin.
• This turns out to be the motivation of the members of the NWA in Hot Fuzz. They kill George Merchant for his house, Martin Blower for his terrible acting and Eve Draper simply because of her Annoying Laugh.
• In Sleepers, having been horrifically abused and broken in the Wilkinson's Home for Boys, John and Tommy became violent mobsters, with the former even killing a man simply for cutting in front of him in a line.

Literature

• In The Adventures of Pinocchio, the Talking Cricket rebukes Pinocchio for his misbehaving attitude, saying that it brings bad consequences. Pinocchio gets angry and, after the Cricket tells him that he pities him for having a wooden head, Pinocchio angrily throws him a mallet, crushing him. The Cricket gets better.
• A Certain Magical Index: Freyja summons a monster to kill a man who asked if he could borrow her cellphone (she didn't have a cellphone, but she was speaking into a magic talisman in a way that made it look like she was on the phone).
• In the book Peter Pan, Hook kills his men frequently. It's almost like George Jetson Job Security to an insane degree.
• In the backstory of Shadow of the Conqueror, annoying Dayless the Conqueror was a capital offense during the Dawn Empire, listed as treason and punishable by death.
• Happens a few times in A Song of Ice and Fire.
  • Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain that Rides, is prone to this. According to his brother, he killed one of his own men for snoring too loudly. Later, in a non-lethal but still horrifying example, on the way back from a lost tournament he's annoyed by the owner of an alehouse, who first fawns over having a knight at his establishment and then complains about Ser Gregor's men mistreating his thirteen-year-old daughter. His response is to lead his men in gang-raping said thirteen-year-old daughter.
  • Ramsay Bolton is sent out to find some missing Freys, but fails. On the way back, in a sour mood, he runs into an old man who makes the mistake of calling him "Lord Snow" rather than Bolton. Ramsay cuts his head off in retaliation, at the very least, though given Ramsay's tastes it's entirely possible the death was nowhere near so quick or clean.
  • Good old Brown Benn Plumm, semi-Kingdoms-based exiled? Mercenary and teller of tall tales has one involving this trope. Once upon a time, he had the misfortune of working near Oznak zo Pahl, scion of the noble and honorable family of Phal, noted to be among the premier slavers (and habitual douchebags) of ancient Meereen. This scary dude killed a man for supposedly "raping a woman with his eyes", and thoroughly disgusted Ben in the process (because leering at the merch doesn't compare to being a flipping slaver who breaks the girls and boys in for the market). And, Ben has seen and done a lot of amoral things in his time. Now, whether this is true? Up to you.
• Star Trek: Enterprise Relaunch: The Man Behind the Man for the Reversionists finds their leader such an irritating twit that he has to restrain himself from strangling her before she's outlived her usefulness. Once she does outlive it, he kills her without a second's hesitation.

Live-Action TV

• One of the most infamous scenes in Breaking Bad is when Tuco Salamanca beats one of his most trusted right-hand men to death with his bare hands for talking out of turn. It turns out to have been an accident — what was supposed to be a nonlethal beating sent him into a fatal seizure — but Tuco doesn't show any remorse either way.
• Daredevil: Kingpin kills the leader of a rival gang by brutally bashing the man's head in by slamming a car door into it repeatedly. The reason? The other gang leader had interrupted Kingpin while he was on a date... to say that he wanted to accept the offer Kingpin had made him.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus:
  • In the Cheese Sketch, John Cleese shoots Michael Palin after he discovers that the cheese shop has absolutely no cheese at all.
  • Inverted in the Visitors sketch; John Cleese is one of a horde of Things That Would Not Leave that have invaded Graham Chapman's house when he's trying to have a quiet romantic evening; when Chapman demands that they leave his house Cleese simply says "I don't much like the tone of your voice." and then shoots him dead.
• On Six Feet Under, the Body of the Week was an old woman from the nursing home where Vanessa (Federico's wife) worked. At the beginning of the episode, the woman was constantly talking about whatever was ailing her. Later, when her body arrived at Fisher & Sons, they find her roommate had shoved a hot dog down her throat to make her shut up.
• In the Xena: Warrior Princess episode "Been There, Done That" at one point Xena takes advantage of the "Groundhog Day" Loop to kill Joxer, knowing he'll be alive and well the next time she wakes up.
• Averted in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Harsh Light of Day". Spike stakes Harmony after becoming annoyed with her babbling but she happens to be wearing a ring that makes vampires indestructible at the time.
• Attempted by Yvonne Criddle from MADtv (1995), who wanted to buy a shovel to brain her neighbor's dog for making her car wet, and then tried to kill a family by running them off a cliff after they took her parking space in front of the store.
• I, Claudius: 10- (or so) year-old Gemellus dies of an Incurable Cough of Death — which is to say, Caligula has him killed because he won't stop coughing.
• Seinfeld: Averted when Elaine can't sleep due to a neighbor's dog that won't stop barking all night. Newman offers to kill it for her, but Elaine thinks that's going too far, so instead they just kidnap the dog, drive it upstate, and release it. It comes back.
• Supernatural
  • In the episode "Two Minutes To Midnight". During Death's character-defining intro, he takes a stroll in Chicago looking like a normal human and a rude guy too busy with his phone makes the mistake of bumping into him and scolding him. Grim barely glances back, slightly brushes his coat as if getting rid of a pesky fly, and the guy immediately drops dead right on the street. As is later seen, it's not used to villainize him, however; he just operates on such a larger scale that he actually is just getting rid of what to him is nothing more than a petty microbe.
  • In the season eight episode "The Great Escapist", Naomi has an entire restaurant of innocent people brutally murdered in an attempt to capture Castiel. She leaves one poor woman alive with her eyes burnt out and a message for Castiel, but even after they succeed in capturing him, the traumatized woman keeps repeating the message until Naomi gets frustrated and breaks her neck with a fingersnap. It's a harsh indicator of just how little Naomi cares for human lives, even though as an angel she's supposed to care about them.
    Naomi: Can't hear myself think.
• Boardwalk Empire:
  • In season 3, mob boss Gyp Rosetti has a habit of doing this. The real problem is that his definition of "annoyance" can include virtually anything. His Establishing Character Moment comes when a Good Samaritan helps him fix his car, but (completely unintentionally) appears to be patronizing Rosetti for his lack of education. Rosetti lets him finish helping and then beats him to death with a tire iron.
  • Back in season 1, a pair of criminal brothers got themselves killed by mouthing off to their captors when captured. One throws out some generic trash talk until he gets shot in the face, the other addresses some racist insults towards The Don of the local black underworld, and is strangled to death as a result. Their last accomplice is spared partially due to not annoying the others and partially so he can tell the tale of what happened.
• In the Masters of Horror episode "Pick Me Up", the serial killer Wheeler decapitates one of his victims because the guy was basically annoying him with his frenzied panic after he sees the leftovers of two of Walker's victims.
• A seriously dramatic example on Sherlock: Mary Watson dies Taking the Bullet for Sherlock after Vivian Norberry tries to shoot him because Sherlock gave her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech on the episode's denouement and she decided that, since she was going to go to jail anyway, she had absolutely nothing left to lose in getting back at him.
• In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Meld", Tuvok's emotional control is compromised after he mind-melds with a murderer in order to understand the reasons for the crime. While Tuvok is in this state, Neelix pesters him until Tuvok snaps and strangles him in a holodeck simulation Tuvok was using as a form of self-testing and therapy.
• Blackadder: The Blackadder family, in general, has a notoriously low level of tolerance for idiocy even of the well-intentioned kind. In the first series, one of Prince Edmund's evilest moments was trying to stab Percy for tiring him with his imperturbably stupid remarks and suggesting that he should more or less reveal a murder that he tried to underhandedly commit.
• In The Good Place, Gen, the Judge of all existence, doesn't kill the Jerkass demon Trevor, but she does banish him into the endless void when he annoys her as she calls out Michael and Janet (who both look shocked and sympathetic for him, which must say something) for interfering in Earthly matters.
• Kingdom Adventure: Downplayed, in that Zordock will use his Agony Beam magic on minions when they annoy him or when they fail him, but he won't kill them: he most definitely does not have reserves at his disposal, and does rely on his minions to get things done.
• That Mitchell and Webb Look:
  • One sketch has a man at a dinner party poisoning anyone who irritates him, starting with an obnoxious Motormouth sitting next to him. One cutaway later, and he's done this to all but one of the guests.
  • Another sketch has a businessman who shoots dead anyone who makes a grammatical error, including his own wife. One employee even asks why he doesn't just sack them if it bothers him so much, but he just gets carried away.

Mythology & Religion

• The Mesopotamian Flood myth had the gods attempting to kill all people (several times) because they are making too much noise.

Theatre

• Westeros: An American Musical: The Interactive Narrator tries to cut the Sand Snakes' Adaptational Early Appearance short and make them leave the stage. They don't feel like doing what is asked of them, so they respond by killing the narrator.

Video Games

• AI: The Somnium Files: The New Cyclops Killer ends up with one unplanned victim in the Annihilation Route. If he successfully kills Iris Sagan, then he also kills her most avid supporter, Ota Matsushita, out of sheer annoyance for his constant meddling.
• Assassin's Creed Syndicate: Crawford Starrick is busy mourning Pearl when one of his men tells him there's a call — at which point Crawford shoots him dead, then yells that he is not to be disturbed.
• In the bad ending of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, this is Dark Lord Soma's rationale for killing off the Big Bad:
  Shut up. You annoy me. That's all the reason I need.
• In Grand Theft Auto IV, Elizabeta Torres brains Manny and his cameraman with a Deagle for shouting at her while she's high on coke and losing her mind over an impending police raid. Granted, the two annoyances in this case overlapped with Too Dumb to Live (they were bothering her while she, known to be a dangerous gangster, was obviously highly stressed) and And There Was Much Rejoicing, since the guy was extremely irritating at the best of times, and nobody mourned him in the slightest.
  • Another example is when the rapidly deteriorating sanity of Mikhail Faustin causes him to shoot one of his own mooks, simply because he agreed with Niko that the mook in question was an asshole. The mook hadn't done anything to provoke or disrespect Faustin in any way, he just seemed to annoy Faustin at that particular moment.
• As befits Trevor Philips of Grand Theft Auto V, homicide is one of the ways he express his anger. For exemple, he beat Johnny Klebitz to death on learning Michael was still alive.
• Happens near the end of Jagged Alliance 2, when Elliot informs the evil Queen Deidrenna that the rebels have breached Meduna's outer lines of defense. She goes on a rant about how she should've hired the player character in the first place and Elliot doesn't pick up on her sarcasm, prompting her to finally snap and shoot Elliot in the head. Subverted, since Elliot, much to Deidrenna's shock, somehow survives, causing her to remark that he can't even die properly.
• In Octopath Traveler II, a Ku soldier kills a peasant for daring to interrupt his conversation with his partner in order to peddle some oil. This is thanks to the widespread classism in Ku, and the oil peddler in question was Ritsu's father, which in turn fueled Ritsu's desire to prove his worth at all costs.
• Oddworld: Soulstorm: It's consistently made clear that Molluck is annoyed by his chauffeur Slig's exposition and brutally honest words, and is undergoing Teeth-Clenched Teamwork with him. However, in the bad ending, after things go to shit for both the good and bad guys, the Slig pushes his luck too far and Molluck snaps and forcibly ejects him from the blimp to his death.
• Tales of Symphonia: Lord Yggdrassil, in a moment where his Mask of Sanity starts slipping, decides to off one of his lieutenants just because while she begged for help, she called him by his first name.
  Pronyma: Mithos, save me—
  Yggdrassil: *Fireball* Never call me by that name.
• A trailer for Total War: Warhammer, this one depicting the Greenskins has a very talkative goblin petitioning Warboss Grimgor Ironhide on where to go for their next fight. He gets a bit too enthusiastic about it, so Grimgor picks up him by the neck and then squeezes.
• In Utawarerumono, Nuwangi's soldiers try to kill Aruruw simply for throwing a stone at their leader, and the elderly village leader Tuskur gets in the way and takes the blow for her. In a twist, Nuwangi is clearly aware this is neither appropriate nor something he can get away with, and quickly flees the village for fear of his life despite being the son of that village's lord. In fact, the village is so furious at this that this event ends up being the spark that triggers a rebellion that overthrows the Emperor and winds up taking over the entire landmass.
• In Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, actor Ronald Reagan (yes, that Reagan) is shot dead by Adolf Hitler for calling him "Mr. Hitler". And then shot eight more times.

Web Animation

• FreedomToons: Ben Shapiro initially tries to reason with a college student about healthcare, but eventually he just gives up and uses his laser vision (!) on him.

Webcomics

• A Running Gag in one-shot comics in Neglected Mario Characters has Kirby do nothing but sleep, which eventually drives Fred the Spanyard into obliviating him with one of his rays.

Web Original

• In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Vegeta kills Nappa for annoying him, after finally being pushed too far. And then Nappa's ghost continues to annoy him.
• In Jerma Rumble 3, Demon Lord Zeraxos is pissed off by the Slim Jim Guy being in the Royal Rumble, whom he's supposedly had a feud with for over 2000 years, and proceeds to enter the ring to choke-slam him into Hell. He then goes on a frenzy, killing The Mime, Candyman and Count Chocula before he is eliminated and incapacitated by Mr. Sneak Man. He returns in the Live-Action Rumble pissed off that he wasn't invited and proceeds to shoot a poorly-animated fireball at Jerma, leaving him with a few broken bones.

Western Animation

• At the beginning of the Looney Tunes short "Rhapsody Rabbit", Bugs Bunny's attempts to start the concerto keep getting interrupted by a guy having an increasingly loud coughing fit, whom Bugs simply silences with a gun in his coat midway into the third coughing fit.
  • Shouting at Marvin the Martian's featureless face is enough to guarantee being blasted into atoms.
• The Pink Panther: In the cartoon "Pink, Plunk, Plink", the Little Man is conducting an orchestra but before he can start he is constantly interrupted by a coughing audience member, so he pulls out a gun and shoots him, making it a real Symphony of Fate for him.
• In the Count Screwloose cartoon "Jitterbug Follies", two penguins are reciting a poem but a hippo opera singer whom they had earlier thrown off the stage keeps interrupting them with her awful singing, so they shoot her with a cannon.
• Robot Chicken showed Darth Vader doing this to Jar-Jar Binks by having him Thrown Out the Airlock — unfortunately for Vader, Jar-Jar came back as a Force ghost.
• Steven Universe: "Message Received" has Yellow Diamond, angered that Peridot has turned against her and personally insulted her, try to kill her by remote-detonating the communication device Peridot used to contact her. This fails, and effectively forces Peridot to solidify her Heel–Face Turn.

Real Life

• Old West outlaw John Wesley Hardin killed 44 men in his lifetime, most famously including a man who was sleeping in the hotel room next to him, just because he was snoring too loud.
• In July 2010, a 14-year-old boy was shot and killed by his neighbour for constantly blowing a vuvuzela during that year's World Cup, which was hosted in South Africa that year. While an important part of South African culture, vuvuzelas are extremely infamous internationally for their loud, monotonous drone that can cause permanent hearing loss to unprotected ears; but that does not make the boy's murder any less tragic.

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