Quotes • Headscratchers • Playing With • Useful Notes • Analysis • Image Links • Haiku • Laconic |
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David Banner: "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
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A Super-Trope for when you just don't want to tick off a character. Bad things will happen, which can include:
- Angst Nuke (the character explodes destructively out of sheer rage)
- Awakening the Sleeping Giant: An entire group is roused from its neutrality and is not happy about it.
- Bad Mood As an Excuse (when trying to talk out a person who isn't in the mood, only to get lashed out on)
- Berserk Button (when pissing off comes from a specific thing)
- Beware the Nice Ones (when a particularly nice character snaps out after being messed with one too many times)
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass (Triggers superpowers)
- Hair-Trigger Temper (when it's really hard not to piss a character off)
- Hulking Out (triggers Involuntary Shapeshifting. HULK SMASH!)
- Relative Button (the character gets pissed when his or her family is threatened or killed)
- Rage Breaking Point (the character doesn't want to get angry, but eventually loses it)
- Tranquil Fury (the character's ready to tear you apart in a seemingly calm manner)
- Unstoppable Rage (the character gets righteously pissed and pulls out all the stops to take you down)
It doesn't matter if the character is the hero, villain, supporting character, or bystander. Just don't piss off this character if you don't want big trouble.
Psychoactive Powers can sometimes involve this.
Compare Madness Tropes and Don't Make Me Destroy You.
Anime and Manga[]
- Dragon Ball--
- Son Gohan. Any Saiyan for that matter, but Gohan most.
- Piccolo too.
- Chichi. She makes the Saiyan squirm, and she's just a human...with a pan.
- Shizuo Heiwajima from Durarara. Granted, it's generally in good form not to piss off people with Super Strength in general, but this one is especially easy to set off.
- Shinigami in Soul Eater, and his son Kid on a smaller scale. Yes, other characters cause greater damage than usual when angered, but these two spread it around more, whether to pyramids or an entire city.
- Naruto can give even the Trope Namer himself a run for his money in this department in his kyuubi forms.
- Natsu of Fairy Tail is an example of this, as the flame of emotion that is the source of power for his Dragon Slayer magic causes him to actually become stronger the angrier he gets.
- Yuuri from Kyo Kara Maoh is as nice as they come. However if you start hurting innocent people or those close to him...
- Luffy, from One Piece, is usually a happy-go-lucky type of guy, but if you so much as dare to hurt any of those he cares for, you better have your testament ready.
- Setsuna, from Mahou Sensei Negima, is a quiet and polite girl who prefers to stay in the background. Usually, she's really calm and composed even in the heat of battle. But don't, just don't you dare harming Konoka unless you want her to butcher you in split-seconds.
Comic Books[]
- Named after Marvel Comics's Bruce Banner (a.k.a. the Incredible Hulk), who uses this line to warn people of his Hulking Out ability. It doesn't always work.
- Superman is one of the nicest guys in the universe. But if someone gets him angry, they find out just how powerful he really is. It says a lot about Lex Luthor that he intentionally does things just to piss Superman off.
Film[]
- City Slickers, when Curly is being buried. The cook can only think of "Lord, we give you Curly. Try not to piss him off." as a eulogy.
- Making Godzilla angry is a very, very, VERY bad idea. Doing so will result in a major city (often Tokyo) being destroyed.
- Rocky Horror Picture Show: It's a bad idea to anger Dr. Frank N Furter. Eddie and
Janet WeissSLUT! had to learn this the hard way. - The documentary (read: hour-long advertisement) available on the Extended Edition DVD for Underworld featured a self-proclaimed werewolf who named this trope exactly.
- The 2008 The Incredible Hulk film. Bruce Banner butchers his catchphrase by way of a bad translation and proceeds to fight as normal. In the novelization, he says it to two college girls who just laugh at him, since the phrase is full of Narm. However, the film did also have a variation on the phrase which was pretty good.
"There are aspects of my personality that I can't control, and when I lose control, it's very dangerous to be around me." |
Literature[]
- In A Hard Day's Knight, John and Suzie use their own variant to intimidate an uncooperative laundromat employee:
Shotgun Suzie: You really want me to get cranky? |
- In Legacy of the Force, Luke gives Jacen a quote almost identical.
Live Action TV[]
- Trope Namer is The Incredible Hulk TV series, and its classic implied threat, delivered with a wonderfully understated and grim bemusement. And it's actually said before he becomes the Hulk.
Banner: Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. |
- It's been said in later episodes of Torchwood that it's best not to piss Jack off. Take into mind this line from the Children of Earth miniseries (spoken by his daughter to the government spooks who just arrested her and her son):
Alice: I can only assume you're using us as hostages against my father - but if you've done anything to anger him, then God help you. |
- Doctor Who--
- You really don't want to piss off the Doctor. That seemingly harmless oddball can tear the heavens apart and reshape reality if he really wants to. There's a reason the Daleks, a race of Omnicidal Maniacs capable of wiping out all life in the universe, hate and fear him so much. They have no emotions, and they invented a name to call him; Destroyer of Worlds and The Oncoming Storm.
- Ditto River Song. Sarcastic, teasing, likes to banter. And - can make a Dalek beg for mercy. Just... don't make her go there.
- Similarly, in the prequel to "A Good Man Goes to War":
"...I even hear rumours about whose child you've taken. Are you mad? [Pause] You know the stories about the Doctor? The things that man has done? God help us if you've made him angry!" |
- It is also best to not piss Jack from 24 off.
- Also, pissing off Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series would be more than illogical. It's very hard to do, but once you manage it, This Is Gonna Suck doesn't cover your fate.
- On a related note, Data (without the emotional chip) is literally impossible to piss off. However, if you threaten him with harming his friends, you'll face a superintelligent, super-strong, nigh-indestructible android who has decided that removing you from existence is the completely logical solution under the current circumstances.
Video Games[]
- Doc Louis's Punch Out plays this completely straight. Midway through the fight, Louis pulls out a chocolate bar that he'll eat and restore all his health with if not interrupted. However, punching the bar out of his hand is the ultimate way to push his Berserk Button. He immediately flips out with the phrase - "NOOOOOO! NOW You've done it! You won't like Doc when he's angry!", proceeds to rip off his jacket, and his attack speed doubles. Right after pulling out another chocolate bar and healing himself out of your attack range.
- Zappa from Guilty Gear. Although he's more of a "You Wouldn't Like Me When My Ghosts Are Angry", his profile in the manual mentions this trope by name.
"Don't make him angry! You won't like him when he's angry!" |
- In the "Grim Tales" quest in RuneScape, Glod the Giant shouts "You wouldn't like Glod when Glod angry!"
Web Original[]
- In one Butlerverse story, this line was quoted verbatim to Omega by Stone, after the villainous machine threatened an eight year old girl whose only "crime" was being a telepath. One just doesn't threaten children in Stone's presence and expect to walk away unhurt.
- Hulky of Klay World says this word-for-word before somebody takes him up on the challenge. Averted in that he actually gets smaller, weaker, and perhaps stupider when he gets mad. Played straight later on when he gets really mad and turns huge and smashes everything.
- Parodied in the Whateley Universe story "Tales of the MCO" when a commercial break comes. It's the Merchant-Ivory production of "Hulk 1809":
My lord, please do not make me angry. Thou wouldst not like me when I am most angered. |
- The line is used in Lanipator's Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged movie, by Yukina, of all people. It's promptly subverted when the villains ignore her and smash her into a wall.
- The Nostalgia Critic might still be pathetic when he's having his little boy rages, but he has a tendency to explode buildings accidentally when he's like that.
Western Animation[]
- The Avatar State in Avatar: The Last Airbender, as seen in the page pic.
- Some context: the Avatar is an individual who has the ability to control fire, earth, water, and air. When the Avatar state kicks in, they temporarily gain the combined knowledge and power of all the previous Avatars, of which there has been at least fifty generations. Until the Avatar learns how to control it, it will kick in when he/she is either in danger of dying or highly distressed. At which point, their tactics and moral considerations consist of: destroy threat. With extreme prejudice.
- Raven from Teen Titans, as a result of being half-demon. The result of ticking her off is a demonic form that is less powerful than the Avatar State above, but probably worse to have as an enemy, as Raven can get downright sadistic when she's like this. (Poor Dr. Light never did get over what she did to him...)
- Dr. Light: Don't! Stop! You win! I surrender!! AHHHHHHH Demon Raven: What's the matter? Afraid of the dark?
- Then, a season or two later, Dr. Light (with a new, more powerful suit): Haha! You can never defeat me! Raven (best impersonation of her demonic half): Remember me? Dr. Light: I'd like to go to jail now, please.
- In an episode of Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter alters his tastebuds so he only like fruits and vegetables, but a side-effect is that he Hulks out when he gets too hungry. He is denied food by someone later on, and uses a variation of the phrase, replacing "angry" with "hungry".
- That same line happened (In Portuguese) in The Incredible Hulk.