Misused: BerserkButton

You're avoiding my question, aren't you?

As this thread is still up, this discussion isn't ended yet.

edited 4th Dec '15 10:36:43 PM by Karxrida

DAN 004, this thread is not a repair shop thread where you can ask for a trope redefinition. It's currently in the Projects forum.

I agree with Arawn.

The suggested fix that was put in place in July to clear up the misunderstanding of the trope only removed a single line from the problem paragraph. However, the entire paragraph needs to be removed as it contradicts the warning in bold ("This trope is not about anger in response to something that would reasonably enrage someone, like a loved one being hurt or threatened...").

The paragraph that needs removing is this one:

This problematic paragraph is describing something that is not Berserk Button. It's talking about the kind of story where Berserk Button is not being used, but another trope - the paragraph even lists the tropes it's talking about. Neither of them are Berserk Button tropes.

Speaking of... the Anger Index that Berserk Button links to is bullet pointing Close to Home as a sub-trope of Berserk Button. That needs changing, doesn't it? (It also lists Enraged by Idiocy as a sub-trope.)

edited 18th Dec '15 8:09:38 PM by Wyldchyld

don't they involve specific triggers? That is, they are "buttons".

edited 18th Dec '15 10:01:55 PM by DAN004

I removed the line in question now. I'm not sure how much it'll help, though. This seems like something that really should be brought up again in the Trope Repair Shop since it's apparent that this is too massive of a cleanup project for the Short Term section.

See previous pages.

Honest question: Why isn't this in TRS? Or at least, why don't Project threads have their own notification on a trope's article? I've had to clean up several non-examples of Berserk Button over the past few weeks before I got fed up and decided to see if there was already an effort to fix this, leading me to discover this thread's existence.

Not sure. This thread originally was a TRS thread but got shifted over to projects shortly after I posted it. I'm beginning to think it's because of how massive a trope Berserk Button is that nobody really wants to handle a mass cleanup and it's not hard to see why.

When I was trying to clean up misuse as best I could back in the day but almost as soon as I cleaned up one misused example, three more took its place. Even when we added the bolded disclaimer below on what the trope isn't about, misuse still persists by people who likely aren't even reading what the trope is really about.

I've made several suggestions on how to fix it, like limiting it to comedic examples only but they were all rejected. It seems, for most Tropers, being a People Sit On Chairs 'character gets angry when reasonable enrager happens' is perfectly okay when the Trope itself is entremely bloated.

This was a few years ago, though, so maybe if a new TRS was opened people might be more willing to listen. I still think the only way to completely fix this trope is to limit it to comedic Running Gag examples because, as long as examples that aren't Played for Laughs continues to be allowed, people are going to continue to misuse this trope for anything that makes a character even remotely angry.

If you ask me, the best solution is to transplant the correct definition to Irrational Rage Button or some similar name that highlights the irrationality aspect, then make Berserk Button a disambig page for both that trope and the other tropes that it commonly gets confused for (e.g. Rant Inducing Slight).

BTW, someone mentioning "protectorates" in an earlier post... We do have Protectorate as a trope.

That's probably for the best. As it is not, a pure Berserk Button cleanup isn't possible simply because of how much it gets misused on a daily bases. There are even sub-pages for shows which pratically beg for being misused. Almost all of those I looked through just list anytime a character got remotely angry instead of fits of reoccurring irrational rage. I believe the cleanup attempt was started by an Ed Eddn Eddy page that was exactly that.

If this does become a dis-ambiguous page, sub-pages like that need to be nuked or renamed to the correct definition, which for show specific pages, I'm not entirely sold on that they won't be misused for People Sit On Chairs examples just to make the page have more examples.

I'd like to also make a suggestion regarding the highlighted line below. For the record, I'm here as I (kind of) recently ended up butting heads with someone who nuked Berserk Button from one of the articles I started:

IMO, a trope covering disproportionate with a predictable trigger would be a welcome addition to the above suggested Berserk Button disambiguation or Super-Trope. When arguing with the other editor, they were still questioning the revised version's validity due to being a response to insulting the character's mother. My retort was that the character predictably responded to the trigger by first severely injuring someone, and then outright killing later on in the series.

As possible as this is in Real Life with powerful figures (the work I'm referring to itself was historical fiction), and as normalized as this kind of response may seem...it's not normal. A lot of what TV Tropes does is point out the incongruous aspects of fiction that we've gotten used to, and routinely murdering people who insult your mother is one such incongruity.

So maybe if Irrational Rage Button is for the more cutesy BerserkButtons, Murderous Rage Trigger could be for the disproportionate? It might need a better name, but I'd imagine 95% of the disproportionate fall along the lines of extreme bodily harm.

edited 20th Jun '17 8:50:51 PM by sarysa

"People get angry when severely provoked" is so omnipresent that it's really hard to call it a meaningful trope. "Character reaches their breaking point and snaps" most definitely is a trope, but it's not what Berserk Button is intended to mean. Rather, the latter is a trigger that reliably sends a character into a rage. Said trigger should be distinctive.

"Carol violently attacks anyone who touches her hair" is a Berserk Button, since that's both disproportionate and (presumably) distinctive among the cast. "Carol violently attacks anyone who murders her children" is not, both because that's an entirely reasonable reaction for anyone and because it's hard to establish a pattern of her children being repeatedly murdered (one hopes).

edited 21st Jun '17 6:44:08 AM by Fighteer

Just for the record, "Carol violently attacks anyone who murders her children" does fall under a trope — namely, Mama Bear (and Papa Wolf for the Spear Counterpart). Said trope is more general than that, though; it covers non-violent interventions, e.g. the mother verbally dresses down a bully who was harrassing her timid son and successfully puts the fear of God into the former without actually striking him.

edited 21st Jun '17 7:25:16 AM by MarqFJA

I just want to make it clear, this character gets murderous from insults of his mother in a way that's abnormal for the setting. It's not a post-apocalypse where life has little value, and the antagonists never struck his mother or even blocked her path. It was significant to the story as this extreme trigger was repeatedly shown to the viewer to remind the them how abnormal this character really is.

It's a kind of behavior usually limited to mafia caricatures and despots. The last example in the series IIRC had him fly off the handle from an off-mention, like a more extreme version of Pesci's character from Goodfellas.

edited 21st Jun '17 9:24:43 AM by sarysa

That's fine: if it's both abnormal and repeatable, then it's a Berserk Button.

From WebVideo.Sword Art Online Abridged:

• Berserk Button: Kirito has several of these, including, but not limited to:
  1. Insulting his level/stats, or implying he's on par with weaker players.
  2. Insinuating that he sounds like a girl.
  3. Being psycho-analyzed by someone with what amounts to a single class of experience, who's obviously posturing.
  4. Gary seems to be his biggest since Rosalia had to push the three of the above Berserk Buttons to achieve the same result as Gary's mere existence.
  5. Saying he will "never be Batman."
  6. Making Kirito actually care about humanity.
  7. Livestreaming number 6 and proceeding to spread it throughout the entire game.

All of these are one-off offenses (except maybe the first one?), so I feel like this is shoehorning.

I'd agree with you. They may develop into Berserk Buttons but one occurrence is not enough.

edited 26th Jun '17 9:20:31 PM by Madrugada

Deleted most of it and commented out the first one due to uncertainty.

Buttons #2, #4 and #6 do actually occur at least twice each across SAO Abridged Season 1.

Yes, but is the character known for having those specific triggers within the narrative? Are the triggers plot-relevant in any way, or used as a Running Gag? "Character gets angry easily when provoked" and "character gets angry for minor or trivial things" are certainly trope-worthy but they are not Berserk Button.

Remember, the latter is specifically about a character who is entirely level-headed, even placid in some cases, until a specific provocation turns them into a raging berserker. This trigger must be distinctive and it must be presented as a flaw or liability, or at the very least as something that's exploitable.

edited 27th Jun '17 9:02:29 AM by Fighteer

Well, first off, keep in mind that most of SAO Abridged's tone is humorous; even what have been really dark moments in canon usually get the Black Comedy treatment.

Button #2's first ever instance was the Last Straw that induced a temporary Freak Out in him, whereupon he turned into full-blown A God Am I mode on the Mooks that the villainess Rosalia sicced on him, revelling in their shock and despair when he finally reveals to them how much he outclasses them (he's Level 70+ compared to them being Level 40-ish). Basically, it was used to set up a Mook Horror Show. I don't actually remember the other instance of this particular button, but I'm pretty certain it wasn't a one-off thing.

Button #4 — the mere continued existence of a particular NPC named "Gary" — was first pressed when he happened to hear Gary's voice saying his Catchphrase ("We must save my family!"), implicitly triggering a flashback to the last time he saw said NPC ^note Kirito had joined his very first guild, whose membership comprised only one actual player (Sachi) and several NPCs (Gary being one of them). The NPCs Artificial Stupidity got the group stuck in a trap within a dungeon against an endless Zerg Rush, and Gary was the only one with teleport crystals (and thus a way out of this mess)... and said NPC promptly uses one to escape alone. End result: Sachi dies, and Kirito barely makes it out alive. The trauma caused him to seal off most of his positive emotions and foreswear guilds altogether.. Cue "Excuse me for a moment" from Kirito as he goes off-screen to horribly mutilate Gary to work the traumatic flashback out of his system.

Second instance of Button #4 is somewhat more comedic: Kirito is walking with Asuna, adopted daughter Yui, and a fellow player on a search through a dungeon for the latter's leader, when Kirito mishears Yui saying "Scary" for "Gary", and promptly flips out and starts slaughtering dozens of roaming monsters off-screen. It gets a sort of Running Gag-like treatment, with Asuna saying that they should let him "work it out of his system" because "he'll get tired eventually", implying that she saw him in such a state at least once before.

Button #6... Well, technically he only acts enraged about the subject the first time it comes up (in Episode 8), but the subject does get brought up a second time (Episode 11) and one could interpret it as him having gotten over the issue in question (can you have a character lose their Berserk Button due to Character Development?). Said first time begins with him delivering an Armor-Piercing Question to himself about why he's fighting for the very people he claims to revile (unstated answer: he's actually a Jerk with a Heart of Gold rather than The Sociopath he had always claimed himself to be), before later finishing it with a "World of Cardboard" Speech in which he describes in detail why he utterly detests humanity before ultimately admitting that for some then-unfathomable reason he still cares enough about them to fight for the survival of his fellow players.

Basically, the way Abridged!Kirito reacts when one of those buttons is pressed always has an element of comedy to it, even when there's a Played for Drama element to it as well.

edited 27th Jun '17 9:23:26 AM by MarqFJA

It sounds like this dude regularly goes nuts on utterly trivial provocations. That's not Berserk Button; it's Hair-Trigger Temper.

Oh no, most of the time he acts like a level-headed, brutally honest grade-A-jerkass who wastes no time insulting other people and pointing out their flaws when they act stupidly, whether the "stupidity" is genuine (which is a lot) or just from his perspective (which does happen, but Character Development kinda fixes that). He's pretty much one of the three genuinely smart characters in a cast almost entirely afflicted with extreme naivete, unbelievable stupidity, or both... it just so happens that he also has a borderline Lack of Empathy towards (almost) everyone, a trait which he shares with one of the other two people among the "genuinely smart characters" (the third is the Big Bad).

Honestly, when most of the characters would make Leeroy Jenkins proud, it's hard to not sympathize with him when he frequently expresses bafflement and outrage at how stupid a person could get. The buttons mentioned above take that level of outrage to unusual extremes for him.

edited 27th Jun '17 2:46:18 PM by MarqFJA

The thing with #4 is that Gary indirectly caused somebody's death, which disqualifies Berserk Button even if Kirito tends to overreact about it. There's a somewhat valid reason behind it even though it's Played for Laughs.

edited 27th Jun '17 3:01:57 PM by Karxrida