Research on transformative events shows that blatant acts of violence are often followed by moral shocks that raise such a sense of public outrage that formerly contention-averse audiences take to the streets. Yet, despite abundant research on moral shocks, backlash, and critical junctures, their interconnection remains unexplored. Studies of transformative events overwhelmingly concentrate on the properties of repression to explain backfire dynamics, while the affective and discursive features of events that alter the course of history are largely understudied. This special issue addresses this gap through a range of contributions that shift the focus of attention from the structural features of violent events to the competition over their meaning, their cultural and temporal situatedness, and the subjective and objective conditions of backlash protest.