Hair-Trigger Temper/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A person who gets angry all the time and about anything.

  • Straight: A person who takes offence to almost anything someone says.
  • Exaggerated:
    • The rage a person takes for someone saying something is enormous.
    • A person will destroy all of existence if a wind blows.
  • Downplayed:
    • The character is slightly annoyed by damn near anything.
    • Berserk Button
  • Justified:
    • The person has severe anger management issues and is overly sensitive to the things others say.
    • The person is deliberately acting this way in order to pick a fight or intimidate someone.
    • A few too many blows to the head makes it harder to stay calm.
  • Inverted: This person is never angry or upset, calmly accepting things that would upset a normal person. "My friend died and you just killed him in front of me? Oh well, that's life."
  • Subverted:
    • Bob, known for his violent overreactions, actually handles Charlie's latest slight in a calm, reasonable manner.
    • Bob gets very mad at Charlie's slight, but it turns out he isn't always that angry. Charlie just hit Bob's sensitive spot.
  • Double Subverted:
    • Later that night, Charlie is rushed to hospital after being beaten into a stinking pulp by an unknown and very annoyed assailant.
    • Bob was lying, he just gets bad at everything.
  • Parodied: A person's temper is literally set off by a hair trigger on his body.
  • Deconstructed:
    • The Hair-Trigger Temper's temper rubs someone the wrong way and the "victim" Kicks The Son Of A Bitch, making him learn a painful lesson about the stupidity of his behaviour.
    • Bob's violent demeanor means no one misses him when he gets captured by the Big Bad after finding out their latest nefarious plan.
  • Reconstructed:
  • Zig Zagged:
    • After overreacting too many times, Bob takes anger management classes to help him become a calmer person. This works for awhile, but something triggers his rage again and he relapses into his old ways, only to retake his anger management classes. Repeat as many times as you like.
    • Charlies attacker turns out to not be Bob, it is someone trying to frame Bob.
  • Averted: Alice slights Bob. Bob calmly shrugs it off.
  • Enforced: Bob needs to be humorously over-the-top so that when Dave has road rage later in the series and needs Anger Management classes, people will take it seriously.
  • Lampshaded: "Are you seriously trying to stiff me on this (Bleep Censor) payment? You've known me for ten (Bleep Censor) years and you think I'm gonna take that (Bleep Censor) quietly?"
  • Invoked: Bob is in a show-within-the-show where he plays the Hair-Trigger Temper and does the routine so he can stay in character.
  • Defied: Bob takes Anger Management classes and resolutely tries to control his temper.
  • Discussed: "Watch what you say to Bob. He's got a short fuse."
  • Conversed: "Ever notice how some people seem to blow up at the smallest thing?"
  • Played For Laughs: Bob's reactions of anger are really funny.
  • Played For Drama: Bob's reactions are not funny, people get hurt or killed.

Hurry up and press the friggin' button to go back to Hair-Trigger Temper or else I'll get really angry.

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