Is This What Anger Feels Like?

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Ekaterin Vorsoisson: Oh. Drat. Lord Auditor Vorkosigan: Madame Vorsoisson, has it ever occurred to you that you may be just a touch oversocialized? —Komarr

Giselle: "No!" "No! "No!" Over and over again! Every word out of your mouth is "No!" It just makes me so... Oh, sometimes you make me so... Robert: Make you so what? Giselle: You make me so... so... angry! (laughs) I'm angry! (laughs) —Enchanted

When the all-too-innocent girl (for some reason, it's always a girl) who's always cheerful and sweet to everyone finally gets pushed too far, it's almost always played for laughs, and one of two things will happen. Either she'll go totally postal, or she'll vent her frustration in polite, often somewhat embarrassed words, without any rage whatsoever, which almost always comes across as "cute."

Two people arguing in this manner will usually take the form of Politeness Judo.

May overlap with That Makes Me Feel Angry, which is the practice of just saying what one feels without showing it, and is usually is due more to bad writing than the character simply lacking experience with the emotion.

Compare and contrast Beware the Nice Ones, Let's Get Dangerous, and Berserk Button.

Examples of Is This What Anger Feels Like? include:

Anime and Manga

• Princess Nia Teppelin from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. "Are you aware of exactly who I am?"
  • "You... are a pissing-off-person!"
• The only time the ridiculously sweet-natured Kasumi is seen to lose her temper in Ranma ½ is when her father tries to gamble away her kitchen. She produces a Battle Aura that terrifies everyone, though she still speaks to him in the same level tone and inoffensive words.
• Why does Ryoma-kun have to play with an injured eye? TELL ME! WHY?... Oh, I'm sorry...
• Sylphiel in The Slayers NEXT goes angry at Phibrizzo when Lina tells her he kidnapped Gourry. This is the first time she is seen angry, and Hilarity Ensues.
• Cream, the sweet little girl in Sonic X, who enjoys making flower rings and baking cakes though it's slightly subverted in that her anger on one occasion turns out to be highly effective (i.e. she takes out a robot that even Sonic and Knuckles couldn't handle.)
• In Inuyasha, at least the Spanish version, has Kagome tell Naraku: "[...] Please allow me to tell you that you are despicable! [...]".
• In Bleach, sweet-tempered Orihime roughly slaps Ulquiorra when he makes her angry.

Film

• In Enchanted, when the militantly cheerful Giselle, frustrated by Robert's feet-firmly-planted-on-the-ground attitude, finally gets in a big fight with him, she eventually realizes what this strange new feeling inside her is:

Giselle: "Sometimes you make me so... angry!" *laughs with surprise*

• Invoked intentionally by Del Spooner in I Robot. Del Spooner is a human cop interrogating a robot accused of murder, a robot that is also supposed to have emotions.

Del: "I think you murdered him because he was teaching you to simulate emotions and things got out of control. Sonny: "I did not murder him." Del: (in a mocking tone) "But emotions don't seem like a very useful simulation for a robot. Hell, I don't want my toaster or vacuum cleaner to get emotional." Sonny: "I DID NOT MURDER HIM!" *slams hands on the desk so hard that the metal table buckles* *looks down in astonishment* Del: (back to a calm tone) "That one's called anger."

Literature

• The page quote from Komarr, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Although Ekaterin isn't an all-too-innocent girl but a 30-year-old married woman possessed of such unfailing reserve that she refuses to show visible anger or frustration even after falling headfirst into a pond.
• Happens to Miss Bates in the film adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, after the eponymous character throws her an unintentional insult. Of course, with the film being set in Georgian England, it makes the tension thick enough to absorb radiation.
• There's an interesting variant in CS Lewis's novel Perelandra. The hero, Ransom, has of course felt anger before during his life, but it's only when he's fighting the actual physical incarnation of Evil that he understands what anger is for.

Live-Action TV

• While far from sweet and innocent, when Jerry Seinfeld is told that no one's ever actually seen him angry he tries to prove that's not true by shouting at Kramer. Kramer thinks it's part of Jerry's comedy act and just laughs his ass off.
• Father Mulcahy in MASH in several different episodes when he's getting screwed over in some way or another.
• Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager. Possibly PTSD-influenced, as he's characterised as a war survivor.
• This happened to Dick the first time he felt anger on 3rd Rock from the Sun. Of course, it's due to him being an alien rather than being innocent or timid.

Theatre

• Wicked: What Is This Feeling? Loathing. Unadulterated loathing.

Video Games

• In the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion Mask of the Betrayer, you can gain a party member named Kaelyn the Dove. If you use voice commands and select "cuss," she'll sputter for a moment and end with "I don't know any profanity, how embarrassing." It is adorable.
• Colette Brunel from Tales of Symphonia has a case of this every now and then. "I'M MAD NOW!!"

Web Comics

• Jade from Homestuck, though normally bubbly and cheerful, finally flips out after Karkat bothers her far too many times.

Web Original

• Also happened to Two from Tales of MU, while under the influence of the evil rage-inducing cursed pitchfork.

Western Animation

• Happens to Minnie in the straight-to-DVD episode Mickey's House of Villains. When Jafar and the other villains take over the club, and Mickey and his sidekicks Donald and Goofy fail to extract them, Minnie tells the boys to step aside and charges right into the mass of villains to take care of the problem in her own special, naive way. Obviously, her delicate attempts are met with a complete lack of concern. Actually, Minnie seems to experience this a lot, be it in the classic cartoons of the past, or in more modern incarnations like "Runaway Brain"—only Mickey seems to cringe when she's angry. And when she is, Minnie has such trouble expressing it that she stomps her high-heeled foot in typical "feminine" fashion, and her words fail to damage anyone.

Goofy: "Gawrsh, I've never seen her so mad." Mickey: "Oh, I have."

• In the Disney version of The Reluctant Dragon, the very fey title character tries to get angry enough to be able to breathe fire. When he does (by being called a "punk poet") he reacts by cheerfully skipping and chirping "Ooh, I'm mad, I'm mad!"
• In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, be careful to not upset Fluttershy, or she might just scream.
  • Or even worse, kick something.
  • She did "go postal"once, however. She's still surprisingly cute, even when she's in Yangire-rage mode.
• In the first Treehouse of Horror segment "Bad Dream House", when the house rants about what will happen to the family if they don't leave, Marge blows her top and angrilly tells the house to get used to them. Afterwards, she feels afraid because she's never been this angry before.

Homer: At least it's better than your eyeballs melting.