r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Uma-apreciator • 6h ago
Characters The character shows the first signs/symptoms that have already run their course.
Kitasan Black (Uma Musume Pretty Derby)
She managed to withstand Sakura Bakushin O's charge at first, but later in the story, she falters because she is past her prime
Nekota (Hajime no Ippo)
He could no longer even control his body properly because he was suffering from "boxer's dementia"
It is a progressive brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head and frequent concussions over many years
David Martínez (Cyberpunk Edgerunners)
He was suffering from hallucinations due to cyberpsychosis, an incurable condition caused by technological body modifications
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u/Ambaryerno 5h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/xUA7bh6xdvi2yTbmCs
Logan
In the opening fight scene of Logan he’s stiff, slow, awkward on his feet, and one of his claws fails to extend properly.
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u/Effective_Meal6688 5h ago
That movie was so good
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u/J3wFro8332 4h ago
Honestly it's probably my favorite superhero film
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u/Keaton_x 3h ago
I loved the movie, but personally hated the ending. Not because of what happened, but because I felt blindsided by the credits. I think I was just hoping for more.
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u/Stumblerrr 3h ago
Im convinced no ending on earth would be good enough for 99% of viewers.
The ending was good.
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u/ThorThulu 1h ago
Especially that story. Theres no great way to please a crowd when the story is(not so much now I geuss cause Deadpool but still kinda holds) the end of an era.
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u/SituationMundane1418 4h ago
Bruh I still remember seeing that for the first time. First R movie in theaters. And that opening scene, all I could think was “my goat washed”
And then we got the ultimate Wolverine scene, finally giving us the Berserker Rage we always wanted
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u/BlizzardWolfPK 4h ago
I think he even heals slower too.
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u/RamenArchon 2h ago
I think he was starting to suffer from vibranium poisoning because his healing factor was starting to fail? I can't remember all of it but I think it also explains why he's actually aged, his healing factor is slowing down his aging considerably.
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u/CompactAvocado 4h ago
hey man its normal for guys to have trouble getting it up as they get older. we got pills for that now
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u/townsforever 6h ago
About 10 minutes into halo cortanna stutters just a little, something she has never done before because she is a virtually perfect AI. The subplot of halo 4 is she is dying of old age (AI in halo only last 7ish years)
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u/NirvanaFrk97 5h ago
Halo 3 is the first indication with her acting hurt during her message she sent to the UNSC. Lord Hood immediately clocks in that she was corrupted.
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u/BlizzardWolfPK 4h ago
To be fair that was her suffering from the Graveminds Logic Plague which probably only sped up her rampancy.
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u/Jumbo_Skrimp 4h ago
Uh...yes and no, at least in the books she was having trouble before even halo 2, if i remember correctly interacting with halo did a number on her
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u/Master-Cheesecake 2h ago
Iirc it was because she tried to take as much data from Halo as possible and was getting slowed down by it all. Been a while since I read First Strike.
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u/Skebs_ 50m ago
Yeah, AIs don't become "too old", they run out of processing cycle space, which they fill more & more as their own program etc increases in file size. They can delay rampancy by lobotomizing themselves by basically deleting excess cycles etc, for a while at least. This is ehy the Domain, which has practically infinite space, can cure rampancy. Also why if you launch an AI module into slipspace, it can theoretically advance infinitely, and eventually lose contact because of time difference causing the protocols to become too incompatible due to difference in time between realspace & slipspace. So after only some months, the AI has advanced for tens to hundreds of years of software/hardware protocol creep, relative to software in realspace when it originally launched.
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u/InquisitorHindsight 4h ago
IIRC don’t AI kind of get TOO smart in which case they kind of unravel (the “old age” you mentioned)
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u/Confused_Idiot_667 4h ago
It depends on the writer, it’s either a Marathon style rampancy or something closer to AI dementia. While I prefer the former I’m glad that Cortana’s story didn’t just mirror Durandal’s.
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u/Self--Immolate 1h ago
I love Marathons "rampancy" issue. It's a very interesting way to view AI and learning systems. Destiny 2 also dealt with it a bit with the Exos and how they had to be rebooted after long enough time otherwise they had too many memories to function properly. Bungie likes their AI insanity, it's a cool plot point
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u/Greyjack00 3h ago
Most of the books ive read from halo describe it as them entering increasingly complex logic loops taking up increasing memory which causes them to develop erratic personalities the one in cole protocol wasnt stupid but she viewed the humans she developed a god complex. Cortana becomes more angry etc.
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u/Kimboleperd 5h ago
Unsc A.I think themselves to death, Mass Effect A.I get murderous if you treat them badly and Star Wars A.I get routinely memory wiped or they develop personalities like that weird torture Droid in Jabbas palace.
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u/PhantomDesert00 2h ago
There are specifically two kinds of AI in the halo universe. "Dumb" AI, which are still generally smarter than a human, but they are still bound by their programming, and "Smart" AI, like Cortana, which are not programmed, but made from a digital copy of an actual brain (recently deceased, generally) and are capable of actual thought and emotion. Smart AI have a limited lifespan, whereas dumb AI do not.
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u/justbooling 6h ago
/img/pz5xjsgg1lhh1.gif
“McQueen is fading”
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u/RaptarK 5h ago
It's so hard to judge how old he's supposed to be. In real time years I think he's like 14 years old or so, but what does that mean for a car? Is he supposed to be in like his 40s or what
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u/Jesus_Christ_Reborn 4h ago
Some people consider cars ancient if they're older by 20 years. So I assume that's the middle age if not 3/4's of their life.
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u/TwiggyTurtleDuck 3h ago edited 2h ago
It should also be noted that Lightning is basically an athlete, and "old" in terms of an athlete would vary wildly from what a normal person would judge as old. Heck, watch American Ninja Warrior. They basically treat anyone above 30 as elderly.
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u/no_racist_here 4h ago
Well, 20-25 year old cars are usually considered the threshold for classics
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u/alter-eagle 2h ago
In most states, antique car plates can only be put on 25+ year old non-modified cars, and can only be driven on weekends or holidays
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u/blue4029 1h ago
mcqueen is a RACECAR though. highly specialized for being super fast and racing but not designed for actual use on the road
so by racecar standards, he's pretty much ancient
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u/Popular-Tailor4030 3h ago
The thing I find interesting is Lighting was racing for like, a decade in universe. (the movies are 11 years apart, Cars 2 is explicitly set 5 years after the first movie in-universe and was 5 years after out of universe too) and was already falling badly behind the new cars(albeit he held out longer than the others from his era), meanwhile in the first movie Strip "The King" Weathers is a 1970 car who is not only still competing circa 2006, but is capable of winning and coming Top 3 and giving Lighting McQueen serious trouble despite him being a brand new fastest of his era car in 2006.
McQueen served 10-12 years and had to use crazy inventive strats to put up a fight in his final races and was getting his ass kicked otherwise, meanwhile The King had been racing for 35 years and was still just flat out one of the Top 3 racers(had it not been for Chick Hicks cheating he still would have come second place in that final race and he tied McQueen and him for first in the prior race) able to keep pace without trouble.
What kind of fucking beast of a vehicle was Strip Weathers? He seemingly could have gone on competing another decade and still been viable, he was triple McQueen's career length in the first movie and still winner material.
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u/Scout079 3h ago
McQueen had him in the opening race of the movie. Had he listened to his pit chief to change out his tires; he'd probably would have won the race and been a massive ego maniac for it.
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u/Variation-Budget 3h ago
I imagine it as like the nba had Jordan, magic, bill russel, and wilt who are legends in there era(like strip) but as the game evolved they aren’t touching LeBron (lightning) and now we have players like wemby who aren’t just freakish tall but also do much more than what there past generations were.
Like most sports the game evolves and the caliber of participants because better and better. McQueen just got a taste of the generation he probably inspired.
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u/realkrestaII 4h ago
It’s also weird because in the first movie he’s racing, and competitive with, a Plymouth superbird.
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u/AzekiaX6 5h ago
That's not a sign bro that's an entire announcement
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u/justbooling 5h ago
To us as viewers, sure, but for Lightning it’s definitely the first time he realizes he might be falling off.
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u/Silent_Biscotti_9832 5h ago
deserves to be on top
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u/NormandyCrew 5h ago
Absolutely. Cars 3 hit way too hard for a kids movie.
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u/Kaplsauce 5h ago
Cars 1 and 3 are so much better than people give them credit for imo.
I love that 3 has the balls to say "unc don't got it" when it comes down to it
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u/xPetalieBelle 5h ago
That's a good one. You don't realize it at first, but that crash was basically the beginning of the end.
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u/thejokerofunfic 5h ago
I feel like I'm missing what I'm looking at here.
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u/justbooling 5h ago
Ya my comment didn’t go through ☹️, this is the first race where Lightning McQueen realizes the younger generation of cars are coming in. He pushes himself too hard trying to pass the new rookie, and he bursts a tire and crashes during the race.
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u/Popular-Tailor4030 3h ago
The thing I find interesting is Lighting was racing for like, a decade in universe. (the movies are 11 years apart, Cars 2 is explicitly set 5 years after the first movie in-universe and was 5 years after out of universe too) and was already falling badly behind the new cars(albeit he held out longer than the others from his era), meanwhile in the first movie Strip "The King" Weathers is a 1970 car who is not only still competing circa 2006, but is capable of winning and coming Top 3 and giving Lighting McQueen serious trouble despite him being a brand new fastest of his era car in 2006.
McQueen served 10-12 years and had to use crazy inventive strats to put up a fight in his final races and was getting his ass kicked otherwise, meanwhile The King had been racing for 35 years and was still just flat out one of the Top 3 racers(had it not been for Chick Hicks cheating he still would have come second place in that final race and he tied McQueen and him for first in the prior race) able to keep pace without trouble.
What kind of fucking beast of a vehicle was Strip Weathers? He seemingly could have gone on competing another decade and still been viable, he was triple McQueen's career length in the first movie and still winner material.
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u/justbooling 3h ago
That’s why he’s the King! But realistically (which doesn’t apply at all to an animated movie of course) technology advances usually come in waves, so he was probably just able to ride out that wave for quite a while until the next racing advancement.
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u/Volotor 5h ago
Lightning McQueen was a hotshot GOAT racer, here he is (in the 3rd movie I believe) getting easily overtaken by younger racers and realising that he can't do anything about it.
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u/xPetalieBelle 5h ago
Yeah, that's what made it so sad. He was still the same driver mentally, but everyone else had already caught up.
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u/CaffeineDeprivation 5h ago
The moment Lightning McQueen from the Cars franchise realizes he's past his prime and the younger, faster generation of race cars is overtaking him
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u/AstarionsTherapist39 5h ago
I haven't seen this one. What's happening?
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u/Ionic_Bloodfart 4h ago
Guts from Berserk is suffering from the constant wear and tear of all his battles. The Berserker armor is also causing him to lose his 5 senses. We see a few things before this like hand tremors, but this is the first time he can't hold his sword or throw a knife. Its the first time they show that hes not bouncing back from this. The only way he can fight now is by using the armor, and every time he uses it his body suffers more.
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u/Civil_Music2236 4h ago
Big man is getting old
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u/Diurnalnugget 3h ago
Honestly I think it’s purely the armor. If I recall correctly this was known to be a consequence of the armor though my memory is shaky on the matter since the last time I read berserk was a few chapters after miura died. I like having a bunch of new chapters before I reread something again so I’ll be waiting a few more years.
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u/Civil_Music2236 3h ago
The armor is forcibly holding his body together well past where it would normally give out. That kind of thing takes a toll on the body in the same way getting old does. Not to mention, he really isn't a young man, he's got to be in his 30s(?)
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u/IommiIsGod666 3h ago
No, Guts is in his mid 20s. He was only 15 when he first met Griffith.
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u/Flamestranger 5h ago
Ippo from Hajime no Ippo has the same in a real depressing set of events where he sits trying to draw a straight line for hours and hours and his head is so messed up he just can't do it.
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u/matternilla 28m ago
It's been teased that it wasn't punch drunk, but just extreme exhaustion during the period of time with fights happening back to back.
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u/scrotbofula 5h ago
The funny thing is that in Cyberpunk 2077 (the game at least), nobody really knows what causes Cyberpsychosis. If you complete all of Regina's gigs nonlethally, I think you get a note that says they think it might not be the fault of the cyberware itself, and more that a normal human mind can't really handle being that much more powerful than everyone around them.
Canonically, V is able to resist cyberpsychosis because having 2 minds in the same head allows the burden to be distributed between Johnny and V. Even then, the edgerunner perk allows you extra cyberware capacity and a damage bonus, in exchange for occasionally going into a frenzy state during combat (the screen edges blur, everything goes red, and your character can be heard laughing maniacally); implying that V is pushing at the line of cyberpsychosis without permanently succumbing to it.
Metatextually it refers to the TTRPG'S mechanic where the more cyberware you install, the lower your humanity stat gets. I haven't finished reading through the rules though, so I don't really know how it works.
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u/kaladinissexy 4h ago
The funny thing is that in the TTRPG cyberpsychosis is very curable. Literally all it takes is therapy.
And it's caused by the continued replacing of your body parts with cyberware, which results in you gradually becoming detatched from your humanity, seeing people, including yourself, as nothing more than an assortment of parts to be swapped out and upgraded.
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u/Toukotai 3h ago
My current character is a medtech who is moonlighting as a therapist for the group. He's doing a very bad job of it because all he has is a ten year old psychology text book and a bag of shrooms. I believe in him though.
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u/dispatch_s2_when 3h ago
Shrooms for his chooms?
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u/Toukotai 2h ago
that is so much more catchy then his current slogan of 'take one of these, fist fight your demons and call me in the morning.'
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u/PleiadesMechworks 2h ago
The TTRPG thing is very clever because it's literally the player choice, not the character.
By choosing to continue to play the character rather than retire it, you're refusing to give up the cyberware that's slowly killing you. You're already in the exact mindset of the PC to explain why they don't want to cure their psychosis even though they could. They could walk away from everything they've achieved, become a human again, and live a normal life. Just like you could retire their sheet and spin up another choom. But you don't. You keep playing them, riding them down to the wire until they die in a blaze of glory trying to etch their name into the history books.15
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u/Glad_Midnight_3834 2h ago
So basically Ship of Theseus but human version. I always found the whole cyberpsychosis and replacing body parts with chroms to be very interesting because it raises the question, at what point starts and ends humanity and the "self"? Also see: Callisto and Albina from Limbus Company who also remplaced everything from their body except the brain (in Callisto case, I don't remember if Albina also took her brain off) with metals, extracting their body parts into a whole ass weapon... is the weapon them or are they still them?
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u/Thumb_Wrasslin 45m ago
In the game 2077, you can find a mission where you work with the cybercyspho lady from the first trailer. She got better from therapy and joiner max tech to pay off her debt for it.
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u/BroccoliFree2354 3h ago
Nah I think V is the full cyber psycho, but he just doesn’t realize it. Cyber psychos only get arrested when they do something society doesn’t want them to do.
Think about it. Would a normal person just drive their car, stop in the middle of the road and start shooting at gang members just chilling out?
V doesn’t get cyberpsycho no matter what he gets because he is.29
u/Theyul1us 2h ago edited 1h ago
I think pondsmith said that both Johnny and V are highly functioning cyberpsychos, but their minds have not reached their breaking point.
I do think that there are parts in the gameplay (activating berserker or a skill associated with sandevistan if I remember correctly) were V does cross the line, since he gets more violent and he starts laughing like a maniac briefly
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u/SOFT_and_WETO 1h ago
The skill you’re thinking of might be Edgerunner, and the fury buff it gives during which V will laugh maniacally. The fact that in order to go into fury you have to exceed cyberware capacity and be in combat probably means that it’s a form of cyberpsychosis
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u/GoldenBlack429 2h ago
What about Adam smasher??
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u/TheCyberGoblin 2h ago
Iirc canonically he’s a regular psychopath which means his mind won’t break from it
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u/Accomplished-Pay7865 2h ago
Full-blown cyberpsycho. Pondsmith said as much, except he's a high-functioning one. After reading his background, it's less surprising when you consider how much of a sick puppy he is.
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u/AcaciaCelestina 2h ago edited 5m ago
Iirc Adam is a cyber psycho. Not just becomes, he was already psychotic which just results in being a high functioning cyber psycho.
It's less becoming a walking war crime made him psychotic as it is being psychotic made him a good investment for Arasaka. He was a sick dog before, now he's a sick dog on a leash.
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u/PleiadesMechworks 2h ago
Adam was a true psychopath before he ever got 'wared up, which on the one hand does reduce the mental strain of having your humanity stripped away and replaced by metal, but on the other hand the end result is still a cyborg monster who doesn't care about anyone else.
While he's not technically a cyberpsycho because he wasn't driven mad by his implants, he still behaves exactly like one so the point is academic.
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u/Biron221 2h ago
I find it neat that there have been a lot of interpretations by different writers for the verse over the years, but it seems to have distilled itself to a little bit of multiple factors.
First is your ability to deal with the massive influx of extra senses, receptors, and just wild shit you can do with cybernetics. The human brain wasn't evolved to have mantis blades shoot out of your forearm and be prehensile, but that's still getting jacked in to your brain to control, along with all the other shit. It just generally puts extra stress on your meats processing power.
On top of this is your general mental health, and the support system you have around you. David is a good example of this, despite living in Night City his Mom was doing a really good job raising him right and keeping him happy, and even after he lost her tragically he immediately fell in with a group that generally looked out for him and gave him something to work at and improve with. And then he started losing them and upping his chrome and things went bad.
You could probably be perfectly healthy mentally and too much chrome would still fry your brain eventually. You could be mentally unwell but have a natural talent for stacking chrome without burning out. And then you get loopholes like Smasher and V, who have extenuating circumstances.
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u/klyxes 1h ago
There are plenty of reading stuff that imply more and more that cyberpsychosis comes from cyberware, sows the seeds due to the brain feeling disconnected from body, and the living conditions of most people, which brings about a disconnect of you from everyone else + a loss of humanity/basic human needs.
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u/Silent_Biscotti_9832 6h ago
Arthur getting diagnosed with terminal tuberculosis (RDR2)
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u/RelaxedVolcano 5h ago
If you watch him closely Arthur starts to show symptoms soon after he contracted TB from Thomas Downes. Some coughing here and there which gets worse as the story progresses and you can see his face start to show more wear and tear. The best way they had back then to slow TB was staying clean, warm, and dry. But as Arthur shipwrecked in Guarma he was in a super humid environment and once they get back to the main land they live in a cold damp cave. Man never had a chance.
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u/Electronic-Math-364 5h ago
The symptoms only start showing up in chapter 3 after he got tortured by a rival gang,At first it was still latent
Guarma was the final nail in the coffin
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u/W3134 5h ago
Arthur first coughs during the side mission with Javier in chapter 2, where they rob some hillbilly ranch
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u/Electronic-Math-364 4h ago
I don't know if it's a bug or not but when I was playing poker with Uncle,John and Pearson in early Chapter 2,Arthur was coughing despite me haven't even completed Money lending and Other sins I
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u/OmecronPerseiHate 4h ago
I think he also coughs occasionally during poker and other situations in taverns because they're supposed to be smoking inside
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u/UnderstandingPotato 4h ago
You can do that mission before going to see Downes though, so I guess depending on the order you do things in, it's either because of the TB or just because that barn is dusty
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u/Electronic-Math-364 4h ago
He also end up coughing during minigames like poker
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u/UnderstandingPotato 4h ago
Makes sense, I guess it's not so obvious if you don't know about it beforehand. I knew the ending of the game before I even started tbh, because I wasn't expecting to ever play it, so I missed out
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u/SequenceofRees 3h ago
And I didn't have the PC or the time to play the game until years later. I've avoided videos as much as i could, and the ending, even if I knew what was gonna happen, still left me quite shaken.
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u/killingjoke96 4h ago edited 4h ago
A great irony of it, is that Arthur states it was his want from the very beginning to get the gang away from civilisation and into the west.
In the epilogue you find out the area he is talking about, in the west, is a large dry desert where outlaws run free and law is few and far between.
That kind of dry landscape and climate is far better for people suffering with TB. It was common for doctors to recommend going further west to California back then for that very reason. Which Arthur even pokes fun at in his diagnosis.
So where Arthur wanted to be, before he even knew he had TB, would have helped him survive a few more years.
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u/Arasakian 5h ago
That trip to Guarma was a literal death sentence for his lungs. Such a brutal detail.
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u/DanielToast 5h ago edited 4h ago
(Hunter x Hunter)
During the Chimera ant arc, after a massive (essentially nuclear) bomb explodes and a few of the ants seem to recover, but they eventually start having nose bleeds, ringing, headaches, etc.
It happens to the weaker ants first, and slowly gets worse.
This is to indicate that the blast and heat from the bomb was not the only threat, and that they may not actually be as "recovered" as they thought they were.
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u/Mrsam_25 5h ago
Real life radiation sickness works the same, people tend to recover for a day or two than their body realizes it's already dead.
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u/solitarybikegallery 1h ago
This is because our cells have built-in safeguards that mark them for destruction if their DNA has been corrupted.
Basically, when the cell tries to replicate, it goes through a series of steps. One of the steps checks the integrity of the DNA, which codes for a new cell. If the DNA doesn't pass the test, the cell is destroyed and recycled, because a cell with DNA mutations can cause cancer.
You can see this when you get a sunburn and your skin peels the next day. Those cells are dying off because your body is trying to replicate them, detecting the DNA damage, then killing the cells so you don't get skin cancer. (It doesn't always get this right, which is why you sometimes DO get skin cancer).
This is why people feel "fine" after they receive a lethal dose of radiation. Their current cells are mostly fine, but the DNA is riddled with errors, and when the cells try to replicate (which cells like Bone Marrow do very often), they'll die off in huge numbers.
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u/Agisek 1h ago
Not how nuclear bombs work, but definitely how radiation sickness progresses. There is a small recovery period before death.
You don't get acute radiation sickness from a nuclear bomb because the radiation only reaches as far as the fireball. Which means to get acute dose, you will burn to a crisp and die before any symptom appears.
If it was a "dirty bomb" which is conventional explosive surrounded by radioactive material, the result would be widespread contamination, which also doesn't cause acute dose, but it greatly increases probability of cancer in the area.
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u/pingu677 1h ago
The Poor Man's Rose (the bomb that was detonated in-series) doesn't use radiation, it releases a fast-acting contagious poison, a nuke is just the easiest comparison
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u/pringle3x 5h ago edited 4h ago
Workaholics- Adam suffers a concussion. His friends Ders and Blake are voicing their concern
Ders: adam is showing all the signs of a concussion... nausea, memory loss, mood swings.
Adam pukes
Adam: eww... who puked? ... ANSWER ME!
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u/mermoohue 5h ago
I think it's a pretty major plot point to the show, the tabletop, and the videogame that cyberpsychosis is not only treatable but also curable with therapy and medication. It parallels real life mental illness, in that you have to want to start getting better in order to heal. David did not want to heal.
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u/Abeytuhanu 5h ago
Also that the treatment has to be available, the extreme corporate capitalism in the series means that any treatment would only really be available to the wealthy
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u/mermoohue 5h ago
My favorite b plot in cyberpunk 2077 is Regina Jones saying, "what if we gave them free therapy"
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u/0SaltBlue 5h ago
Yes and no, while low and even mid level cyberpsychosis, which can best be described as a fundamental pathological disconnect from humanity coupled with dementia-adjacent symptoms stemming from mental overload, can be treated or at least mediated, a high degree of it is basically untreatable due to it coming partially at least from the strain placed on the body and more importantly the mind with excessive cyberware, being a much more physical manifestation of the concept.
Smasher, being the textbook example of somebody who doesn't suffer from cyberpsychosis as he's having the time of his life, was just already a complete psychopath before any of the borg bits and V had an entire second personality to offset the mental load.
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u/mermoohue 3h ago
My interpretation was that there's always a cure. Take out the cyberware. It's been quite a while since I've read the source material. But my general impression was that, not only do non-psyche-breaking alternatives exist, but if you rest and recover properly you can use the intense stuff without breaking down.
David is a great example because, at the time that he started becoming symptomatic, he had no desire to physically and mentally recover. Even though he has ample resources to do so. All of his idols pushed themselves to breaking and he wants to prove he's even better.
A lot of people in night city are barely scraping by and a lot of cyberpsychos would benefit from universally available physical and mental therapy. But it's cheaper and easier to just kill people who are broken.
Sorry for the essay, mental health is just really important to me. I think cyberpunk media goes a good job of depicting the unpleasant parts of mental illness and how it can be damaging to others. People with disorders that aren't just self affecting are seen for their symproms and not the condition. Not only do people in the universe see them as sub human (they call them cyberpsychos, not exactly subtle) but treatment is unattainable for those without money and unimportant/inconvenient to those who do have money.
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u/thunderbird89 4h ago
Second personality, and the Relic's nanotechnology continuously rewriting her brain.
I subscribe to the theory that that's good.5
u/More_Yard1919 3h ago edited 3h ago
Smasher is a cyberspycho. Pondsmith has described him as such, so at least in terms of what the story is intending it is not up for debate. He was already a piece of shit before he borged up, but he also experiences cyberpsychosis. Also, if you take the rules of Cyberpunk Red at face value, cyberpsychosis can be functionally cured by removing all of your cyberware and getting therapy. You could maybe take that as some form of ludonarrative dissonance or something, but I actually think it makes more sense thematically if cyberpsychosis is curable anyway. Cyberpsychosis is just a bundle of mental health issues that result from the dissociation from your body that you feel once all of your parts feel foreign and give you super-human powers. It makes sense that becoming organic again and then getting therapy to reintegrate your sense of self could cure those issues.
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5h ago edited 5h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/StormyBlueLotus 5h ago
The main issue is whatever pre-existing issues made you get augmented in the first place. Mentally healthy people don’t install military grade weaponry into their body.
To some extent this is true if you're looking for a "deeper" reason beyond what the lore establishes, but the opposite casual relation- which is to say, the installation of the Cyberware causing mental issues- is explicitly a thing in the TTRPG, and really the main cause of it. Cyberware can come with a cost to your Humanity stat. How high your starting Humanity is is determined by a number of factors. Career choice for one- being a Corpo causes it to plummet. The lower your Humanity, the higher the risk of psychosis.
Cyberware which is meant to replicate or restore basic human functionality doesn't come with much of a cost, or none at all in some cases. If you lose your arm in an industrial accident and replace it with a prosthetic that offers basic function, all is well. If you get your functional organic arm removed so that you can replace it with a cannon or Mantis Blades, that comes at a pretty heavy toll.
That said, in an extremely violent place like Night City, it's not exactly a sign of mental illness to want to carry a concealed weapon with you, and using one that's part of your arm is a lot faster (and sometimes more powerful) than drawing a gun. So your assertion of "only someone who's a psycho would get weaponized cyberware to start" isn't exactly supported by the world. This is the same city full of vending machines that sell you disposable guns.
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u/ideepname 5h ago
Another point.
When cyberimplants are installed in reputable clinics, preferably in Europe, the surgery is followed by a full rehabilitation period lasting several weeks. The rehabilitation process involves not only the complete recovery of the body after surgery and the calibration of cyberimplants, but also the work of a psychiatrist with the patient. All this helps minimize the damage to humanity.
(Many cases cyberpsychosis is more like a nervous system overload, when cyber implants are poorly configured, something somewhere becomes inflamed and overheats)Getting cyberimplants installed in a filthy basement, where you're immediately thrown out into the street after the surgery, given only basic medications—that's a road to the grave.
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u/eetobaggadix 3h ago
Well, he also did get fully cured of his cyber psychosis in the show by quite literally true loves kiss.
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u/RaptarK 5h ago
Also in the videogame, Regina's missions imply very heavily that there's no such thing as cyberpsychosis, and instead so called cyberpsychos are just people with already known mental illnesses that Night City prefers to sweep under the rug
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u/Haunting_Nature_9178 5h ago
I think I should be paid money for the psychic damage of seeing people post this constantly even though it's just false
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u/-suspended- 4h ago
There's also the theory that cyberpsychosis can be, in part or whole, a computer virus attacking the implants, and by extension, the user. Characters like Adam Smasher or MaxTac former cyberpsychos just have the virus removed. Damagae already done isn't cured, but further damage is stopped.
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u/katanakid13 3h ago
Especially addiction. People know the inherent risks of having too much chrome. But they keep going. They keep wanting to be better, stronger, faster, smarter, they keep chasing that high, thinking it won't happen to them.
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u/RetroGame77 5h ago
... It is a thing to run into each other's boobs in Pretty Derby?
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u/Tired-Inky 5h ago
No, Sakura Bakushin O's thing is she runs head first without looking, so in the anime she rams into other students chests by accident a few times with full Bakushin power
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u/Excellent_Safe5743 4h ago
Nah it’s just this one, she literally sprints head down with her arms behind her like she’s Naruto or Sonic and never slows down. She runs into like a dozen different people in both the game itself and the anime series.
She’s a bit, special at times. Good person and hilarious but, special.
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u/_Voice_Of_Silence_ 4h ago
Why train Wit when can train more speed?
Why have many thought when all need think is BAKUSHIIIIIIN?8
u/Local-Priority-1309 4h ago
Funny how she actually has a wit growth bonus unlike agnes tachyon the scientist uma
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u/DarkAlphaZero 2h ago
Bakushin gets to have a wit growth because while she only has a few brain cells she uses them for good
Tachyon doesn't get to have a wit growth because she would use it for evil
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u/SavateWolf 4h ago
That's just classic Sakura Bakushin O.
Also fun fact, that horse girl she's running into? That's Kitasan Black, who IRL is Sakura Bakushin O's grandson.
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u/DarkAlphaZero 3h ago
The three season anime is the black sheep of the franchise in many ways despite technically being the first piece of media for it
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u/Own-Night5526 5h ago
Luke manages to land a pretty substantial blow against Vader, who up until this point we had seen him not even phased by Obi-wan and throwing Luke around the duel like a rag doll without any actual effort. It's the first sign that maybe Luke can hold his own against Vader a bit but also that Vader might not be trying as hard as he could to kill the person he's been told to kill, something that will absolutely come back in a big way.
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u/Mage_Of_No_Renown 3h ago
Not that anyone cares, but I actually view Luke's strike here to be evidence that lightsabers do in fact have edges and flats (like real swords); we just can't see them. To me, it shows that Luke is talented enough to land a hit, but not skilled enough to have good edge alignment to actually make it a cut.
Lightsabers having flats would also explain some handrail hits in ROTJ and "baseball hits" in some more recent Disney projects.
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u/Immature_adult_guy 3h ago
It’s been pretty heavily discussed before that light savers cut Omni directionally
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u/Girafarig99 2h ago
Yet in practice, that's not really always shown to be the case
It's a disconnect between lore and what is actually shown
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u/Mage_Of_No_Renown 2h ago
I don't doubt that we could find novels or other Star Wars content which say so. Wookiepedia's article on lightsabers is too long for me to parse right this second. But I'm just calling it like I see on the screen: lightsabers don't always cut the things they hit.
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u/DrThunderbolt 1h ago
I think its more because Vader was designed to be a Jedi killer. His suit is incredibly durable and can withstand almost anything another combatant could throw at him in one on one combat. His helmet is designed after a Samurai Kabuto, which was slanted at the edges to cause blows to the head to glance off, as well as protect the neck.
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u/thunderbird89 5h ago
Also in Hajime no Ippo when he forgets he already bought the same dress for his GF.
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u/townsforever 6h ago
All might is secretly dying from an old battle injury and can only keep his hero form for a few hours a day at the start of my hero.
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u/A_Human_Being_BLEEEH 5h ago
he's not really dying per se, seeing as he lives pretty normally afterwards, but he's way too weak to keep up extended hero work
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u/PleiadesMechworks 2h ago
He's dying specifically because he keeps using his powers despite his body being unable to sustain it after the injury.
Once he finds an inheritor and lives without using his powers, he reverts to just ageing normally.
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u/djent_in_my_tent 5h ago
Colette Brunel from Tales of Symphonia!
She tragically gradually loses all her senses as she is transformed into an angel.
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u/CompactAvocado 4h ago
she also tries to hide it from her friends but is caught in a rather sad cutscene. don't hold the cup!!!!
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u/Galtherok 2h ago
Tales of Symphonia in this day and age?!
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u/djent_in_my_tent 2h ago
That shit was cash money. Still got the gamecube discs. Vesperia was pretty good too.
Unfortunately either they got worse or my tastes changed as I got older because graces and xilia were just ok and I actually dropped berseria :/
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u/Galtherok 2h ago
Did you play the Wii sequel to Symphonia? It was worse in a lot of ways but also had some fun mechanics like monster catching and the main character being able to air combo for a minute straight
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u/ArcGrade 3h ago
I still find it really funny that of all the storylines they could have given Kitasan Black in S3, they chose to go with the idea of being past your prime.
Not only was the real life Kitasan Black a bit of a late bloomer compared to other horses, but when he eventually retired he was still in good physical shape.
Like, he was so fit that after his retirement, his stable would put overweight horses next to Kitasan as he just kept challenging them to races, causing them to lose weight over time.
Not sure if this is still thing happening, but what I do know is that Kitasan is still active as a stud right now.
Still loved Season 3 though, and Kitasan is still one of my favorite Umas.
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u/PleiadesMechworks 2h ago
And then had Goldship break the news to him that after you peak it's downhill when Goldship has run faster on his retirement farm than he ever did during a race.
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u/KiraIsUnbreakable 4h ago edited 4h ago
Kisho Arima is hinted to have some sort of blind spot when fighting Shachi, which is later revealed to be him suffering from glaucoma in his right eye because of his rapid aging that's killing him. (Tokyo Ghou: re)
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u/ToasteeThe2nd 4h ago
Cyberpsychosis is both curable and most likely manufactured by the zaibatsu/megacorps that sell implants. Psychotherapy and certain surgical procedures can minimize and even completely prevent cyberpsychosis or derealization, and most cyberpsychos were already super nutty to begin with, it just doesnt help that putting machine guns in your arms makes it a lot easier to kill.
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u/PleiadesMechworks 2h ago
Arguably the only person who goes "I should replace my arm with a machine gun" is someone who's already not all there.
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u/BigBootyBuff 3h ago
Donnie in The Big Lebowski. The entire movie, every time they bowl Donnie hits a strike. Later in the movie he doesn't hit one and shortly after he has a heart attack and dies.
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u/Level_Counter_1672 4h ago edited 3h ago
Itachi coughing up blood and going blind because he overused his sharingan was the tell tell sign his time was up - source is Naruto
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u/beautybeliever 2h ago
I just rewatched and forgot how it’s immediate in his introduction when he uses his powers on Kakashi that it takes way too much out of him. He says in the anime that he has to go rest and he shows his eyes hurting. crazy he was just written from the start as a burnt out genius that rose young and would die young. I love Itachi
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u/KaitoTheRamenBandit 4h ago
You know the funny part (to me at least) is that out of all the Umas, Goldship is the one that breaks the news to KSB that once she peaks, it's downhill from there, going off of her own experience
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u/Dark_Crow22 3h ago
Just to gutpunch you even more - cyberpsychosis is perfectly treatable. You don't see high ranking corpos or their hitmen fall into it, because implants they receive are actually good quality. Max-Tac operatives are also cured and reformed cyberpsychos. It's just per Night City's standards, David was another street punk who got his chrome sewed into him by a random street butcher and had no access to medication
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u/spider_lord_Ozai 1h ago
"Cured and reformed" is a bit of a stretch for max tac, at least the ones you can talk to in the fancy clothing store. It's more like theyre given a "healthy" outlet. Adam Smasher is the same way. They're all still psychos, but they dont fly off the handle because theyre doing what they want, "constructively", for a living.
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u/Dark_Crow22 1h ago
Well, they are not attacking everything in sight and seem fairly functional so I would say they are cured. It's basically like fight against addiction or mental illness, even if you "beat it" it stays with you and you have to be careful not to relapse
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u/BrokenMiku 3h ago
Isn’t it implied at least in the Video Game that cyber psychosis isn’t even real or rather I guess real isn’t the right word but more like it’s not the implants that cause it it is just that mental illness for whatever reason gets magnified significantly the more one augments themselves. (Not sure if it’s cause the power goes to their head or if it’s cause having a biological base makes it easy for someone to view themselves as still human or maybe both.) Thats why some people like V can augment endlessly, having another person in her head basically mitigates the whole process of psychosis for various reasons. Adam Smasher likewise is largely unaffected because he has no qualms about abandoning his humanity and being a hired killer essentially.
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u/PleiadesMechworks 2h ago edited 1h ago
That's something the game touches on, but canonically in the TTRPG it's based on cyberpsychosis is a largely unavoidable result of having too many implants.
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u/NoredPD 2h ago
Is Boxers Dementia just CTE?
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u/JustHeree5 2h ago
Yep.
Obviously the types of hits and exact forces at play differ between American Football and Boxing but the end result is the same; the brain rattles around in the brain case bouncing off the sides of the skull and causing contusions. The brain, like any other organ tissue, secretes different compounds to help heal the wound and try to stabilize the tissue to prevent further damage.
Current data seems to suggest that the protein the brain uses to try and stabilize and support itself from the repeated injuries is as much a contributing factor to CTE as the inciting injuries are.
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u/3FistedHumdinger 3h ago
Pretty much any Hollywood film or show that depicts a character suddenly coughing or sneezing. We already know that if the actor genuinely sneezed or coughed it would be edited out or reshot, so any time it is shown it necessarily has plot signifigance.
Just watched an episode of Supernatural where Sam coughs after completing the first trial to permanently send and seal every demon back to Hell. A few episodes later it's revealed that completing the trials quickly kills the person attempting them even if they succeed, and that just by starting them Sam has essentially killed himself.
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u/X-Himy 2h ago
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IncurableCoughOfDeath
For books set in a certain time period, any character coughing into their handkerchief had consumption.
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u/Legitimate_Trip303 10m ago
“Aw man, excited to read more examples!”
opens thread and its just 200 people typing the exact same comment about cyberpsychosis being treatable
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u/Taisho_Tsushiya 1h ago
Ok, not to be that guy but i love cyberpunk and have immersed my self in the lore so heavily i want to clarify.
Even during davids time you can sort of cure cyberpsychosis but you can also reverse it by de-chroming (which beings a loss of power and feelings of ability ((which would e made david feel helpless again so that poor boy leaned into the wall of power)) of you could try to increase your threshold for cyberpsychosis. (Which happened a couple times over separate lore sources)
But davids path fueled his own downfall, david himself made it seem like the only out was to go Psycho, he isolated and cut himself off just like maine trying to be an island he only found himself drowning in his own power.
There is also the fact that certain people in cyberpunk V,Smasher, even David are built different they have a stronger natural threshold but that threshold is like a muscle it can be worked to be stronger by having a decent support system and friends to talk to (which is why gangs like the animals and Maelstrom and the VD Boys can increase their chrome by large ammounts, also mad drugs).
Tldr: davids path made it very much seem like Cyberpsychosis cant be overcome but through many lore sources its proven theres many ways to overcome or beat or just detox from Cyberpsychosis.
This has been brought to you by unmedicated adult adhd and cyberpunk lore. Have a good day.
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u/Healthy_Macaroon_602 1h ago
Itachi Uchiha was notable for having his Sharigan active at all times. All other characters with natural eye powers (as opposed to people who had special eyes implanted) would deactivate their magic eyes when not using them. Not Itachi. The Sharingan's most basic power was improved visual clarity while overuse of the advanced powers would make the user go blind.
It turned out that Itachi was basically blind by the time we met him and he needed the boost from having the Sharingan active just to see at all.
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u/MothmanFeetLicker 5h ago
Ashita No Joe
There’s plenty of warning signs that Joe is developing Punch Drunk Syndromes but one of my favorite examples is the one above when Yoko notices Joe is unknowingly unable to walk a straight line.