Not Good with Rejection

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"I'm not going to be ignored, Dan!"
—Alexandra "Alex" Forrest, Fatal Attraction
"Destroy. Destroy. Destroy. Slowly, completely, gently beyond comparison, cruelly to the point of numbness, I'll violate your life. That's right. The instant I rip off your limbs, tear open your ribs and pull out your intestines, biting into your neck as you scream in agony, chewing through your eyes as I ignore your pleas for mercy and spreading your brains on the ground like butter!"
—Tsukihime's Arcueid Brunestud, if Shiki rejects her.

This is when a character who has a crush on another character or is already with another character does not take rejection or being dumped well. In fact to them being rejected/dumped is a big Berserk Button. They do not take being told "No" well. Turns out Love Makes You Crazy and Love Makes You Evil (or sometimes not to that extent) especially if that love goes unrequited. May or may not result in Attempted Rape or even worse. May occur in a Villainous Crush scenario. Mild cases of this are often a prerequisite to Ladykiller in Love scenario, when The Casanova falls in love because the woman rejected all his advances, leaving him baffled and disoriented by the new experience. Stalkers are usually unsympathetic whereas this can be sympathetic; the one who cannot handle rejection may just commit Seppuku or join the Legion of Lost Souls whereas a Stalker with a Crush will continue pursuing in ways harmful to the supposed beloved. Sometimes the person who doesn't like rejection doesn't take it well when their loved one cheats on them with someone else either.

The rejection may be either verbal, written, visual or physical or sometimes just implied. Sometimes the rejected character will try to make the object of their affection take back the rejection or love them, by force.

See also Crazy Jealous Guy, Clingy Jealous Girl, Spurned Into Suicide, If I Can't Have You, and Murder the Hypotenuse. The rejected person may or may not get better and get over the rejection though. Compare Woman Scorned, Psycho Ex-Girlfriend. Compared/Contrast Mad Love where the rejected person doesn't always mind being rejected and continues to pursue the object of their affection anyway.

A subversion of this can be when the subject doesn't take well to being turned down initially,[1] but later eases up and becomes a Dogged Nice Girl to him.

There's a fundamental difference in character & story, depending on whether the rejected party:

Examples of Not Good with Rejection include:


Anime and Manga

  • Rune from Karakuridouji Ultimo falls into this in regards to his current unrequited love for Yamato.
  • Belarus from Axis Powers Hetalia has an unreturned Yandere crush on brother Russia. She doesn't react very well when Russia tries to get her to leave him alone. Meaning she tears out his doorknob and stands in the doorway with an insane look on her face telling him that they need to get "married"...
  • One Piece: Vander Drecken responds very badly to Princess Shirahoshi rejecting his marriage proposals, leading to a very bad case of If I Can't Have You. Subverted when it's revealed he only wanted her for her ability to control Sea Kings.
  • Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun: Inner Reika (who's Yandere for Shungo) tries to rape Shungo to help get her feelings across, is willing to pull a Murder the Hypotenuse on Mayu her rival for Shungo's love, and completely looses it in the last episode upon seeing him try to kiss Mayu, screaming at her subordinate Hosaka to kill Shungo. She gets over it though.
  • In the SHUFFLE! anime Kaede goes Yandere when Rin rejects her in favor of Asa. She gets better.
  • In Princess Princess when Tooru tells Sayaka that he only sees her as a sister she has a Freak-Out moment and tries to kill herself by jumping off of a cliff. She gets better.
  • Sailor Moon has a few characters that fall under this, namely Ali and En (for Usagi and Mamoru respectively), Prince Diamond (for Usagi), and Emerald (for Prince Diamond). And Fiore for Mamoru. And Queen Beryl's unrequited love for Endymion/Mamoru. Most of them get over the rejections though, more or less.
  • Tokyo Mew Mew features Kisshu who tries to kill Ichigo when she refuses to become "his". He eventually gets over it.
  • In Outlaw Star Harry beats up Melfina and tries to kidnap her when she refuses him. He also tries to kill Gene the guy he thinks she's interested in and tries to Mind Rape her twice. He gets over the rejection though eventually.
  • Sakura Gari: Katsuragi towards Souma. Also, Sakurako towards Souma. Generally, a lot of people towards Souma. Also Souma towards Masataka.
  • In Ranma ½ Ranma's suitors do not take rejection well. This example is mostly Played for Laughs.
    • Also, when female Ranma discovers that Ryoga (that had accidentally hit Ranma with a love rod) doesn't love him back, he transforms himself into a guy and starts to beat the crap out of Ryoga. Normally Ryoga is as equally skilled in Martial Arts as Ranma, but this time Ranma was in such a rage that Ryoga was forced to surrender...
  • In Ai no Kusabi there's Iason and Guy towards Riki.
  • Yuno from Mirai Nikki towards Yukiteru.
  • In Black Cat the protagonist's enemy, Creed Diskenth has an obsessive fixation on him, and when Train leaves the Chronos Numbers, he kills his closest friend and doesn't hesitate later on to kidnap his friends and hold them hostage.
  • In Elfen Lied, when Lucy learns Kouta lied to her about the gender of the cousin he was taking to the festival, she murders his father and sister in a fit of jealousy and tries to murder his cousin.
  • In Monster Eva Heinemann tries to win over Tenma several times after they break up, each time becoming angrier and angrier until she threatens to turn in his tie and use it against him.
  • Perfect Blue: Me-Mania (real name Uchida) has a thing for Mima that she doesn't even notice. When she publicly announces that she's quitting her singing job and moving to something else, Me-Mania takes this as rejection. Being the crazed fan that he is, he sends her a fax message simply saying "TRAITOR" over and over again. Then he stalks her, murders people connected to her, and attempts to rape and kill her.
  • Okane ga Nai has Kanou towards Ayase. There's also Ayase's Stalker with a Crush who pulls a knife on him in a scene similar to Attempted Rape scene.
  • In a Death Note flashback, when Misa tries to ignore a Stalker with a Crush who surprises her at night, he pulls a knife, saying, "Then I'll kill you and myself!"
  • Mirage of Blaze: Naoe towards Kagetora.
  • Both of the main female characters on School Days fit this trope to a T. And it's not pretty.
  • Mizore from Rosario + Vampire towards Tsukune though she does get better about this and becomes nicer after being added to Tsukune's harem.
  • In The End of Evangelion the violence between Shinji and Asuka reaches a crescendo as Shinji eventually strangles her. This happens shortly after Asuka kicks him, gives him a nasty "The Reason You Suck" Speech which includes her rejecting him after he confesses his feelings to her, and shoves him to the ground causing a pot of painfully hot coffee to spill on him.
    • In episode 22 Asuka flirts with Kaji and when he rejects her she screams "I'm an adult! So look at me!" while pulling her blouse apart and shoving her breasts in his face.
    • Ritsuko deludes herself that Gendo genuinely loves her instead of just having her as a mistress. When she's proven wrong, she incinerates the Rei clones and in End of Evangelion, she hacks the MAGI to remotely self-destruct it as a final 'up yours'... only to have Naoko's woman personality in Casper-3 veto the order. Gendo instantly pulls a gun and kills her.
  • Backstory of Umineko no Naku Koro ni in a nutshell, at least as Beatrice tells it - man summons witch, man falls in love with witch, witch doesn't love him, man traps witch on island, witch dies-ish, man can no longer see witch, man decides to kill entire family in order to revive witch and spends most of his time screaming at the sky.
  • Nodame Cantabile: In the Paris Chapter, when Chiaki wanted to break up with Nodame, she beat the crap out of him (on a bridge overlooking the Seine) until he changed his mind.
  • Chiri in Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei towards Nozomu. One such case is when Nozomu (and guest commentators) immediately and bluntly rejected her suggestion that they could be a successful match (proper love) in the "Maybe Maybe" episode, despite considering and conceding the possibility of success of romantic relationships with Abiru (puppy love), Nami (normal love), Manami (unfaithful love), Kaere (violent love), Chie (adult relationship), Maria (acquaintanceship) and even Ikkyu (Ho Yay), upon their suggestions. Chiri's reaction to the rejection is frighteningly hilarious.
  • Naruse in Kawaii Akuma. He confesses to Akiyoshi another man and when Akiyoshi rejects him he undergoes a complete change of attitude and rapes him.
  • Griffith of Berserk was implied to have feelings for Guts. He didn't respond very well when Guts left him. At all.
    • He also started harboring Yandere tendencies toward Casca as well, and the discovery that Guts and Casca were in a relationship would cause him to snap, leading to everything going to hell.
    • Rosine also had an obsession with her friend Jill. So, when Jill definitely refuses her We Can Rule Together offer, Rosine captures her and tries to turn her into one of her pseudo-Elves by force.
  • Saionji in Revolutionary Girl Utena in regards to Anthy.
    • Also Akio in regards to Anthy.
  • In Wolf's Rain during a confrontation between the two, Jagara stabs Darcia with a poisoned dagger when he refuses her.
  • In Fruits Basket Kagura Sohma is usually a cute, sweet girl with a cheerful disposition, but she actually shows her love for Kyo by beating him to a pulp on sight, especially if he refuses her advances. This frequently leads to Shigure's house being broken. When they were both little kids, apparently she got Kyo to propose to her by threatening him with a knife (or a big rock in the anime). Subverted at the end when she grows to accept his affection for Tohru.
  • The grotesque huge Captain Continental lusts after Jonathan in Legend of the Blue Wolves. However, Jonathan rejects his amorous advances. Captain Continental ultimately responds by beating him up and raping him.
  • Haruna Niekawa of Durarara!!. Professor Nasujima at Mikado's school clearly has a thing for Anri, which naturally Squicks the hell out of her. The same guy is also dating Haruna Niekawa (one of his former students). Or was. Haruna doesn't like that he's changed his preferences, so she gave Anri a visit and tried to kill her...
  • Tabool in Now and Then, Here and There is unhealthily obsessed with garnering any attention whatsoever from his best-friend-turned-rival, Nabuca, to the point that he gets jealous of a freaking six-year-old. Long story short: Nabuca continues to reject Tabool and it does not end well.
  • Saitama Chainsaw Shoujo: After being dumped by her boyfriend Fumio Kirisaki declares "Alright, I'll kill him...Then I'll die."
  • In the anime Speed Grapher Ginza has a one-sided, desperate love for Saiga and ultimately rapes him.
  • In Devil May Cry: The Animated Series the Prison Warden. After Dante rejects his advances he freaks out and orders Dante to be thrown in the special cell.
  • Sae in Peach Girl. And Momo to a lesser extent.
  • Ryoki of Hot Gimmick in regards to Hatsumi his girlfriend. At one point in the manga Hatsumi tells Ryoki that she can't be with him anymore when he orders her to make the impossible decision of choosing between him or her family. When she leaves him he's shown thinking to himself "That stupid woman...If she can't be mine she should just die."
  • Aoshima of Ah! My Goddess is a playboy that can have any woman he wants except for Belldandy and Skuld. When they reject him he doesn't take it well and attempts to rape them. Thankfully, they both escape him before he can.
  • Togainu no Chi: Keisuke becomes Yandere as a result of not having his feelings toward Akira being acknowledged and being rejected as well as the effects of Line making him insane. Whether he snaps out of it or not depends on the route (in the game). In the anime though, he snaps out of it and reverts back to his normal self.
  • My-HiME: Shizuru out of her love for Natsuki, goes insane when she believes Natsuki has rejected her (Natsuki, however, also considers Shizuru her most important person) and kills those she sees as Natsuki's enemies. And even better, her CHILD is named Kiyohime, see the Myth and Legend section of this page for more.
  • A possible interpretation of Kyouko from Skip Beat!.
  • In Full Metal Panic! we have Leonard Testarossa. He has a crush on Kaname, once forced a kiss on her, and kidnapped her after besting Sousuke (in a gentlemen's duel), and personally assured him that despite his attraction to her, he wouldn't force anything, and will see to that nothing untoward should happen. Later on, however, he becomes so enraged with Kaname not giving in to him, and sort of "betraying" him by finally declaring to Sousuke that she loves him, that he slaps her hard enough to make her fall to the ground, speaks to her very rudely, and generally tortures her (more mentally than physically) in order to weaken her mind so that she won't be able to resist his plans of world-domination.
  • In Lovely Complex Mimi briefly acts this way but Koizumi punches her and tells her to deal with it. She gets better.
  • The subtext of Yurimaru's death via Zakuro's Action Bomb trap in Ninja Scroll is blatant. Yurimaru is an an electrokinetic Bishonen who uses Razor Floss- Zakuro is a viciously inventive explosives expert with at the least a prominent facial scar and at most is so covered in scars she looks like Frankenstein's Monster. Zakuro has a major crush on Yurimaru, but Yurimaru is a Depraved Homosexual in love with (and sleeping with) their leader, Himuro Gemma, and so he rejects her advances rather bluntly. Yurimaru promptly stumbles into an explosives-rigged shed near the climax of the movie, and is blatantly blown to pieces when a detonating rat triggers the whole place going up in flames.
  • Ryuuko in Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest in regards to Inugami. It also is not pretty.
  • Happens at least twice in Detective Conan. The first time, the guy not only killed himself... but he made it look as if the Idol Singer who rejected him actually murdered him.
  • Gunslinger Girl: First, we have Elsa, who shot her handler Lauro and then put a bullet through her eye because Lauro did not return her feelings. Many chapters later, Henrietta, who as of late had been ignored by Jose, frags him during a rampage against Dante's men brought about by Ski Mask Guy. Jose has her finish the job. As Henrietta puts one more through Jose, Jose shoots her through the eye, killing her instantly.
  • Everyone in Black★Rock Shooter.
  • In Koharu no Hibi Koharu is so obsessed with Akira that its implied she's Not Good with Rejection in regards to him.
  • Akari of Girl Got Game is a type 2 Yandere for Kyo. Attempts to drive her away are met with suicide threats and Wolverine Claws.
  • Nozomu of Stepping on Roses. To insane proportions. He even goes so far as to go around with an ax "Here's Johnny" style trying to catch Sumi "cheating on him".
  • Genkaku of Deadman Wonderland is in love with Nagi/his carnage. He definitely didn't respond well to Nagi rejecting him.
    • Masaru "Chaplin" Sukegawa was imprisoned after murdering a woman his lover was caught with.
  • One of the creepiest examples comes from Minoru Murao's Knights manga. Of all people, Nina, the cute little girl of the cast goes nuts when she assumes that the object of her affection Mist is physically involved with his Ms. Fanservice companion Euphemia. Her response is to lead a supernatural agent of the Corrupt Church (the same Church that nearly burned her at the stake after accusing her of being a witch) to kill him. She even shoots him in the leg with a crossbow. Her motivation? To send his soul to Hell, where it will be "purified", then join him in death so they can be together for all eternity. Keep in mind that this guy saved her life in the first few chapters, which is why she's so hung up on him in the first place. This is borderline Love Makes You Evil. To her credit, she does eventually realize just how utterly screwed up she was, and works to undo her actions.
  • Hitagi Senjougahara from Bakemonogatari makes it clear that she won't tolerate her boyfriend Koyomi Araragi showing interest in any other woman. At one point, she nearly stabs him in the eye with a mechanical pencil after he so much as talks about another female using her first name without an honorific. And only stops once he screams, "Stop it! There's nothing guilty about it! I didn't mean it like I knew her well! I'm only devoted to you, Senjougahara!"
  • Faina Shinozaki from Infinite Ryvius. When her boyfriend breaks up with her, she tries to kill him. When her previous boyfriend broke up with her, she did kill him. She also killed an old friend just for mentioning his name.
  • Manami Anzai from Life, who first appears as a cute and childish click leader who snaps utterly when she suspects Ayumu is trying to steal away her boyfriend. She goes so insane that she then dates a gang leader on the side to use him to get back at both Ayumu and her boyfriend, and then promptly screws her boyfriend and the gang leader both over. Not to mention her vow to kill Ayumu with her bare hands. Then she crosses into Cute and Psycho territory.
  • Chloe of Noir She turns psycho after Kirika rejects (or more accurately, fails to even notice) her advances, and then acts to protect Mireille from her, causing her to snap.
  • Reimi from Bamboo Blade has stalked Miyako from the shadows ever since the latter had brutally rebuffed the advances of the former's crush in middle school (though the two attend different high schools).
  • Mao for C.C. and Rolo for Lelouch in Code Geass.
  • Ringo of Mawaru Penguindrum for Tabuki. She drugs and attempts to rape him when she learns he doesn't love her back. Tabuki also falls into this in episode 11 for Ringo after she gives him a Love Potion.
  • Dai of Let Dai for Jaehee. He ties Jaehee down to train tracks when he considers him to have spurned his love.
  • Karl Fei-Ong of Blood+. The fact that Diva didn't love him is what drove him insane.
  • Ritsu in Loveless sexually abuses a young Soubi and generally acts like a Jerkass because Soubi's mother married another man over him.
  • Threads of Time: Sali Tayi. He explicitly tells Atan Hadas that if she runs away with Moon-Bin and doesn't marry him, he'll kill them both.
  • Haru To Natsu has protagonist Makoto caught between twin sisters who both want him,. He prefers Haruna, the stable and sweet model student, while also being chased by Natsuki, who wants him because Haruna wants him. Oh, and did I mention Haruna's quite Yandere for Makoto? To the point that their first kiss is while she's holding a very large butcher knife, and later promises (while wielding that same knife) that if he ever cheats, he wouldn't like what happens.
  • Shuichi Shindou from Gravitation qualifies for this when the stress of Yuki being outed puts him into the hospital, and Shuichi talks at length about how he would rather Yuki die than leave him.
  • Sengoku Otome has Akechi Mitsuhide, who is so yandere for her master, Oda Nobunaga, that after catching her "kissing" supposed-rival Hideyoshi (but she was just giving her medicine), she torches the temple that Nobunaga's passed out drunk in, then goes in after her "so they can always be together." Fortunately, the plan is thwarted, everyone survives, and although Mitsuhide passed out from smoke inhalation, she wakes up in the middle of getting mouth-to-mouth from Nobunaga.
  • What specifically pushes Claudine into shooting himself dead is how Sirene, his third and last love, leaves him for his older brother Andre.
  • Usagi of Sailor Moon falls into a depression after Mamoru breaks up with her and tries to tearfully eat her troubles away.
  • Tsukihime's Arcueid if Shiki rejects her.

Comic Books

  • Tony Stark broke up with Kathleen Dare because she was being too clingy. So, she shot and crippled him.
  • The Venom Symbiote to Spider-Man. Its thought process can be summed up as "That bastard! How dare he kick me out! Didn't he realize how awesome I was?! Well screw him! I hate him, I hate him, I want him to die! He deserves to suffer for hurting me! But then... I won't have him! I know, I'll kill off everything he loves and then force him to take me back! Then it will just be us together forever..."
  • Superman once had Maxima, Queen of the planet Almerac after him. Maxima learned about Superman after viewing a transmission of outer-space gladiator games that Superman was forced to take part in, and set out to make the Man of Steel her mate. Since Superman rejected her advances, Max periodically attempted to wreak revenge, including an alliance with his nemesis Brainiac.
    • The second was an Earth woman named Dana Dearden. She always fascinated by the legends of ancient gods. Since the Man of Steel is more-or-less a modern-day god, she transferred her interest to him, filling her room with various news clippings and other memorabilia of him. After stealing some ancient coins at the local museum, she gained superpowers and donned a hero costume of her own, insisting that she was Kal-El's Super-Woman. But not only did Superman deny her the love she sought, she was quickly given the somewhat irritating name "Obsession". In her fury, she destroyed an oil tanker, and disappeared for awhile. And when Obsession resurfaced during Superman's split into Red and Blue versions, she ran up against Maxima, who wasn't interested in Dana's suggestion that there was now one Supes for each of them. In the end, though, Obsession's love for Superman proved 100% true, when she sacrificed herself to save him from a magical attack.

Fan Fiction

Light: I know I can win him back if he'll just visit me in person once.
Rem: You sound like Misa.

Newspaper Comics

  • A now infamous series of strips in the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic had Mickey attempting to commit suicide after being rejected by Minnie.

Music

  • P!nk slowly goes insane when her boyfriend attempts to leave her in the music video "Please Don't Leave Me".
  • Kesha sings to "Stephen" that she "can't take rejection".

Film

  • Rose McGowan's character Debbie in the movie Devil In The Flesh goes Yandere for her teacher when it becomes obvious that he already has a wife and doesn't love her back.
    • The guy from Debbie's school who lusted after her tries to rape her after she turns down his sexual advances and later attacks her. She kills him before he can attack/rape her.
  • In Just Friends when Chris tries to turn down Samantha she tazers him in the groin. Also, Samantha shows up at Jamie's house to start trouble after learning that Chris is kind of dating Jamie.
  • Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction towards Dan.
  • Hal/Titan in Megamind.
  • Mark Wahlberg's character David McCall in the 1996 movie "Fear."
  • Beauty and the Beast: Gaston increasingly goes from being a Jerkass Stalker with a Crush into a murderous Yandere through the course of the movie. It's especially evident after Belle keeps refusing him.

Gaston: I'll have Belle for my wife! Make no mistake about that!

  • My Super Ex-Girlfriend: On one side there is Matt, a normal guy. On the other side there is Jenny Johnson AKA G-Girl, a Supergirl Expy. They were an item at first, but then Jenny became more neurotic, aggressive and controlling. So Matt breaks off the relationship and...she does not take the rejection well. This is supposed to be a romantic comedy, but Your Mileage May Vary on whether or not you find this funny.
  • Adrian in The Crush.
  • Claude Frollo from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame movie is hinted to not take rejection well: "She (Esmerelda) will be mine or she will burn!"
  • In Titanic Cal (Rose's fiance) shoots at Jack and Rose after he sees them reuniting. He later tries to keep Rose from going to Jack after she rejects him with "I'd rather be his (Jack's) whore than your (Cal) wife!" but Rose spits at him.
  • In The Adventures Of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina the Mole King goes Ax Crazy when Thumbelina rejects him and chooses Tom instead.
  • A deleted scene from the first The Lion King film that is mostly restored in the play as "The Madness of King Scar" is downright creepy. Scar starts hitting on Nala, wanting her to be his queen. She refuses. In front of the entire pride, he banishes her.
  • Rat Race: Tracy goes into psycho mode when she finds her boyfriend cheating on her with his ex. Upon seeing him and his ex in a steamy pool in the backyard, she attempts to nose dive at them in her helicopter and in their haste to avoid it they break the pool and the water sends them crashing into the side of his house. After that, she proceeds to drop things, including a can of pink paint, onto his truck, and chase him down in the chopper, while using the landing skids to destroy his truck. After running him off the road, she steals the truck upon finding her helicopter's engine is shot. She then yells and punches him in the face after he breaks up with her, almost strangles him with the truck window, puts a bra in his mouth and throws him out of the already running truck.
  • In Swimfan Madison initially doesn't seem all that upset that her one time lover Ben has a girlfriend Amy already but then she becomes more unhinged and tries to murder Amy...
  • The Duke in Moulin Rouge.
  • In Villain, when the Villain Protagonist Shimizu's girlfriend stands him up to go off with another guy, Shimizu follows them and kills her.
  • Back to The Future Biff frequently makes unwanted advances on Lorraine and becomes very angry when she rejects him, tries to rape her in 1955, and wants to marry her (he eventually succeeds in marrying her and treats her horribly).
  • Bad Education: Father Berenguer tries to blackmail Juan when he refuses to see him.
  • Horrible Bosses: The Maneater boss regularly sexually harasses Dale. When he rejects her advances, she drugs him and takes sexually explicit photos of him to blackmail him with.
  • Wenlock of Barbie And The Magic Of Pegasus.
  • The Jack In The Box from "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" sequence of Fantasia.
  • Play Misty for Me: Dave (Eastwood) is a womanizing DJ who constantly gets calls from a woman asking him to play the song "Misty". He eventually meets the woman, named Evelyn, and has a one-night-stand with her. Evelyn insists on making herself part of Dave's life and, at first, Dave likes the attention. However, his ex-girlfriend, Tobie, moves back to town and Dave decides to patch things up. After he attempts to tell Evelyn that he's not interested, she responds by attempting suicide. Dave and Tobie get closer, but Evelyn isn't going to take it and tries any way she can to keep Dave to herself, even if it means getting rid of Tobie for good...
  • Spider Man: Occurs in the third film when Mary Jane breaks up with Peter. Also, in the first film Green Goblin has much Foe Yay towards Spiderman and doesn't react well when he rejects his offer to join him. "NO ONE SAYS NO TO ME!"
  • Sandy Burrow (Joely Fisher) from Seduction in a Small Town is a great example of a Lifetime-like Yandere: when she throws herself at local Hot Dad Paul Jenks (Dennis Weaver) and is rebuffed because he's Happily Married to Hot Mom Sarah (Melissa Gilbert), among other things, she gets so pissed that she falsely accuses them both of being horrible abusive parents to their two kids and gets them thrown in jail. Twice.
  • Dark Shadows: After Barnabas rejects her love, Angelique goes on to Murder the Hypotenuse, curse Barnabas to be a vampire, lock him in a coffin for almost 200 years, and spend those consequent 200 years sabotaging his family for revenge.
  • Fredrick Zoller in Inglorious Basterds.
  • In Scream 4, we hear a lot about a Noodle Incident in which Trevor declared his love for Jill, they had sex and then he "just goes out with someone else". Jill absolutely refuses to forgive him, no matter how much he tries to apologize. And right after she reveals herself as the killer, she shoots Trevor in the groin as retaliation.

Myth and Legend

  • There is a Japanese folktale concerning a woman named Kiyohime who, when rejected by the object of her affections, turns into a dragon and kills him. More information can be found on The Other Wiki.

Literature

  • Nish from The Three Worlds Cycle books by Ian Irvine is eventually this for Tiaan after she rejects him numerous times.
  • In Death series: Indulgence In Death has a guy who killed a girl he was interested in a drunken fit of rage because she was not interested in him.
  • In the Warrior Cats series, Ashfur. He reacts to rejection by deciding that Squirrelflight needs to feel as much pain as he had. He tries to set up her father's death, framing her current mate as a murderer in the process. When that fails, he decides to try killing her kits in front of her.
  • The Princess Bride: When Buttercup gives Prince Humperdink "The Reason You Suck" Speech, he throws her into her room. Then he races down to where her true love Wesley is being tortured, and sets the torture device on maximum, killing him. Clearly, the Prince did not take to being rejected by Buttercup well.
  • Lydia in Peter Moore's Caught In The Act towards Ethan.
  • Sybill Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray, who takes a fatal does of poison right after Dorian cruelly dumps her.
  • Harold in The Stand once Frannie picks Stu.
  • The Wheel of Time has Rahvin, who uses mind control to force women into having sex with him, since he can't handle rejection.
  • The Odyssey has Calypso who, after offering her lover Odysseus a chance to stay with her on her island forever, tries to force him to stay on her island with her after he rejects her and tries to get back to his wife at Ithica. She eventually lets him leave because Hermes told Calypso that Zeus said she had to let Odysseus go back to Ithica.
  • Tess of the D'Urbervilles Tess, beginning when Angel initially rejects her and she offers to kill herself, among other things, if it restores his good name.
  • Erik in The Phantom of the Opera. He eventually takes the I Want My Beloved to Be Happy route.
  • The Sorrows of Young Werther is about an emotional young man named Werther who falls madly in love with an young woman named Lotte, who is engaged to someone else. Werther gradually becomes more emotional and less mentally stable as a result of the rejection and ultimately kills himself.
  • Lord Arlington in the Louisa May Alcott book The Inheritance tries to seduce Edith many times but each time she rejects him. The final time she rejects him he reacts very angrily and it's implied that he means to rape her but Lord Percy shows up and Arlington departs.
  • Walk in Caroline B. Cooney's "Both Sides Of Time". After a maid named Bridget that he made advances on rejects him he decides to frame her for Matthews murder.
  • "Dr. Bird's Advice For Sad Poets": Sally trashes Derek's lawn after he breaks up with her and threatens to get her fiancé involved.

Live Action TV

  • Star Trek: The Original Series: There was one episode called "Charlie X" where a boy with god-like powers ends up in the hands of Captain Kirk and Spock. The boy takes an interest in one of the crew members, and she is old enough to be his mother. He rejects a female crew member his age rather bluntly and rudely. He slaps the crew member he is interested in in her rear. She is appropriately turned off by his advances. Kirk tries to explain to the boy that what he is doing is inappropriate, but it doesn't work. It culiminates in him making moves, she in turn bluntly rejecting him, and he angrily uses his powers to teleport her somewhere and he refuses to say where he put her. Fortunately, she gets teleported back safely by the end and the boy is taken by entities that will be able to handle him properly!
  • Chris Keller in Oz in regards to Beecher. Also, Ryan in regards to Dr. Nathan.
    • Adebisi goes into a depression after Shirley rejects him.
    • Unit Manager Tim McManus forms a brief liaison with prison guard Claire Howell. When he tries to break off the relationship she assaults him in his office (to the delight of watching inmates), then charges him with sexual harassment when he tries to fire her. Howell's later actions definitely cast her in the role of a villain — she assaults (and in one case murders) inmates, as well as using them for her own sexual gratification whether they want it or not. Also, when Ryan said they should stop their sexual relationship she threatened him telling him "It's not over till I say it's over!" Also, when Chris rejected her sexual advances she beat him up.
  • Rose of Two and A Half Men. It's implied that she even kills Charlie when she spotted him cheating on her on her honeymoon.

Bertha: Never cross a psycho woman.

    • Also Bridget, Walden's ex-wife. She screams at Walden when he rejects her for another woman and drives her car through his wall deliberately with an angry look on her face.
    • When his wife left him, Walden tried to drown himself in the ocean. Apparently he didn't realize that the water would be really cold.
  • In the TV movie No One Would Tell we have Bobby (played by Fred Savage) towards his girlfriend Stacy.
  • Flashpoint: The very first episode had a Croatian man murder his estranged wife, apparently because she rejected him. There are indications that he may have been mentally ill. The 50th episode had this one employee who was carefully fired because he was more interested in his boss than was proper. Unfortunately, he ends up coming back with a gun and shoots at least one person he comes across. He tries to propose marriage to his former boss, ring and all. She ends up rejecting him, which results in him getting violent and Ed having to shoot him dead. The interesting part was that the team had warned her that he is mentally ill and dangerous and yet she went and put herself in danger (at least to save an employee) anyway.
  • Spike of Buffy the Vampire Slayer took his repeated rejections from Buffy quite badly, and it leads to Attempted Rape.
  • "Creepy Connie" takes Luke's lack of interest very poorly on Jessie.
  • In an episode of Supernatural, Sam and Dean have to protect a girl from a spirit who kills people who have been involved in other's deaths. The girl's past includes a boyfriend who threatened to commit suicide when she tried to break up with him. When she left anyway, he did go through with it and she's felt guilty ever since.
  • Dollhouse: Sierra's rejection of Nolan causes her to get institutionalized, drugged, and involuntarily conscripted into the Dollhouse. Where she's booked on regular engagements with Nolan.
  • Cheers episode "A Ditch in Time". Sam Malone gets involved with Amanda Boyer (Carol Kane), who becomes obsessed with and possessive of men she goes out with. When he tries to break up with her she implies that she'll commit suicide if he does.
  • Lila from Dexter. She had Dexter ambushed in a parking lot by a man who wanted to kill him because she thought it would bring them closer. When Dexter dumped her, she obsessively tried to win him back with methods including arson and framing one of his friends for sexual assault. She also burned down her ex-boyfriend's house with him still inside. Not to mention that said arson methods weren't just used on Dexter - she put Rita's kids, essentially her competition, in serious danger as well.
  • Rick of Degrassi.
  • Victorious: Trina in an open letter to Kevin Richards. If Trina doesn't get what she wants, hide.
  • In Lost, resident Magnificent Bastard Ben Linus had a crush-turned-obsession on Juliet. She, on the other hand, was with Goodwin. You don't need a degree to figure out what happens to the poor fool.
  • Desperate Housewives: George, a pharmacist, lusted after Bree once she ended their affair together and became jealous of her husband Rex. So he tampered with Rex's prescription drugs by replacing his heart medication with placebos which led to Rex's death. He also beats up and attempts to kill other people who look like they are trying to come in between him and Bree. He also drugged Bree at one point and was seriously considering taking advantage of her. He eventually proposed to Bree and pressured her into marrying him. After the engagement he became increasingly possessive of her, and increasingly violent.
    • Carlos towards Gabrielle in the first season. She was cheating on him, but he ended up physically assaulting the wrong man twice (both of them turning out to be gay) and getting a prison sentence for it.
  • The Nanny: C.C. shows shades of this towards Maxwell (as early as Season One, her therapist has diagnosed C.C. with being clinically obsessed with him). It gets much more severe after Fran and Maxwell announce their engagement. Upon hearing the news, C.C. immediately starts twitching, attacks the messengers who brought her the news (she's holding one of their hats, torn to shreds, in the next scene), and actually ends up spending a few episodes in a mental asylum (in Real Life actress Lauren Lane was taking time off because she was about to give birth). She gets better by the end of the series though.
    • Fran gets her own stalker in the form of Jeffrey Needleman, an old classmate from middle and high school. He threatens to fling himself out a window if Fran doesn't start a relationship with him. At one point before this, he gives her an old makeup kit, explaining that it's the same one their fifth grade teacher confiscated from Fran. Cue Fran's response: "And you saved it...all these years. How sweet...and yet disturbing!"
  • When Blair dumps Chuck on Gossip Girl he puts a dating fatwa on her.
  • Queer as Folk: A mild version in the case of Brian and Brandon. Brian is used to getting whomever he wants, whenever he wants. When Brandon rejects him in the backroom of Babylon, Brian has issues letting it go.

Video Games

  • Arc Rise Fantasia has Adelle, who goes Ax Crazy Yandere the very instant she finds out she's an Unlucky Childhood Friend. The resulting death toll numbers somewhere in the thousands to hundreds of thousands, and came close to killing everybody on the planet. It seems she felt she had two options: softspoken Yamato Nadeshiko girlfriend of the protagonist, or bitchy high priestess of the local Religion of Evil.
  • F.E.A.R. 2: Alma in regards to Becket. She develops romantic feelings for him and frequently does Attempted Rape on him. However he fights her off each time and this angers her. At the end of the game she does eventually manage to rape him and is pregnant with his child.

Visual Novel

  • Lucan from Planets is a Nice Guy, but he has a crippling fear of rejection. If Marin rejects him after he reveals that he unintentionally brainwashed his Unwanted Harem of fangirls into loving him, Lucan responds by intentionally brainwashing Marin into loving him.

Western Animation

  • Family Guy: Meg goes Yandere sometimes when she gets rejected by a guy, namely Brian. Also, Stewie acts like this sometimes as well, most notably in regards to his babysitter Liddane and to Olivia when he was married to her. When he found her with another guy he burned down the house when she and the other guy were still inside.
    • Also, there's Joan the maid in the episode "I Take Thee Quagmire" who marries Quagmire. When Quagmire tries to bring up divorce following becoming aroused by seeing Lois's breasts Joan goes into Yandere mode and threatens to cut both herself and him with a kitchen knife, right before saying "I love you Glen." When Quagmire says "I love you too insane woman I'm having second thoughts about" Joan goes into Freak-Out mode again and screams "WHAT?!"
    • And when Stewie falls in love with the babysitter, he breaks her boyfriends legs, ties him up and locks him in his trunk leading to his death.
  • This is part of Mad Hatter's origin in Batman the Animated Series. He had a crush on his secretary, who actually was named Alice, but she didn't reciprocate.
  • Katella says as much to Robotnik in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb was this in an episode. The outcome of his evil plot depended on whether or not his date went well, because (as he admitted) he can't handle rejection well.
  • Avery Bullock of American Dad! has moments of this, both to Hayley in a brief fling, and later to his cat.

Bullock: *threatening his cat* You think you're better than me? You're not better than me! You're going to learn a hard lesson!

    • When Hayley Smith gets dumped, things get ugly. Really ugly.

Hayley: I think I'd go maximum crazy! I'd murder Bill... burn down the neighborhood... rape Roger!

"Nobody leaves me at the altar! NOBODY!"

    • Trixie attempts to kill Timmy when he breaks up with her in "Just the Two of Us".
  • Teen Titans gives us Kitten. "Nobody dumps Kitten! You're going to pay for this Robbie-poo! YOU'RE GOING TO PAY!!!!!"
  • Lizzie on Codename: Kids Next Door in regards to Numbuh One and King Sandy in regards to Numbuh 3.
  • In the Pepe Le Pew short "Really Scent" Pepé removes his odor by locking himself in a deodorant plant so Penelope (Or known as "Fabrette", in this instance a black cat with an unfortunate birthmark and thus an arguably different character) would no longer be afraid of him. However, Penelope had decided to make her odor match her appearance and had locked herself in a Limburger cheese factory. Now more forceful and demanding, Penelope quickly corners the terrified Pepé, who, after smelling her new stench, wants nothing more than to escape the amorous female cat. Unfortunately, she will not take "no" for an answer, gets an angry look on her face when Pepe repulses her advances and proceeds to chase Pepé off into the distance, with no intention of letting him escape.
  • Flame Princess on Adventure Time goes on a rampage when Jake disguised as Finn tells her he doesn't like her after Jake found out she was evil.
  • An episode of Regular Show has Starla, Muscle Man's old girlfriend. She falls in love with Mordecai, and he starts dating her just so he can get her and Muscle Man back together. But when Mordecai can't take it anymore and breaks up with her... well...
  • Tiny Toon Adventures: Fifi LaFume but only in How I Spent My Vacation. In other episodes she takes being rejected quite well. After Johnny, who Fifi has a crush on, gives the autograph that was meant for Fifi to Bimbette, Johnny suffers the wrath of one very, VERY angry Fifi.
  • In the Tom and Jerry cartoon "Blue Cat Blues", Tom is sitting on a railroad track, waiting to be run over, after his girlfriend leaves him for another. At the end, Jerry joins him after his own girlfriend does the same.
  • The Planet Express Ship from Futurama. She tries to kill herself and the rest of the crew after Bender breaks up with her.
  • Mai from Avatar: The Last Airbender is not happy when Zuko, not wanting to drag her into a life of treason, breaks up with her to go join the Avatar. She does end up saving his life and getting thrown in prison for betraying Azula, and they're later reunited in one of the series' greatest Crowning Moments of Heartwarming. Mai later warns Zuko to never break up with her again.
  • The Martian Queen in the Duck Dodgers episode "The Queen Is Wild", who seeks revenge on Dodgers for rejecting her in "To Love A Duck". Dodgers, being Dodgers, has completely forgotten the entire incident.
  • Berry from the Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends totally fits this trope, acting sweet and kind, but being homicidally jealous of anyone who she perceives as a threat to her relationship with Bloo, which is even more imaginary than she is. She didn't react well when Bloo rejected her and went into a rage.
  • My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: Fluttershy loses her goddamn mind after getting rejected by the animals in "Best Night Ever". "You're... going... to LOVE ME!!!!!"
    • Pinkie Pie also has a goddamn mental breakdown when she thinks her friends don't like her parties and don't want to be her friends anymore in "Party of One", complete with her temporarily talking to inanimate objects and sporting a Slasher Smile.
  • In "Plane Crazy" Mickey Mouse gets angry when Minnie rejects him when they're in a plane together and deliberately flies so that she falls out of the plane. When he again tries to kiss her she refuses him again and he angrily forces kisses on her.
  • Lola Bunny on The Looney Tunes Show. Bugs meets her on a blind date, decides that she's not right for him afterwards at least partially due to her being a Stalker with a Crush on him, and Lola goes from being distraught about it to believing that she's still involved with Bugs to the point where she has Bugs (unwillingly) at the altar with her. Bugs is thankfully saved from the And Now You Must Marry Me situation she has put him in by her invocation of Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace on the grounds that she has decided that she loves Pepe le Pew.

Web Comic

  • Diego from Gunnerkrigg Court towards Jeanne. It's heavily implied that he sent Jeanne on a mission he knew would result in her death when he realized that she would never love him like she loved her forest-bound boyfriend.
  • Ping from Megatokyo becomes violent when rejected, because her programmers forgot to test how she handles it in QA.
  • The Word Weary: Grace is visibly angry after Poor Trotmann rejects her offer for a date.
  • Eridan from Homestuck does not take Feferi, with whom he's in love, breaking off their moirallegiance, well at all. To the point that later in the story he actually kills her when she tries to stop him from joining forces with Jack. This is also his Despair Event Horizon as, ironically, he's known as the Prince of Hope.

Web Original


Theatre

  • Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire hints that he absolutely will not tolerate it if his wife Stella ever rejects or leaves him.
    • Blanche, when Mitch rejects her, starts to exhibit even more Sanity Slippage.
  • Medea: The original Woman Scorned, she killed her husband Jason's new fiancée after being dumped for her. This wasn't an attempt to win him back, however, but pure and simple revenge, particularly when she also put her children by Jason to the sword just to make him suffer all the more.
  1. ↑ * As in, her reaction was chasing him with a meat cleaver and almost killing him
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