Misused: BerserkButton

Berserk Button seems to be a perennially misused trope around the site. There was a recent TRS thread which resulted in cutting an Ed, Edd n Eddy subpage which was filled with non-examples.

To see how bad it was I took a random selection of various works I was familiar with (all Star Trek shows, Game of Thrones, Sons of Anarchy, Sanctuary, Thor, Supernatural, the Stargate shows, and all their character pages), and good god, maybe 20% wasn't misuse of some sort. Whether it's a representative pool for the rest of the wicks I don't know, but this does seem like it would require a much wider sustained clean-up effort beyond that subpage.

I'll use Madrugada's criteria for the trope, based on the first line on the Berserk Button article:

Things this trope is not: Becoming enraged only once (not a Button), becoming enraged to something perfectly reasonable (not a trope), becoming only slightly irritated instead of enraged (remember, Berserk Button), or irritating someone until they lash out (the closest analogue there is probably Bullying a Dragon).

Among the most frequently-seen misuse is someone reacting with rage to someone hurting/insulting loved ones or harming innocents (reasonable response). The tropes they were probably looking for are Papa Wolf / Mama Bear, Knight Templar Big Brother, Never Hurt an Innocent, Wife-Basher Basher or Wouldn't Hurt a Child there. The key point of this trope is that the character reacts with rage to something at least seemingly innocuous.

This example from Thor should be illustrative of most of the types of misuse:

Loki is threatening Thor's Love Interest Jane so it's a reasonable response, the Frost Giants calling Thor "Princess" is a one-off incident and they were intentionally pissing him off until the breaking point, both the Cap and Tony Stark confrontation is in the middle of a fight with a perceived enemy, and reacting with rage over an insult is either not a trope or signs of a Hair-Trigger Temper character depending on how offensive the remark is.

edited 24th Aug '14 10:50:31 AM by Morgenthaler

This didn't get started, so let's wake it up. The trope isn't broken, itself. The page has a nice clear definition, including whatisn't a Berserk Button.

What it needs now is elbow grease, clearing the bad examples from the trope pages themselves,and from the crosswicks.

I've gone through the Music subpage and cleaned it up to the best of my knowledge: for the record, a performer of any type getting angry when a performance or recording/taping/filming session is interrupted is not a Berserk Button. It falls under "predictable and not unreasonable reaction to a instigating occurance".

"In dramatic works, the Berserk Button is often tied to something important about a character; a particularly hated enemy, or a painful failure that hits too Close To Home. Insulting the memory of a dead family member, for example, or pitying someone who insists "Don't You Dare Pity Me!." Many characters, particularly heroes, have a Berserk Button over someone messing with or threatening people they care about. If you're unfortunate enough to hit someone's Berserk Button in a dramatic work, being on the receiving end of a rant is the very least of your worries depending on the situation and the character."

That line shouldn't really be there, IMO. As I pointed out in my now locked thread, that falls under 'nor is it something that would make a hostile response an entirely reasonable reaction' part of the quote from the Square Peg Round Trope page, besides the respective tropes this OP pointed out too.

As said, it needs to be made clearer that perfectly reasonable reactions do not qualify, like family and loved ones being harmed/threaten/killed invoking rage. It's only stuff that would enrage that character specifically, over something illogical to everyone else is when it counts. There are also my other ideas for clearing this up I made in my thread:

• One key feature about Berserk Buttons is the fact that they're reaccuring. They happen many times throughout the series, and always provoke the same result. (Rage. An example being the trope image Edward reacting to being called short, something that happens many times throughout the series.) There not something that only happens once, and would understandably make a character angry. As such, to make that clear, I feel the trope should be renamed to something like 'Reoccurring Rage Inducer', or at least make it more clear that examples have to be reoccurring to fit.

• Make it more clear that anything that would logically make anyone angry in that specific instance doesn't count, with family and loved ones being a major one.

• Finally, cut any and all series / franchise specific Berserk Button pages, as, if the misuse in the Ed Edd n Eddy page I brought up along time ago, and The Simpson page can attest to, it would seem Tropers feel obligated to put examples there whether they fit or not for the sake of having examples.

Another thing I'd like to add now:

• Make it clear it has to enrage the characters to count. Being only mildly irritated doesn't count.

edited 25th Feb '15 1:44:53 PM by TokoWH

"Many characters, particularly heroes, have a Berserk Button over someone messing with or threatening people they care about."

Not only should that line be removed, I think the description should specifically exclude it. A Berserk Button involves an irrational angry response. Getting mad about a threat to loved ones is not a Berserk Button.

(I realize the above post mentioned that. I agree.)

edited 1st Mar '15 12:01:42 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Also, a thought occurred to me on how we can also cut down on misuse. I noticed that this trope often gets confused with the old proverb 'the straw that broke the camels back', and considering from what I've seen so far, we don't have a trope for that, we can makea 'Straw that broke the camels back' trope for those kinds of examples, and make it clear in the trope description that it's where those examples are suppose to go.

Additionally, we could have a trope for examples where messing with someone's family enrages them. I know we have Mama Bear and Papa Wolf, but those only apply to mother / child / father / child setups... and as made apparent, no one seems to realize this. In fact, it could be a Super-Trope to those two.

edited 2nd Mar '15 2:51:31 PM by TokoWH

We actually have that trope, although it's more literal. Don't think mental stuff like annoyances count.

That's the thing though. It only counts literal examples involving objects. What I'm talking about is when something happens that finally makes the character snap, and what most people seemingly misuse as a Berserk Button.

So, I was browsing tropes we already have, and the closest thing I found so far to 'Straw that broke the camels back' was Rant Inducing Slight... and even then, that's for when a small or snide comment causes the character to go into rant mode, which most of the examples (repeated something or another causes a characters rage to boil until it finally explodes) don't really fit.

As such, would you guys be okay with adding 'The Straw That Broke The Camels Back' to the YKTTW discussion now? I really do feel like it would help cut down on that kind of misuse, at the very least.

That one does seem applicable looking at the description.

Hold on, Rage Breaking Point seems to fit far better with 'the straw that broke the camels back' misuse examples from what I'm reading. We can easily move any and all of those misused examples there, and make it clear in the Berserk Button description that Rage Breaking Point is where those examples should go.

However, there's still the problem of people misusing it to include people who get angry over having their friends / family / loved ones threatened / hurt / abused as a Berserk Button, even though that response is entirely natural. Again, closest tropes that cover that are Papa Wolf and Mama Bear...

I'll agree with most of TokoWH's suggestions, especially:

• Move "straw that broke the camel's back" to Rage Breaking Point.
• Cut lines from the description that promote misuse.

I could see cutting Berserk Button work subpages, but that should really be handled on a case-by-case basis. Just bring them here, and we can look it over. A rename/split might be an option, but you'll need to start a TRS thread for that. Berserk Button in its current form brings in a huge number of inbound links.

As for moving "threatening loved ones" to an alternate trope, there is Relative Button, although that's more an invocation of the principle by bad guys.

edited 16th Apr '15 7:47:48 AM by Morgenthaler

I've been looking at the Anime section, since Bleach has an entire sub-page of examples (as do several others). Most of the examples centre around characters going absolutely ballistic over threats to pride or loved ones or people they've declared protection over... you know, the stuff you'd completely expect from Shounen characters.

The vast majority of them are events that only occur once, and I can see most of them would have been put down because the characters became so angry (and often violent, too) and because of the section of the trope description that's already been mentioned, about people getting angry over the suffering of people they care about.

On the basis of this thread, however, almost all of this page should go; partly because most of these examples have only occurred once per character in the story.

I haven't touched it, I'm not sure where I'd start. I'd agree with tightening up the trope description though because, in the Anime/Manga section especially, the idea of going ballistic when a loved one is hurt is such a manga/anime staple - it'll cover almost every character ever, even most villains. For this genre, it's very nearly sitting on chairs.

Sorry about disappearing. Things got a bit hectic here.

I really do feel like any franchise / series specific subpages need to go. Everyone single one I've seen so far is just a massive breeding ground for misuse. I get the feeling having a page makes it feel like people are obligated to post examples for the sake of examples.

I also feel like the description could point out stuff people seem to confuse as a Berserk Button, and make it very apparent that it is not this trope, like people getting angry when their family, friends, or loved ones are in danger. If nothing else, we at least need to make it apparent that people getting angry in general is not a Berserk Button, or even a trope, for that matter.

Also, I added Rage Breaking Point and Rant Inducing Slight to the "compare / contrast" section, pointing out that they're the tropes that should be used for any "straw that broke the camels back" examples.

I was about to clean up the Bleach sub-page, but realised I'd end up removing so many of the examples, it would look like page-blanking (out of the entire page, I'd be left with only five examples, all of them played for comedy). Nearly everything on the page is either an example of Rant Inducing Slight, Rage Breaking Point, People Sit On Chairs (getting angry over what's happening to friends or family), is a one-off example that does not occur again in the story, or is another trope entirely.

I've therefore left the page alone for now, until a decision is made on what to do about these sub-pages.

I say add the legitimate examples to Bleach's normal trope page and cutlist the Berserk Button page.

edited 19th Apr '15 10:48:36 PM by Karxrida

And link this thread in the cut reason.

So, I was wondering as a way to help with clean up, if linking this thread on the main page or listing what does and doesn't constitute as a Berserk Button might be a good way to encourage others to clean up any misused examples they see.

I still think a rename to something like "Reoccurring Rage Inducer" would better illustrate the main thing people get wrong about this trope. (That is, listing examples that only happened once instead of examples that are reoccurring.)

I think "Berserk Button" is a great name, and changing it wouldn't help that much. Also I am not convinced that the "only got mad once" misuse is a bigger problem than the "reasonably upset" misuse, which that rename wouldn't help.

I've cleaned up the Bleach section. I've cut-list the page and linked to this thread. I've also gone through all the Bleach-related pages on the wiki to remove any examples of getting angry over loved ones, protectorates, abuse, one-off events, and so on.

I agree that the redefinition and making it clear that this is an irrational response is important.

I agree that the definition needs to be tweaked, and the example sections cleaned up.

A question: Someone mentioned that insulting the character's loving ones can't be this trope. But what if the character doesn't really react to any insults but if someone insults his mother he tries to kill them, and it's treated as a Running Gag? There's a character like that in DashieXP's Mortal Kombat series, and I thought it could be called his Berserk Button?

I'm not sure how much this contributes to the misuse, but one of the description lines in Downplayed Trope seem to suggest that being "slightly peeved" instead of "incredibly furious" to the trigger apparently counts as a downplayed example of this trope.

And that's why playing with pages are terrible things. Not all tropes can be played with in every way, but sometimes people try to squeeze them in despite them being against the spirit of the trope.

Right. I've removed that line from the page.