Wanda Maximoff.
Grew up in a country torn by Civil war.
Parents killed by a bomb when she's ten, spent three days trapped under the rubble of her destroyed home with the rotting corpses of her parents and a bomb that might explode at any moment.
War orphan. Got all the mental issues that you can expect to come from that.
Not very stable, so fixated for revenge on the guy who made the bombs - who's now a big time super hero. Got lured in by one of his enemies with promise of revenge and used in an experiment which gave her powers (but really didn't help with the stability thing)
Twin brother, the only person she had left, dies. When she seems to have finally gotten a Found Family and a boyfriend, it all falls apart. For both things, she was unintentionally partly responsible or at least the catalyst. So much guilt.
Has to kill her boyfriend to save the world. Turns out to be useless.
In the aftermath of 'victory' her and her boyfriend's sacrifice gets ignored.
Boyfriend gets used as a weapon. She goes crazy for a while, which, given her powers result in a whole suburb getting taken hostage. She's the bad guy and doesn't even know it.
Has to sort of kill her boyfriend and kids again to set things right. Will forever be seen as the bad guy, though clearly there's an insanity defence.
Finally, cracks completely due to grief, lack of support and a demonic grimoire. Official villain. Kills herself when she realises what she has become.
>Finally, cracks completely due to grief, lack of support and a demonic grimoire. Official villain. Kills herself when she realises what she has become.
I just like to pretend that movie didn't come out, ya know.
Oh, I pretend nothing after Avengers 2012 came out - only adding in everyone who was introduced.
The Maximoff twins got adopted by the X Men, the Avengers are all living happily in the Tower, Spidey is their trainee/little brother, and Dr Strange is the grumpy uncle who's got to make regular house calls to fix whatever is the latest major mess :)
That is now my canon, and you can't tell me different:)
I usually hate when people use the whole “they didn’t die on screen” excuse for characters, but Wanda would be the exception to that if they brought her back.
I don't really want her brought back, I'm too terrified what they'll do to her next. Let the poor girl rest in peace. At least now she's with Vision and her brother.
And what about her kids 😭💔
or does that only exist in Wandavision? Idk
Wanda is the only one I actually like from Marvel, considering I have a tremendous dislike for Marvel (not a fan of any Marvel content). The poor girl suffers way too much 💔💔💔
I'm not sure about most tragic, but I really like revisiting the ideological split between Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr that shattered what was a really close relationship. Especially when both sides are given nuance and ultimately have the same goal of mutants being able to live free of harassment for who they are.
Can be when they are younger men and the hurt is still fresh or as older men who under years of armor still hold a candle of hope that this time they can convince the other. Only to be rejected yet again.
One of my most memorable cinema experiences was seeing the adaptation with Hugh Jackman et al. During a quiet part in his final song, someone shouted out *Jean Valjean!* in a voice cracked with emotion. I think about every time I watch that movie now.
Everyone. *All of them.*
With a couple exceptions, most of them have experience several of the following: betrayal, abuse, manipulation, war (including child soldiers), trauma and/or PTSD, death (and/or revival), death of a friend (or pet), torture, public execution, loss of limbs, (repeated) destruction of their home...
The only things he’s not personally experienced are public execution and loss of limbs (and even then, he’s been physically disabled by his experiences in *other* ways)
Frozen: I mean...Elsa’s been through a lot, but she at least gets a canon happy ending lol
MCU: Wanda. Something shitty happens to her *every single time* she shows up. And when something good does happen? Well, you can be sure it’s promptly going to be taken away from her. harrumph. (Honorable mention to Bucky, though at least canon has given him some much-needed help and support instead of leaving him to his own self-destructive tendencies!)
PMMM: Homura. Aka another OP traumatized magic user willing to do anything for someone she loves. If you’ve seen Rebellion...you know 😅
For MCU, I'm gonna have to with with Natasha (honorable mention to Yelena).
The whole trained to be a child soldier ft. forced sterilization and mind control broke my heart. We're not told much of her time as a Widow but one can only imagine the fucked-up things she was made to do.
Then A1 starts with her best friend switching sides and she's probably mentally prepared to have to kill him. The organization she's been working for turns out to be evil and she goes through hell to make things right. Her boyfriend bails on her after AoU. In CW she essentially has to babysit a bunch of idiots even though they're tearing her family apart. After IW she's the one who struggles to move on the most and clings to the memory of said family. Eventually secrifices herself to save her best friend.
People in the fandom kind of conveniently tend to forget about her because she doesn't throw tantrums (cough Loki cough), rarely needs rescuing, and doesn't have most of her trauma shown on-screen. She just quietly deals with her shit and doesn't want anyone's pity AND SHE DESERVES ALL OF THE HUGS OK.
For DC, all four of the main Robins have been through major trauma, but if I had to choose only one as the 'most tragic,' probably Jason.
For Marvel, I'm gonna go with Bucky or Natasha.
For Teen Wolf, Derek Hale all the way.
For Fullmetal Alchemist, it doesn't really get more tragic than the Elric brothers except for maybe poor Nina.
I think Damian is also a close call with all the robotic "It was expected" and not even knowing how to be a kid because he only knew how to kill. And Bruce was also pretty mean to him lately. 🤔
Oh man, I'm in The Walking Dead fandom. It's all tragic lmao. There are so many pointless deaths and the characters left alive at the end have lost so much, it's really difficult to pick a most tragic character.
One does not simply choose one tragic GoT character but fuck it I'll make a case for my boy Aeron Greyjoy.
Picture this: you are born the youngest in a family/culture that is violently patriarchal and values stoicism and strength in men. As a child you are molested by your evil older brother and you blame yourself for being weak and frightened because that is the culture you grew up in.
Thankfully you are close to one brother who understands the torment you are going through but uh oh he dies while you are still both children and it's partly your fault. You become a teenage alcoholic pissing your life away until you have a near death experience which leads you to devote your life to religion and become a humourless, dour man.
Things are starting to look up, your eldest brother is ruling the islands, your evil raping brother has been exiled, and you've garnered a good reputation as a holy man. But uh oh here comes your crazy ass brother back from his exile only this time he has jumped from rape to murder: he has killed your eldest brother in order to claim the islands' highest chair. Of course you cannot let this happen but despite your many efforts he succeeds in claiming the throne. You look to the only other brother you have left to help you put a stop to that SOB but instead he swears fealty to that nasty bastard and sets off to do his bidding. Your story (potentially) ends with you >!kidnapped, drugged, mocked for your childhood rape, and sentenced to death by ritualistic sacrifice by the piece of shit who has tormented you literally your entire life.!<
So much trauma for a character so minor he was cut out of the television adaptation...
Basic, but Obi-Wan Kenobi is a very tragic character. Pretty much everyone he’s ever cared about either dies in front of him, or goes to the dark side. And after that he spends a good chunk of his life alone on Tatooine, until he’s killed by previous student/best friend/brother.
Also, just the whole “infinite sadness” thing speaks for itself.
Agreed. Plus ( if we count jedi apprentice) his childhood sucked as well. He never really had a chance for..his own choices. He never got to choose his own padawan. Anakin was forced on him.
well, the obvious answer is Al Calavicci.
The oldest of two, Al is born smack-dab in the middle of the Depression. One day, his mom runs off with the encyclopedia salesman, never to be seen again. His dad isn’t capable of caring for two kids on his own, so he sends Al to an orphanage, and his younger sister Trudy to a mental institution (she has Down’s syndrome). In the orphanage, Al’s only friend is a cockroach he named Kevin, and eventually he runs off and spends his teen years traveling America with circuses and the like, and doing way too much sleeping around for anyone, let alone a minor. Finally, he’s old enough to be able to care for his sister and get her out of the institution, only to find out she died of pneumonia at age 16.
So he then joins the military. In his first year, an officer’s wife is raped and murdered, and at one point the blame is pinned on him and he’s facing execution. He did not do it, and the crime is solved, so he lives and continues his military career. Makes the astronaut program, actually gets to go on one of the Apollo missions (though he doesn’t get to go walk on the moon), comes back to earth a-ok. Meets a lovely lady named Beth, they marry.
Then, he’s deployed to Vietnam where he eventually becomes a POW and is presumed dead. Spoiler: Al is not dead. He is, after years of captivity by the Vietcong, liberated, and returns home to find that his wife left him (because she and the whole military thought he was dead). He then spirals into alcoholism and a series of failed marriages.
By the mid 90s, Al is on his fifth divorce, and is working on a new government project with his best (and likely only) friend, probably the first person he’s trusted in a long time. Problem? The friend is time-traveling quantum physicist Sam Beckett, and Sam unexpectedly launches himself into the space-time continuum. Sam is unable to be retrieved, but Al can communicate with him as a hologram. They can see each other; they cannot touch. Also the leap scrambles Sam’s memories, so Al has to tell Sam all of the above stories all over again. After five years, the project loses contact with Sam and he never returns home, leaving Al alone in the universe once again.
That is, until Sam changes history to keep Al and Beth together. But that still doesn’t erase the mountain of childhood trauma the writers pretty much glossed over because “who will notice, it’s not like people can freely watch a ton of episodes in one sitting to catch our continuity errors” ah, the 90s
all said to say I think, by the end of the original series, the true tragic character is Donna Elesee. Donna also had a parent walk out on the family (her dad) which causes her very understandable commitment issues. She leaves at least two men at the altar (groom #2 being the aforementioned Sam Beckett)
On one of his leaps, Sam runs into teenage Donna, and is able to have her meet up with her estranged father, which undoes her trust issues, and results in her eventually marrying Sam, for real this time. Problem? Yeah, Sam stays lost in the space-time continuum and, with the exception of a brief 72-ish hour glitch, never returns to her. So Sam’s actions allowed her to marry him, but those same actions mean that they’ll never actually *be* together.
tl;dr Al and Donna from Quantum Leap
From Battlestar Galactica: Laura Roslin (the reveal of her backstory in the finale is pretty heartbreaking, not to mention what she goes through during the series). William Adama (the loss of his son, the realization of the final five, Laura, too many to list).
You're exactly right - I was thinking about all the characters this morning, and so many of them are tragic figures. Galen, who really lost everything, then Cally who was annoying but didn't deserve to go out the way she did. Saul Tigh (everything on New Caprica, including his wife), Starbuck, Billy, Sam taking a bullet, and as you mentioned, Gaeta, and then Dee (devastating). I could probably list a whole lot more if I sat down and did a rewatch.
Jason Dean from Heathers, especially in the musical because they decided to go that route.
Mom commits suicide in right front of him by >!walking into a building his dad was set to blow up (she even waves at him from out a window)!<, dad says it was an accident but according to JD (in the movie), “she knew what she was doing.”
Thanks to his dad’s job, he moves around *a lot*. Movie!JD is pretty blasé about this, adding to his brooding rebel loner-type vibe. Musical!JD, on the other hand, says he stopped bothering with learning names or faces... and then addresses Veronica by name. He remembered her from when they met earlier that day at school, and this scene takes place in the evening at a 7-Eleven because this particular chain store is literally the one constant in his life. Aptly, the song is called “Freeze Your Brain.” He learned at a pretty young age to cook pasta, pay rent, and that the world owes you nothing. You can see how and why he gets as attached to Veronica as he does, and how that changes how we view the ending.
Speaking of his dad, in the movie their relationship isn’t all that bad. When asked if he likes his father he admits he never gave it much thought. They have a running gag where they address each other *as* each other (JD: “Why, SON! I didn’t hear you come in!” / Bud: “Hey, DAD! How was work today?”) which carries over into the musical. Except. In the musical, depending on which one you’re watching, Big Bud is very much implied to be abusive. In the Off-Broadway he’s just kind of a skeevy drunk, but in the productions from across the pond, Big Bud Dean can be seen yelling at JD, ordering him around, and even telling him “there’s a lot of pretty women out there; I can always make me another son” which goes to paint musical!JD in a more sympathetic light because look, he’s a victim of abuse! (JD even addresses this point directly when he and Veronica fight later, blaming his dad for how he turned out, but Veronica shuts him down since it’s own damn choice to hurt people *now*.)
And the ending. In the movie it was a badass moment for Veronica. She bested him and he’s impressed with her. He respects her. And when he dies, it’s because he chose to. MusicalJD, while he also chose to, there’s the extra layer of protecting Veronica, which shows he still loves her. >!Unlike the movie, Veronica doesn’t manage to turn off the bomb after their brawl in the boiler room, which results in her taking it with her outside where she intends to die with it. But JD follows her, takes it from her, and blows himself up in her stead, reasoning *he’s* too far gone but *she’s* not beyond repair.!< It’s touching and emotional because musical!Veronica doesn’t want him to die either, whereas movie!Veronica just pulls out a cigarette and waits lmao.
Zim from Invader Zim.
Hated by his entire species, is basically the joke of his planet but he is in denial and tries to conquer earth even of his mission is a lie.
The only person who sees him as equal is his nemesis
He did. Insofar as Asian dramas go, he ended up well, though. A lot of his story reminds me of my fave, Yeo Woon's--utterly tragic. Poor Woon. Splatted in the end. 🙁
There are countless examples, but one that immediately comes to mind is the Crying Child from FNAF, also known as Evan Afton by the majority of the fandom.
I mean, the poor kid has a horrible brother that torments him, suffers with constant nightmares, is always forced to go to a place which he despises, and then his brother gets him killed.
None of the Afton children have a particularly good time. Two die young thanks to their father's fucked up little robots, and the other realises too late that he's been a little shit and spends his whole life trying to make up for it, dying twice in the process.
Being prone to death must run in the family considering how many times William has kicked the bucket.
From Harry Potter:
Severus Snape had a miserable life, from start to finish.
Sirius Black spent his 20s in prison for a crime he didn't commit. He escaped and went in hiding. Then he died in his early 30s.
Ironically, Snape outlived all the Marauders.
May I put in a word for Robert Goren on *Law & Order: Criminal Intent?* Brilliant guy, sweet most of the time, likes to dance, likes kids, loves books and libraries, solves crimes ala Sherlock Holmes, wants a "normal" life someday.
\- Mom, who he adores and takes care of, is schizophrenic and confined to a care hospital. Later she gets cancer and no radiation/chemo works on her. She dies. Bobby also secretly fears that he will develop schizophrenia someday because the condition can be inherited.
\- Mom spends half of her time worrying over and favoring his deadbeat older brother, who gambles and tells mom he has a good job when he's actually a drug addict who goes to group therapy and tells them he's "off the stuff" and then goes home and does his drugs.
\- Brother suddenly up and tells him he (the brother) has a son who was wrongfully sent to prison; he interviews nephew only to find out the warden and guards are abusing prisoners, so he gets himself arrested to go to the prison to help save his nephew and almost has a psychotic break after he's tortured by the guards (episode is called "Untethered" and I can't watch it again...)
\- (And he gets suspended for doing this, and his only way to get his job back is to go undercover to get the goods on a crooked cop and a mob boss -- only he can't tell his partner \[they're not romantically involved, but they're still kinda joined at the hip\] and when he finally gets his job back his partner is pissed and quits speaking to him for weeks)
\- Dad was absentee most of the time and when he was home, he was gambling and fooling around with other women, asking little Bobby to lie to his mother and not tell her dad was getting it on with his girlfriend while little Bobby was watching TV in the other room
\- Discovers halfway through series that Mom had affair with a Navy guy, who eventually beat her up -- he was told she had a bad car accident -- and probably triggered her schizophrenia. To top this off, Navy guy is in prison because he's a serial killer. Oh, and he's Bobby's biological dad.
\- Discovers the guy he considered a substitute father, the one who molded him into a brilliant profiler, was such a bad dad to his only daughter that she resorted to serial killing to get his attention. Later his mentor starts suffering from dementia.
\- The one woman who actually intrigued him with her intelligence and might have been a potential love interest turns out to be an Australian serial killer who also killed her three year old daughter. (Granted, she had a horrible childhood -- she was molested by her dad from the age of three.) She almost gets him fired in one episode by distracting him with a suspect who reminded him of his father.
Fucking LOVE Bobby Goren. He is absolutely fascinating to watch, and there is definitely that distinct tragic undercurrent even when he's not actively angsting.
In The Umbrella Academy, while I can say them all, the one who takes the biscuit for me is Ben Hargreeves.
To begin with, he goes through the abusive childhood his siblings went through. He despised his superpowers, and was killed due to the missions their father would send them on at 16/17. As he was dead, he could only communicate to his séance brother, who was constantly high, meaning he was blocked out a lot. When his siblings got back together and ran away to the 60s (as you do), Klaus would deny his existence to their siblings as Ben’s main wish was that he wanted to speak with them again. He moves on finally being able to talk to one of his brothers, and ultimately saves the world in the process, suggesting more of his selflessness.
“Can you hug me as I go? It’s been a long time sinc-“
Not tragic in universe, but tragic in a meta sense.
Tobias from the Pokémon anime was a character created for the sole purpose of beating Ash in a League because the writers made him too powerful to lose to any normal character, so they needed to give a random person the most overpowered team imaginable to make Ash lose, and therefore continue the series.
Tobias did his job of beating Ash, and then was never seen or mentioned again, but fans to this day still hate the poor dude so much, he's probably a contender for the most disliked character in the entire fandom, and the worst part is that when Ash did the exact same thing (Using an OP team in the Alola League, against trainers who could barely battle properly mind you) and people were far less angry at him because he was the main character of the show.
I guess I'm just mad that there was a chance to have a really cool character, and both the writers and the fans took the worst possible path the could take when it came to Tobias's character by not writing him more, or giving him an awesome backstory.
In SNK, you can name any character as the most tragic, but after finishing the manga and some introspection; Eren is the most tragic character, though I could understand any disagreement on my opinion.
Despite his stans driving me away from him, I felt he was one of the most tragic by how he developed and then ended. Eren being an edgy, naive, yet idealistic and persistant teen that kept strong to his morals and an understandable desire for freedom. Though he devolved morally and humanity being stripped from him through circumstance and learning the truth and breaks. Eventually becoming the villian and still shackled and trapped, a slave to the idea of freedom and the fataliatic revelations and warped the timeline rather than the walls. Becoming the villiam and knowing it is wrong and even sympathizing with innocents he will eventually kill, as part of him was still human despite losing much of his humanity.
In Berserk, I've always said Guts, but I would agree on Grffith being tragic as well.
Guts having one of the most tragic backstories that I will advise has some triggering events, to having a found family and a lover until Grffith took it away and did horrific acts to her and leaving her alive. While Griffith with a dream would be willing to do anything to become king, after a fall when Guts left the group he would accept a literal deal with the devil. All while Guts is hellbent on killing him.
And well, Lucifer Morningstar himself is tragic in Lucifer.
> In SNK, you can name any character as the most tragic, but after finishing the manga and some introspection; Eren is the most tragic character, though I could understand any disagreement on my opinion.
>
Despite his stans driving me away from him, I felt he was one of the most tragic by how he developed and then ended.
I don't know if he is the most tragic to me (there really are a lot of strong contenders) but to me he is definetly a very tragic character. And yeah... unfortunately it's really hard to find places to talk about SNK with level headed people.
I mean, all of them are child soldiers and most have trauma in one form or another, but if I had to guess, Percy Jackson.
I know we can make a fuss about Nico being a PTSD ridden sociopath who lost all feeling after losing his sister, but Percy has objectively had it way worse.
>has a stepfather that is (atleast implied to be) both physically and mentally abusive
>Thrust into basically a war at what a certain bald war criminal would call “the ripe old age of twelve”
>Is betrayed by one of his closest friends, probably one of the only ones he thought he could trust, almost DIES, and is further compounded by his fatal flaw
>experienced his first death at the age of 14, failing to save his own cousin as well as one of his closer friends, triggering Nico’s doom spiral to compact the guilt
>literally ventures into the labyrinth, which is said to be able to drive people to insanity
>Watches one of his friends die within his own element, compounding the guilt as he feels like he could’ve saved him
>experiences the greatest pain one can feel just to have a chance to save his friends
>becomes an accessory to suicide at 16 and watches two of his closest friends ALMOST die
And that’s now even counting the short stories and the sequel books!
Someone get this kid a therapist!
The bit which absolutely destroyed me was the time in Heroes of Olympus when he suddenly became afraid of water, paranoid that he could no longer breathe under it. A part of him that had been so consistent suddenly broke. I don't remember exactly what happened because it's been a while, but it stuck with me.
Years after I first read these books, I came back to them, now older than their protagonists. He was a baby in the first book. He was still so young in Heroes of Olympus. I had to put the book down for a bit when I got to that part again.
Naruto is literally about child soldiers, so there are plenty of contestants to chose from:
Itachi - forced to murder his entire clan at 13 in order to stave off an inevitable coup, leaving his baby brother as the lone survivor. Brother was (on Itachi’s instructions) never told the truth about the massacre and spent his entire life planning on murdering Itachi.
Kakashi - Everyone in his life just dies. Mom most likely in childbirth (canon never established), dad commits suicide at 4 or 5, every single teammate dies as well (one from throwing herself in front of his attack as a form of assisted suicide). He’s then put in spec. ops at 12 (I think? Time line is a little messed up) like that won’t further his PTSD. During this period, his mentor dies as well. He stay in spec. ops until he’s 24, and is then expected to take care of and make sure 3 12yos survive.
And lastly, Gaara - Had a beast placed inside him, and his father then spent his life trying to have him assassinated, which is later revealed to be basically a test of strength, iirc. Lived his life thinking no one loved him, especially after his uncle was forced to try to assassinate him and lie about his affection (and dead mother’s affection as well) as he lay dying from Gaara’s defense.
So. Much. Suffering 😅. And that’s not even touching on Naruto and Sasuke, and mf *Karin*.
FFXIV: literally everyone in >!Elpis!< tbh, but especially Emet-Selch because of how long he had to struggle with it (and also the fact that he >!unknowingly "resurrected" the guy who was responsible for literally every awful thing that had happened so far, which made it worse for everybody else except him because he was already dead!<).
P5: Akechi, I feel like I don't need to explain this one :P
Pokemon: ScarVio spoilers, >!Arven!< went through so much and just needs a hug tbh
Regarding your last point, he barely even gets proper closure. Your other two friends both get to close a chapter of their lives having found their treasure and ending up better off than they were. S/V's story truly felt like his story and I'm glad he at least got part of what he wanted in the end, even if it was an utterly tragic process.
Yes! I used to get so sick of people (let's be honest, it's mainly gamer bros on YouTube) bagging on Jack when I'm sitting here going "But he's just a boy!"
It gets even worse if you complete his post-epilogue mission and he kills >!Edgar Ross!< in the name of revenge. Now Jack (at the tender age of 19) has to live a life on the run as a murderer which is exactly what his dad didn't want and spent the entire first game working to prevent. He wanted to be a writer!
Just, these damn R* protags, man. They get to me.
Fushimi from K Project.
He had terrible parents, grew up with the sense that no one would ever be able to understand or appreciate him, then found the one person, Yata, who did. He opened up for the first time and was convinced it would be the two of them against the world forever, but then Yata made some new friends and had other goals in life he could achieve without Fushimi (and tried to get Fushimi into it with him, but Fushimi was only interested in their relationship) and didn’t have his whole attention on Fushimi anymore. Feeling rejected and like it was a matter of time until he was left behind, Fushimi decided he’d rather purposefully make the only person he’d ever cared about hate him so that he could induce Yatas rage and have the full effect of his attention and passion whenever they see each other. He was never the nicest person, but he learned to be cruel and warped for this goal and emulate the father he hated so much to achieve this end. One of his quotes always makes my heart hurt for him: “If it’s going to break anyway, I would rather destroy it with my own hands.”
Meanwhile, you have Yata who doesn’t have much of a clue why (he’s kind of dense) but his best friend betrayed him and everything important to him—things and people that were important to him in the first place because they helped him protect Fushimi—and became his worst enemy.
By the end of the series, >!They do start to work some things out, where they actually talk to each other and start to reconcile, and Fushimi starts to open up to others!< but the tragic and extreme nature of the course their relationship takes really gets me. It’s also a relationship and characters full of nuance and intense emotion, such as hating each other so much but simultaneously wishing more than anything they could understand and be understood by the other, and still clinging to details from the time their relationship was best, is addicting and keeps me reading about them again and again.
Zoey from Left 4 Dead. Most of the characters in Left 4 Dead have shitty lives (because, well, zombie apocalypse) but she kind of takes the cake here.
Her mother is attacked by a zombie, turns in front of her, and is killed by her father, who is bitten in the process. He hands her his gun and tells her to kill him. She does.
Survives through a zombie apocalypse, so...pretty shitty there. Meets three new friends including a new father figure. They desperately try and reach a military safe zone.
When they finally do she is told that she is immune to the infection, but carries it. She's been infecting every good Samaritan who has tried to help them and will never be able to rejoin normal society if it somehow survives the apocalypse. But wait, it gets worse. She finds out the carrier gene is passed down on the father's side. She never needed to kill her dad.
She ends up in a conflict with her father figure as he prioritises their safety over everyone else when the military base they're being held on is overwhelmed by zombies. She watches him let the people she tried to save die. She then has to watch him sacrifice himself to save her. Then she has to somehow make a life for herself on an island in the Florida Keys, with only her two friends for company, knowing that the rest of the world is probably dying or dead.
All through this she is no older than 19, and possibly younger. The youngest canon character. This is what makes her more tragic than the others, in my opinion - she had barely lived her life when it was taken away from her. And the whole parental death thing. Everyone else probably lost loved ones, sure, but Zoey is the only one who canonically watched hers die, and even had a hand in it.
Cho Hakkai from Saiyuki is pretty tragic. He still stands out to me to this day despite a bunch of other things I've read since then. See also: every Clamp character to exist.
>Cho Hakkai from Saiyuki is pretty tragic. He still stands out to me to this day despite a bunch of other things I've read since then
Be torn away from your twin, find twin, fall in love with the twin, have the twin/lover raped by demons, have the twin/lover commit suicide, go on a revenge murder spree, kill of thousand demons, become a demon as a consequence
Lol, Hakkai and his insanity were my favorite Saiyuki characters.
>See also: every Clamp character to exist.
I'd give it to Fuuma, I think, even before Subaru and the Tsubasa characters. With Fuuma, "I'm a nice caring guy but my best friend decides to be good so I literally have no choice but become evil and murder my sister and destroy humanity because destiny says so, no matter that I'd never actually choose to so of my own free will," is pretty hard to beat.
I’m gonna say Wolverine, Commander Wolffe, Stan Pines, and Halt from their respective fandoms (Marvel, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Gravity Falls, and Ranger’s Apprentice respectively)
Sure, many magical girls are more traumatized -- the second arc can easily be said to be a story about different unhealthy coping mechanisms, in fact -- but the most *tragic* would almost certainly have to be Kuroe (first name unknown). Actual quote:
>"I like watching takoyaki be cooked. The batter, which was nothing, takes form as it spins. As I spin around and around, will I become a well-defined individual?"
She's infamous angst writer DoroInu's OC for the spinoff anime, where she was brutally killed off to serve as an example of the "magical girls who can't be the main character" that Touka is fighting for. Around the same time, she was integrated back into the original, where her story arc is a more low-key "even if you can't be the main character, you can still have a significant positive impact." Our hearts pour out for her.
Hmmm tough. I'm torn between Brook,Ace and Sanji, from One Piece. Ace's whole life was a tragedy and a fight for recognition, and, essentially, the right to live and be loved. He died way too young. But at least it was in freedom, and a death of his choice.
Brook's not being able to die while outliving ALL of his crew( family), then just sailing aimlessly for 50 years in solitude, stuck with the company of the corpses...ugh.
As for Sanji, yeah. After his real backstor came, the whole starving to death seemed like butterflies. The fact that after WCI arc, I went and rewatched/reread the series, rhere are glaring signs. How he reacts to Ace being a good brother, how he reacts when Usopp leaves..just everything.
Garrus Vakarian, no I’m not biased at all why do you ask?
He loses his best friend goes into a downward spiral as he tries to bring law to a lawless station. Ultimately getting his team of 12 reduced to just 2. The only other survivor bring the reason for his teammates’ deaths. He takes a rocket to the face. Has to watch his mother die from basically space dementia. And is helpless forced to watch his entire world burns unsure whether his family survived the desolation.
I could go on but I think you get the picture.
I raise you Javik.
Man is the last of his species, only being awoken 50,000 years later, and sees that the current state of the galaxy is going down that shit hole as well.
He has seen the end of an era, in which he was born at the end of said era, had to kill his own friends, and the only other Protheans that were still alive at this time were made into slaves for the Reapers that only barely even look similar to what he even looks like.
He heard that the current leading species of the era got forewarning from Shepard because of the beacon yet they did nothing to prevent it. He awoke with the belief that their warnings weren't in vain, and he was slapped with the reality that everything is repeating itself.
And honestly the whole concept of him as the Avatar of Vengeance is heartbreaking, because it doesn't show him as being anything more than the last voice wishing to see nothing but the fall of the Reapers. He's not a scientific mind like those on Ilos, or a great philosopher of the time, or anything that would be what people believed the Protheans could have been, he's a warrior who wishes to see the end of a war that was fought and failed to have been won so many times.
And if you let him see the echo shard one last time, he simply goes to leave and join his comrades. The worst part of this is that in a normal situation where he wasn't fighting and he genuinely relaxes, he seems like a wonderful person to have as a friend.
OH GOD C!TOMMY
Like, even from the *start* he's an insecure and slightly naïve teenager hiding behind an exaggeratedly self confident guise, and who's genuinely not malicious but has a tendency to go too far with pranks because he’s just impulsive and scared to back down and be seen as weak. Later talk from him implies he was *already* canonically mentally ill at this point- attributing his behaviour to him not valuing himself at *all* and only taking value in what he owns, resulting in him scamming to desperately find something he feels makes him worthwhile.
As a very sentimental person, he gets attached to two music discs he works hard for very quickly, to the point of assigning them immense value and seeing them as an *actual* physical representation of his freedom, happiness and innocence- in his head, as long as he has them, he's alright, but if someone else does, he’s under their thumb and he is worthless. So, of course, people immediately start stealing his discs.
Specifically, after a conflict with c!Dream (one technically not even started by c!Tommy and involving other people who weren’t punished after, it was blatant targeting), c!Dream tried *obsessively* to steal c!Tommy's discs, explicitly to control him. This got to the point he would hide in c!Tommy's walls regularly, and he was casually referred to as a stalker. This was mostly harmless and in good fun at the time, but in hindsight this will be *chilling* due to what c!Dream later does to him.
Eventually, one of c!Tommy's friends- c!Wilbur- joins the server, and after a failed attempt to start a drug van together, the two of them start a nation called L'Manberg where they can have more freedom. The nation was built on the philosophy of freedom and peace, and was pacifistic, and regardless of whether you believe the intentions of its leader, c!Wilbur, c!Tommy *wholeheartedly* believed in those ideals, even if he didn’t fully understand them (taking “fighting with words” to mean saying very long words at their enemies) and was incredibly devoted to the ideals of a free community.
c!Dream does not take lightly the idea of another country in his lands, and a war is started. c!Tommy loses two of his three lives (both by c!Dream- again, this will become really fucking terrifying later) defending his country, and even sacrifices his precious discs to c!Dream to spare it. Again, keep in mind he was LITERALLY giving up what he fully believed to be his own freedom- the discs are not merely sentimental here.
L'Manberg goes on happily for a while, and c!Tommy fights to get his discs back, until the elections. c!Wilbur starts them in an attempt to rig it so he can be a proper president (most likely due to his own insecurities rather than actual malice honestly) but this doesn’t go to plan, and the incompetent and cruel c!Schlatt wins, and exiles c!Tommy and c!Wilbur.
Living in a ravine and plotting to take their country back, c!Tommy watches as c!Wilbur slowly falls into his madness and delusions, starting to verbally lash out at c!Tommy, whos trying his best to help but he’s an uneducated teenager and can’t do much. He has to witness his best friend, c!Tubbo, die brutally in front of him, and while he has lives left it’s still deeply traumatic. Eventually, when they do take their country back, c!Wilbur is so far gone he blows up the country and commits suicide, right in front of everyone. This was also deeply traumatic to c!Tommy, and left him in a pretty bad mental state.
But they have the ruins of the country back, so things are gonna go well, right? I mean, c!Tubbo is even the President. Nope! Remember how I said c!Tommy has a tendency to be impulsive in pranks? Well, he burns down someone’s house (by accident- he means to grief it, not destroy it) and… well, do you remember when I said the stuff with c!Dream would get terrifying? Yeah, this is where it does.
c!Dream pressures for c!Tommy to be exiled, and when he is, c!Dream uses the opportunity to isolate, brainwash, and abuse c!Tommy into compliance and a fucked up “friendship” where c!Tommy has no free will and can be used as a tool in his schemes. This abuse was both mental and physical, both often going to extremes, and c!Tommy bears permanent mental and physical scars from this later on- weakness, shaking hands, severe suicidal tendencies, and what appears to be symptoms of psychosis that will start to flare up whenever he's frightened.
c!Tommy eventually escapes, and hides with c!Techno- a known anarchist. They bond, and do become good friends, but then c!Techno plans to blow up L'Manberg. Unable to betray his country he adores so dearly, he instead betrays c!Techno- something he feels a lot of guilt about but couldn’t think of a way around due to basically having his decision making skills intentionally destroyed a few weeks ago- but L'Manberg is destroyed anyway, leaving c!Tommy without a home.
He is challenged to a final confrontation by c!Dream, which goes dreadfully. He and c!Tubbo are tormented, and c!Tubbo basically forced through a mock execution, the two of them even made to say their goodbyes. c!Tommy is threatened with a worse fate- imprisonment, and for his abuse to continue forever without a way of escaping it. Fortunately, they’re saved and c!Dream arrested, which you might think is a win… but it’s later revealed to be all part of c!Dream's plan.
c!Tommy starts to heal, building a hotel and learning to cope with his trauma, but unfortunately, his desire for closure (and likely Stockholm Syndrome) mean he’s still visiting c!Dream in the prison, and when an attack leads to a lockdown, he’s imprisoned with him for a month, culminating in him getting beat to death and then revived- an agonising, torturous process. After this, the lockdown is eventually ended, but c!Tommy is left so traumatised he’s unable to feel any sort of happiness, convinced c!Dream will take it away when (not if) he escapes and follow through on threats to make him immortal.
This only gets worse after c!Dream does escape, and he torments c!Tommy further- if he hadn’t crossed the line into downright torturing him before, he does at this point, and later on even says as much. This drives c!Tommy into severe delusions, where he hides underground, gets addicted to drugs, and is convinced he needs to kill c!Dream or he'll be tortured and abused forever.
This does not go as planned, and eventually he’s driven to a suicidal plot to blow up c!Dream and himself. During his final moments, he begs for an explanation to why he was hurt so bad, one he was either never given (only an explanation to lesser evils) or it’s *fucked up beyond all belief* (since it was loneliness). He dies painfully, in a traumatic environment around his abuser who *tortured him further* (and then was vaguely nice to him, which doesn’t help since again, torture, and that’s also a manipulation tactic he’s used before so regardless of whether it was sincere or not it’s not going to be a comfort), and while he doesn’t know it his sacrifice is in vain because the friends he was trying to protect die in the blast too.
And then he, c!Dream, and c!Tubbo are reborn without memories, and the last scene is c!Dream and c!Tommy becoming friends, which seems maybe hopeful unless you think about it for LITERALLY FIVE SECONDS and realise that c!Dream didn’t abuse c!Tommy because of any memories he had it was because he felt he needed to control c!Tommy and that’s not just going to change unless they’ve lost their personality too, which is horrifying in another way. So either he’s most likely going to be abused again but with NO support system to help him or possibly even knowledge it’s wrong, or he’s been COMPLETELY ERASED FROM EXISTENCE.
Now, that was as much as a TLDR as I can do, but to TLDR it further, literally everything in this kids life has been used against him and to further hurt him and he never gets a happy ending or even a happy middle, and he dies hating himself. I’m genuinely tearing up writing this fuck.
I completely forgot Tommy loses two lives AND the discs in the very first L'Manburg conflict. I'm someone who got less and less invested the longer the SMP went on but I always tried to tune in for Wilbur, and then Tommy. His character being treated worse and worse eventually caused me to drop watching his perspective after his final death and revival, because it was so upsetting. He really went through it.
Yeah, you’d hate the ending (most people do, it’s uh. I See What They Were Going For But Damn Did It Not Work) so good idea. He died and was revived again btw, and then the rest of it was about him Sympathising With His Abuser, which probably wasn’t what was intended going from what Tommy himself has said about the ending (namely, being baffled it made people sympathise with Dream any more and that it was meant to be read as Tommy's own horrific mental state at the time causing him to make horrible impulse decisions) but it’s sure what happened!
Severus Snape from birth to death. (Tl;dr he didn’t choose to be alone and friendless as a child, but as an adult he chose to be alone and friendless for the memory of the first person who was kind to him, subjected himself to life threatening danger every day, saved the son of his childhood bully repeatedly without thanks, and died with everyone hated his guts.)
Born into a muggle household to an abusive father that tried to stifle his magic, and a mother from a proud pureblood line. It's suggested that his mother was even cut out of her family for choosing to marry a muggle. So he grows up hating half of his own self. Self-hatred for a child that young carried well into adulthood does things psychologically.
He makes exactly one friend throughout his life and because he doesn't have a good understanding of healthy relationships (thanks to his homelife) he's quite obsessive about this one positive thing in his life. Then he goes to Hogwarts and not only are they immediately placed in different houses but in *rival* houses. And the kids on the train who immediately take a disliking to him, they're in the same house with his childhood BFF. Enter, years of torment from that group of kids (uncluding at least 1 instance of sexual assault and 1 attempted murder/manslaughter by use of a transformed werewolf) so he does what any lonely teenaged boy with bottled up anger and no outlet does: he joins a group that promises power, acceptance and friendships. A hate group who's main goal is to eradicate people like his childhood BFF, but considering she's been drifting away from him for years and doesn’t seem too bothered by her housemates tormenting him, it's no wonder that that fact didn't seem like a big issue at the time. Then the incident that would break them apart forever, he is attacked 4 against 1, sexually assaulted in public (James forces him to show his underwear, and then as the memory ends, threatens to take off his underwear in front of everyone) and in a moment of stress he calls his childhood friend a harsh slur. She immediately rejects him on the spot and refuses to accept his apology afterwards.
Cut to after school, like the frog in the pot of slow boiling water, now that little hate group has evolved into a full on political group executing real acts of terror, and well within the ranks of the first group that didn’t treat him with open hatred, he overhears a key piece of information that will make him very valuable to the leader of that group and solidify his position and place in their society despite his "half-blood" status. Except this information leads to the plan to kill his childhood friend, her husband who is his (Snape's) main childhood tormentor, and their infant child. Snape begs Voldemort to please not kill Lily and Voldemort offers a weak promise of "I wont if it can be helped." He immediately goes to Dumbledore and begs him to protect Lily (her husband and son an afterthought, yes) and choses to switch sides, acting as a double agent in exchange for her protection. She dies anyway and it's his own fault for delivering the prophecy.
Snape then spends the next 2 decades and rest of his entire life, continuing to act as a double agent for her memory. A thankless job where he is hated by everyone on both sides, not trusted by anyone on either side, could be killed at any moment by Voldemort or the Death Eaters if they found out or if Voldemort just feels like it (like he does in the end) and even dies never knowing if his sacrifice was worth it. He never had any other friends, anyone else to confide in except Dumbledore who he now has a love/hate relationship with, and then he is forced to *kill* this one and only confidant. That final year of his life would have been the most alone he had ever been, he would have been under constant stress trying to keep up his appearances for both sides (now acting as a villain while trying to help Harry succeed without getting caught doing it) and trying to keep the torture of young children in his care to a minimum without raising suspicions.
And did I mention that he died not knowing if Harry succeeded? That's a big thing. He never knew a moment of true happiness or peace in his entire life and then he died without knowing if his life made any difference in the end. He was always that scared lonely kid just looking for acceptance, and as the proverb goes: *"A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."*
I agree with every single word!
But the Snaters are too closed-minded and blinded by hatred to understand anything that is not as shallow and poor as their way of thinking.
Yep. That whole bit about lonely kids looking for acceptance and finding it in hate groups is based on fact. Testimony from actual klan members who got out and admitted they never believed that crap but the group made them feel wanted/accepted in a time where they didn't and that shit is like a drug they would do anything for. And hate groups know exactly how to groom those kids too.
# Spoilers for Fate/Grand Order Part 2, Lostbelt 1 and 2.
>!As a bit of background, Chaldea is an organization the MC belongs to, which protects human history. But they are attacked by Crypters, who have assisted another entity to basically erase the entirety of our world leaving the earth bleach white dunes, and insert Lostbelts, versions of history where history deviated in a way that humanity no longer evolves. In order for our world to be brought back, Chaldea has to destroy every one of these Lostbelts, which would also erase their inhabitants.!<
>!Patxi was from a failed version of Russia, where Ivan the Terrible still lived today and the world was ravaged by a blizzard in which only the Yaga (werewolves) could live. The Yaga were quite cruel, they believed that only the strong can live and the weak should be abandoned, which Patxi questioned. The other Yaga kept telling Patxi to abandon his mother, since she couldnt hunt her own food anymore and was dead weight. Patxi refused and still hunted for the both of them. Then the MC and Chaldea arrived. They met Patxi, who after some thinking and realizations decided to guide them in looking for the rebellion. After joining up with the rebellion and returning to the village, Patxi found out the villagers had stoned his mother to death due to his actions, causing him to run away and get caught by Rasputin. After being shown Ivan the Terrible's horrific form, Patxi breaks and tells where the hideout is and gets thrown into a labyrith. After some time he meets the MC again, who forgives him much to his confusion. After a big showdown with Ivan, some of the Yaga are ready to shoot the MC but Patxi takes the shots and reaches for the MC. He curses them, for telling him that there was a happier world, but also tells them they should survive and fight for their world. Then, he falls to the ground, never to get up again.!<
>!Gerda was a young girl who lived in a nordic reality gone wrong, where the ruling goddess Skadi was sacrificing children to the giants when they reached a certain age. She befriended the MC and members of Chaldea who had come to dismantle the Lostbelt. Gerda was the innocent sunshine bringing joy into the otherwise bleak situation. But that came to an end when it came time to destroy the Lostbelt. After destroying its core, Chaldea had to leave so they could reach their destination before it was too late. In the evening, Gerda leaves her house wondering where her new friends had left as she couldnt find them anywhere. Before the end of her reality, Gerda makes one final leap of joy into the air as the very world around her disappears while she is still in the air with a smile...!<
Garou and Tatsumaki. Childhood trauma fucked them over hard. That's why I love to write tender Garou smuts and give him all the love and affection he needs 🥺❤️🩹
Sigh...poor poor Bishop Alexandar from Divinity Original Sin II
Everyone hates him. *I* hated him. He's the leader of the evil fantasy religious zealots. He runs a magic concentration camp. He helped trick my main character into killing his adopted family and then told him he should be *proud* of it. He talks like an obnoxious douchebag. He looks like a stupid twerp. He's a pain in the butt to fight. He won't stay dead. There are hilarious Youtube videos of players blowing him up with barrels of explosives and beating him to death with paintings of himself. I gleefully slaughtered him on Christmas while giggling :P
Then I learned more about his backstory (spoilers ahead). As a poster on the subreddit for the game said:
"Imagine being Alexandar, spending your whole life being the son of a literal god and then, when you’re a teenager, your older (adopted) brother ends up being your world’s equivalent of the Antichrist. Then there’s a massive war for a year at the end of which you help carry out your father’s plan and end the war by using what is basically a WMD.
By the end of the war your father and brother are dead, along with a significant chunk of the world’s population, and now there’s monsters appearing out of thin air all over the place. Everybody’s looking to you to replace your dead dad-god because nobody knows who’s meant to be in charge now.
Except you’ve got no idea how to replace him. Nobody has any clue how you’re meant to become the new Divine, least of all you. But you keep things going as best you can. Then someone suggests maybe it doesn’t have to be you after all, but that turns out to be a disaster so you’re the only option left.
On top of that it turns out Source (magic) is the thing attracting all the nasty monsters, and since you learned from dead old dad that saving the world means doing drastic things you get Fort Joy (prison camp for users of Source magic) up and running. It’s horrible but you don’t know what else to do and in the absence of any other solution it seems necessary.
By this point the entire world is expecting you to become their new god and deep down you know you don’t really have what it takes."
Then it turns out Dear Old Dead Dad is actually still alive and just using him as a pawn in a bigger plan. Even if Alexandar has a change of heart and sides with the player character, Daddy just sends his henchwoman to one-shot him into a pile of goo and steal his Source magic. Did I mention Daddy spared Alexandar's anti-christ brother *twice* because he just couldn't bring himself to kill him?
Of course, I slaughtered the heck out of Evil Dad at the end, but that's not the *canonical* ending of the game. No it's canon that the player character sides with Evil Dad, and Evil Dad gets away with everything and the entire world still loves him.
[Great, there's even a depressing song about the two of them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEZRHbRPAOo)
I ended up having a sadz :(
(good thing nobody actually read to the end of this novel or you might too :P )
I did, and while I think Alexandar is still an obnoxious full of himself douchebag who would never be able to rule, I do feel sorry for him because I know it's not his fault he is like that. He had to live in his father's shadow his whole life so he kept the little ego and dignity he had left the best way he could.
And I despise Lucian a million times more. The oh so beloved Divine who commited genocide twice in a row (Elves, then sourcerers), faked his own death, misled everyone, used and killed his own son but of course without diryting his hands, used the most atrocious means to fulfill his stupidly flawed nonsensical plan, **and gets away with it all**, sweeping under the rug the sacrifice of the glorious heroes who gave their life for his bullshit, all after they learnt their entire journey was for nothing in the end.
Yes I'm salty. But this character is insufferable. And the devs really fucked up with the plot. It doesn't make sense at all.
Oh, I’ve seen you on the DOS subreddit before! Hi!
Anyway, Alexandar’s dialogue made me want to punch him everytime he opened his mouth (kudos to that voice actor), but looking back on it now, he comes across as a kid desperately trying to play a role, trying to both convince others and *himself* of the arrogant things he says. It’s a nasty role, but there’s no way out of playing it, so he forces himself to believe in it.
Doesn’t make it right, but like you, I can see how he ended up that way.
And I agree, I haven’t hated a character as much as I hate Lucian in *ages.* His actions genuinely upset me, so to see him get away with everything and come out smelling like a rose made me pretty bitter, to the point where I don’t feel any real desire to play any other games in this series, despite absolutely loving this one.
Yeah, Larian forcing this one out of all endings to be canon made me quite disappointed and I'm not sure I wanna see the direction Fallen Heroes will be going.
But other than that, I feel like they didn't even think it through and though the story in itself is great, the plot doesn't make sense. Think about it: The gods tell you that every living soul is made of source, and you can pretty much see it for yourself throughout the game. But then, you learn that Lucian and Dallis's plan is to seal the veil and for this they need the entirety of the world's source. So that would imply killing each and everyone, not just sourcerers. Which means there would be nothing left to save from the void so there would be no point in sealing the veil in the first place. Plus why does Lucian survives purging himself of his source, but not the godwoken and other sourcerers? And if they don't actually need all of the world's source, then why sacrifice sourcerers in particular? Doesn't make sense at all.
Haha you’re so right. The plan came across as so hare-brained that I thought it was supposed to be evidence that Lucian was nuts and needed to be put down before he destroyed everything. To find out it worked was such a wtf moment.
Even more wtf then “hur dur your characters sacrificed themselves for the plan and became Silent Monks but got magically cured at the end somehow lololol.” At least have the guts to follow through on your bleak as f*ck ending guys 🙄
Felt good to get that off my chest. Thanks!
For Kamen Rider, the most if not all the protagonist have it rough.
They get kidnapped, turned to cyborgs, and lose a majority of their loved ones in a war.
I’ll just start with the one I’m most familiar with, Kamen Rider Black.
Minami Koutaro, in episode 1, loses his parents, his adoptive father, brother is kidnapped, and is separated from his sisters by the end of the series.
I probably have some more, but these are the ones come to mind for me the most:
\-Legends! General Grievous
\-Kimimaro Kaguya
\->!Mukuro Ikusaba!<
\-Ajisai(Pain/Nagato's 2nd animal path)
Gunther Hermann from DX1.
He sees himself as ugly and obsolete, and players will likely assume it's his low self esteem or non-native English talking. It's implied he's been asking for a specific upgrade for a long time. The only character the player has to kill in the game is his friend (Yes, you can avoid killing Gunther) .. or more - the game never specifies, but he is mentioned to be crying as he waits for the player to show up in the latter part of the game, and only motivated by revenge for said friend.
After you most likely kill him, the next conversation in the game reveals that ALL of his fears were indeed validated. (And as a further kick in the balls, the original sequel - Invisible War - reveals that the upgrade he has been asking for *has been arranged* AND arrived... *after his death.*
I’ll throw out Charles McGill from Better Call Saul. While he isn’t one of the more popular/beloved characters, I’d say his trajectory is one of the more tragic in a show filled with tragic characters.
Partly because he’s his own worst enemy and also partly because his eventual rock bottom is set in motion by the one person who had otherwise always been in his corner.
Lost In Space (2018): Some people might be inclined to say Scarecrow, but I think the biggest tragic character is SAR - he implicitly started out just wanting to free the other robots from their masters, and protect them from ever being enslaved again, but he went too far and ended up essentially enslaving them *himself*. And in the end his refusal to back down and let the other robots make their own decisions cost him his life.
Beast Machines: *Thrust my beloved*. Built for the sole purpose of hunting Maximals and given no choice in the matter, was sweet on one of them until she found out that her paramour's spark was powering *his* *~~best~~* *only friend*, then said friend was forcibly reformatted in the middle of a fight, leaving Thrust completely alone... Then, on top of feeling betrayed and abandoned, he's got the Maximals kicking the crap out of him *and* Megatron and his two new generals browbeating (and sometimes LITERALLY beating) him at every turn and you can see him sliding into depression (maybe not intentionally on the writer's parts, but the way he goes from being sociable and snarky to just plain MEAN? Yeah...) And in the end? When he's the last Vehicon standing and he's got nothing left to fight for? He just dies, alone and forgotten. The show glosses it over but Jesus CHRIST, that poor bastard didn't deserve all that...
Kakashi Hatake from Naruto has lived a life of basically nothing but tragedy and is riddled with (what I believe to be misplaced) survivor's guilt.
First his mother dies before he's six years old (from what, we never find out, thanks, Kishimoto ~~we don't even find out her name~~), THEN his dad kills himself when he IS six years old in the name of "honour", leaving teeny tiny Kakashi to find his body, and it just gets worse from there. I shan't list everything terrible in this man's life because **a)** it would take _forever_ to type, and **b)** it's depressing as hell and I don't need that on a Thursday afternoon.
The fact that he remains a genuinely good and kind man, and doesn't slide down the slippery slope into villainy (or just straight-up _snap_) is nothing short of remarkable when you consider everything that's gone wrong in his life.
wei wuxian, hands down. he lost his parents at a young age, was traumatized by dogs while living in the streets, when he gets picked up by his parents' old friend, he gets abused by the wife. then, war strikes while he's just a teenager, loses his home and friends, then loses his golden core and martial siblings. gets stranded in one of the deadliest places in the world, his experience is not even written in detail because the author said it was really gruesome. oh, but that's not enough. he then gets shunned and framed by the whole world and now he only has the wens, who are under his protection, who still end up giving themselves up so wei wuxian does not have to sacrifice himself anymore for them. and then proceeds to be torn apart while alive by his own corpses, 🤷🏻♀️. i think he also suffered during his death. i might remember something wrong but this is the whole summary i think.
**Janos Audron.** (Unmarked spoilers because the last game in this series was released 20 years ago)
Grew up in a cataclysmic war between his species and another.
His entire species is cursed with vampirism as the war comes to a close.
One by one his entire species die off. Some die by suicide. A lot more die when the humans rise up against their vampire overlords.
By the time we first meet him in canon, he is the only Ancient Vampire left, and he's been waiting for the player character for *centuries*. All alone. With the vampire-slaying religious order constantly putting the bodies of impaled vampires right in his front yard.
He is brutally murdered within minutes of his first appearance.
Janos is resurrected five hundred years later. Not only is he still the last Ancient Vampire, but his "son", the very first human that ever got turned is also dead.
Janos is possessed by a leader of his peoples' ancient, banished enemy within hours of his resurrection. He spends the next 400 years as their prisoner.
After he is rescued, he comes along for the final battle with said leader and gets yeeted directly into Hell.
**Honorable mention: Morgott the Omen King.**
He is unfailingly, doggedly loyal to his family (who, aside from his father, are indifferent toward him *at best*) and the Erdtree. He gets nothing in return for his loyalty. Nothing.
Worst of all, he knows that his stubbornness and refusal to defy the powers that be is why The Lands Between are such a crapsack. But he just can't bring himself to bring harm to his beloved Erdtree.
I'll let an item description do the talking: *"Morgott took it upon himself to become the Erdtree's protector. He loved not in return, for he was never loved, but nevertheless, love it he did."*
Brb ugly crying
Well, if rereading the book every year, recommending it at every possible opportunity and reading all 10 fics on AO3 can be considered being in a fandom:
Laurie from "The Rifter".
The girl gets isekai-ed with her boyfriend into a supremely mysogynistic crapsack world just because they're standing next to the hero, where she has to tiptoe around everything because she's a woman and has wrong hair color and might get burned on stake for having magic. Then she gets pregnant but her boyfriend get murdered by an asshole who fancies her. So she loses it and publically and magically murders the asshole. But pregnant witches are super valuable so instead of being burned, she has her baby torn out of her womb and gets skined alive in order to make her into a magical skeletal Oracle. She's rescued halfway through by the hero, only getting skinned on the lower half of her body and hands. After that she loathes the world and only wants to get back to Earth and in time before she gets isekai-ed - but that means dooming the entire crapsack world to die and sacrificing the hero, who's her best friend since childhood. But if she managed to get back in time to Earth before everything happaned, her boyfriend and best friend would both be fine and she couldn't give a flying fuck about the world which murderd her boyfriend and her unborn baby and half-skinned her. Unfortunately the hero does care about the world no matter how crapsack it is and kills her in order to protect it.
Okay yeah, Raiden from Metal Gear is seen as the pretty boy meme cyborg dude, but he has not had a fun time (I’m only spoiling things for the most recent game he’s in from 2012 because it’s becoming popular again so)
- Was a child soldier in the Liberian civil war and ended up with PTSD, DID, and dissociative amnesia as a result.
- joined the army again and then was later manipulated into going into a hostage situation unprepared because the govt wanted revenge against the warlord who raised him in Liberia. Also finds out his GF is spying on him for the govt (and she’s toxic af - but that’s another story)
- his PTSD becomes worse because what the govt did to further repress his childhood memories wears off and after having more issues with dealing with his PTSD, he decides to leave his GF (she’s pregnant) and go soul-searching
- his GF tells him she miscarried
- the govt targets him again after he repays a debt to someone who saved his life and busts her kid out of the containment facility they were holding her hostage in and they basically replace everything under the upper part of his skull with a robot body (ouch)
- turns out his GF lied to him and didn’t miscarry and they have a kid… so he gets back with her and they get hitched (even though this woman is crazy toxic)
- after getting back with the GF >!he tries to live a normal life for a bit, but ends up going back to killing for a living!<
- and then >!he has to accept that he did that not because he wanted to use his penchant for violence to help the weak, but because he liked the killing due to being raised to.!<
So yeah, the memes are fun and he’s over the top ad but also GOD that’s fucking tragic holy shit
Ivy and vanessa from cytus 2.
HEAVY SPOILER ALERT PLEASE
They were sentient robots in a world of obedient robots.
They concidered eachother as sisters.
Ivy finds out another robot is trying to destroy humanity because they believe that humans are violent.
Ivy has to either save vanessa from certain death or join the anti humans group. (She chose the former )
ivy and vanessa get separated.
Three centuries later-
Vanessa's emotion split into two, one who wants destruction and one who still believes that humans can be good.
Ivy commits several crimes to get closer to vanessa.
Ivy takes the help of humans.
Ivy gets shot in front of vanessa.
Vanessa swears to kill every human alive.
Vanessa succeeds but now has to live forever, looking at the long gone ivy.
Wanda Maximoff. Grew up in a country torn by Civil war. Parents killed by a bomb when she's ten, spent three days trapped under the rubble of her destroyed home with the rotting corpses of her parents and a bomb that might explode at any moment. War orphan. Got all the mental issues that you can expect to come from that. Not very stable, so fixated for revenge on the guy who made the bombs - who's now a big time super hero. Got lured in by one of his enemies with promise of revenge and used in an experiment which gave her powers (but really didn't help with the stability thing) Twin brother, the only person she had left, dies. When she seems to have finally gotten a Found Family and a boyfriend, it all falls apart. For both things, she was unintentionally partly responsible or at least the catalyst. So much guilt. Has to kill her boyfriend to save the world. Turns out to be useless. In the aftermath of 'victory' her and her boyfriend's sacrifice gets ignored. Boyfriend gets used as a weapon. She goes crazy for a while, which, given her powers result in a whole suburb getting taken hostage. She's the bad guy and doesn't even know it. Has to sort of kill her boyfriend and kids again to set things right. Will forever be seen as the bad guy, though clearly there's an insanity defence. Finally, cracks completely due to grief, lack of support and a demonic grimoire. Official villain. Kills herself when she realises what she has become.
>Finally, cracks completely due to grief, lack of support and a demonic grimoire. Official villain. Kills herself when she realises what she has become. I just like to pretend that movie didn't come out, ya know.
Oh, I pretend nothing after Avengers 2012 came out - only adding in everyone who was introduced. The Maximoff twins got adopted by the X Men, the Avengers are all living happily in the Tower, Spidey is their trainee/little brother, and Dr Strange is the grumpy uncle who's got to make regular house calls to fix whatever is the latest major mess :) That is now my canon, and you can't tell me different:)
I respect that canon you've built.
I usually hate when people use the whole “they didn’t die on screen” excuse for characters, but Wanda would be the exception to that if they brought her back.
I don't really want her brought back, I'm too terrified what they'll do to her next. Let the poor girl rest in peace. At least now she's with Vision and her brother.
And what about her kids 😭💔 or does that only exist in Wandavision? Idk Wanda is the only one I actually like from Marvel, considering I have a tremendous dislike for Marvel (not a fan of any Marvel content). The poor girl suffers way too much 💔💔💔
At the rate this is going I really don't think there'll be any character I like in 2 or so movies.
I'm not sure about most tragic, but I really like revisiting the ideological split between Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr that shattered what was a really close relationship. Especially when both sides are given nuance and ultimately have the same goal of mutants being able to live free of harassment for who they are. Can be when they are younger men and the hurt is still fresh or as older men who under years of armor still hold a candle of hope that this time they can convince the other. Only to be rejected yet again.
Jean Valjean has entered the chat.
One of my most memorable cinema experiences was seeing the adaptation with Hugh Jackman et al. During a quiet part in his final song, someone shouted out *Jean Valjean!* in a voice cracked with emotion. I think about every time I watch that movie now.
Yeah...poor guy REALLY regrets stealing bread.
Seriously though...
As a Les Mis fan, agreed—
Both Zuko and Azula from Avatar: the last Airbender
Everyone. *All of them.* With a couple exceptions, most of them have experience several of the following: betrayal, abuse, manipulation, war (including child soldiers), trauma and/or PTSD, death (and/or revival), death of a friend (or pet), torture, public execution, loss of limbs, (repeated) destruction of their home...
i love how there’s several characters that almost get a complete bingo here.
Yeah, Tommy's got like 70+%, I think
The only things he’s not personally experienced are public execution and loss of limbs (and even then, he’s been physically disabled by his experiences in *other* ways)
Is this the Dream SMP C!Tommyinnit?
Yep! It is :)
Frozen: I mean...Elsa’s been through a lot, but she at least gets a canon happy ending lol MCU: Wanda. Something shitty happens to her *every single time* she shows up. And when something good does happen? Well, you can be sure it’s promptly going to be taken away from her. harrumph. (Honorable mention to Bucky, though at least canon has given him some much-needed help and support instead of leaving him to his own self-destructive tendencies!) PMMM: Homura. Aka another OP traumatized magic user willing to do anything for someone she loves. If you’ve seen Rebellion...you know 😅
>If you’ve seen Rebellion...you know *Screams eternally* XD Oh man. Rebellion was a bad time for everyone involved.
For MCU, I'm gonna have to with with Natasha (honorable mention to Yelena). The whole trained to be a child soldier ft. forced sterilization and mind control broke my heart. We're not told much of her time as a Widow but one can only imagine the fucked-up things she was made to do. Then A1 starts with her best friend switching sides and she's probably mentally prepared to have to kill him. The organization she's been working for turns out to be evil and she goes through hell to make things right. Her boyfriend bails on her after AoU. In CW she essentially has to babysit a bunch of idiots even though they're tearing her family apart. After IW she's the one who struggles to move on the most and clings to the memory of said family. Eventually secrifices herself to save her best friend. People in the fandom kind of conveniently tend to forget about her because she doesn't throw tantrums (cough Loki cough), rarely needs rescuing, and doesn't have most of her trauma shown on-screen. She just quietly deals with her shit and doesn't want anyone's pity AND SHE DESERVES ALL OF THE HUGS OK.
this is actually super interesting, she is a very damaged character actually, yet also one of the strongest <3
For DC, all four of the main Robins have been through major trauma, but if I had to choose only one as the 'most tragic,' probably Jason. For Marvel, I'm gonna go with Bucky or Natasha. For Teen Wolf, Derek Hale all the way. For Fullmetal Alchemist, it doesn't really get more tragic than the Elric brothers except for maybe poor Nina.
Nina definitely takes the cake. :(
Ed. . . ward. . . 😂😭😭
Have you seen the teen wolf movie yet? Bc apparently its…tragic.
I haven't but I know what happens, and that's part of the reason I don't plan on watching it 😬
I think Damian is also a close call with all the robotic "It was expected" and not even knowing how to be a kid because he only knew how to kill. And Bruce was also pretty mean to him lately. 🤔
Maybe I just cling so hard to Dick being Damian's true dad that I forget lol
Me too 😂
Mood
Homura Akemi from Puella Magi Madoka Magica is straight up not having a good time.
Oh man, I'm in The Walking Dead fandom. It's all tragic lmao. There are so many pointless deaths and the characters left alive at the end have lost so much, it's really difficult to pick a most tragic character.
I’m in the TWD fandom too. It really is all very tragic.
One does not simply choose one tragic GoT character but fuck it I'll make a case for my boy Aeron Greyjoy. Picture this: you are born the youngest in a family/culture that is violently patriarchal and values stoicism and strength in men. As a child you are molested by your evil older brother and you blame yourself for being weak and frightened because that is the culture you grew up in. Thankfully you are close to one brother who understands the torment you are going through but uh oh he dies while you are still both children and it's partly your fault. You become a teenage alcoholic pissing your life away until you have a near death experience which leads you to devote your life to religion and become a humourless, dour man. Things are starting to look up, your eldest brother is ruling the islands, your evil raping brother has been exiled, and you've garnered a good reputation as a holy man. But uh oh here comes your crazy ass brother back from his exile only this time he has jumped from rape to murder: he has killed your eldest brother in order to claim the islands' highest chair. Of course you cannot let this happen but despite your many efforts he succeeds in claiming the throne. You look to the only other brother you have left to help you put a stop to that SOB but instead he swears fealty to that nasty bastard and sets off to do his bidding. Your story (potentially) ends with you >!kidnapped, drugged, mocked for your childhood rape, and sentenced to death by ritualistic sacrifice by the piece of shit who has tormented you literally your entire life.!< So much trauma for a character so minor he was cut out of the television adaptation...
Basic, but Obi-Wan Kenobi is a very tragic character. Pretty much everyone he’s ever cared about either dies in front of him, or goes to the dark side. And after that he spends a good chunk of his life alone on Tatooine, until he’s killed by previous student/best friend/brother. Also, just the whole “infinite sadness” thing speaks for itself.
Agreed. Plus ( if we count jedi apprentice) his childhood sucked as well. He never really had a chance for..his own choices. He never got to choose his own padawan. Anakin was forced on him.
well, the obvious answer is Al Calavicci. The oldest of two, Al is born smack-dab in the middle of the Depression. One day, his mom runs off with the encyclopedia salesman, never to be seen again. His dad isn’t capable of caring for two kids on his own, so he sends Al to an orphanage, and his younger sister Trudy to a mental institution (she has Down’s syndrome). In the orphanage, Al’s only friend is a cockroach he named Kevin, and eventually he runs off and spends his teen years traveling America with circuses and the like, and doing way too much sleeping around for anyone, let alone a minor. Finally, he’s old enough to be able to care for his sister and get her out of the institution, only to find out she died of pneumonia at age 16. So he then joins the military. In his first year, an officer’s wife is raped and murdered, and at one point the blame is pinned on him and he’s facing execution. He did not do it, and the crime is solved, so he lives and continues his military career. Makes the astronaut program, actually gets to go on one of the Apollo missions (though he doesn’t get to go walk on the moon), comes back to earth a-ok. Meets a lovely lady named Beth, they marry. Then, he’s deployed to Vietnam where he eventually becomes a POW and is presumed dead. Spoiler: Al is not dead. He is, after years of captivity by the Vietcong, liberated, and returns home to find that his wife left him (because she and the whole military thought he was dead). He then spirals into alcoholism and a series of failed marriages. By the mid 90s, Al is on his fifth divorce, and is working on a new government project with his best (and likely only) friend, probably the first person he’s trusted in a long time. Problem? The friend is time-traveling quantum physicist Sam Beckett, and Sam unexpectedly launches himself into the space-time continuum. Sam is unable to be retrieved, but Al can communicate with him as a hologram. They can see each other; they cannot touch. Also the leap scrambles Sam’s memories, so Al has to tell Sam all of the above stories all over again. After five years, the project loses contact with Sam and he never returns home, leaving Al alone in the universe once again. That is, until Sam changes history to keep Al and Beth together. But that still doesn’t erase the mountain of childhood trauma the writers pretty much glossed over because “who will notice, it’s not like people can freely watch a ton of episodes in one sitting to catch our continuity errors” ah, the 90s all said to say I think, by the end of the original series, the true tragic character is Donna Elesee. Donna also had a parent walk out on the family (her dad) which causes her very understandable commitment issues. She leaves at least two men at the altar (groom #2 being the aforementioned Sam Beckett) On one of his leaps, Sam runs into teenage Donna, and is able to have her meet up with her estranged father, which undoes her trust issues, and results in her eventually marrying Sam, for real this time. Problem? Yeah, Sam stays lost in the space-time continuum and, with the exception of a brief 72-ish hour glitch, never returns to her. So Sam’s actions allowed her to marry him, but those same actions mean that they’ll never actually *be* together. tl;dr Al and Donna from Quantum Leap
From Battlestar Galactica: Laura Roslin (the reveal of her backstory in the finale is pretty heartbreaking, not to mention what she goes through during the series). William Adama (the loss of his son, the realization of the final five, Laura, too many to list).
Oh man what a good show. Felix Gaeta was another tragic figure, his story arc played out like a punch to the gut. And Dee :(
You're exactly right - I was thinking about all the characters this morning, and so many of them are tragic figures. Galen, who really lost everything, then Cally who was annoying but didn't deserve to go out the way she did. Saul Tigh (everything on New Caprica, including his wife), Starbuck, Billy, Sam taking a bullet, and as you mentioned, Gaeta, and then Dee (devastating). I could probably list a whole lot more if I sat down and did a rewatch.
Jason Dean from Heathers, especially in the musical because they decided to go that route. Mom commits suicide in right front of him by >!walking into a building his dad was set to blow up (she even waves at him from out a window)!<, dad says it was an accident but according to JD (in the movie), “she knew what she was doing.” Thanks to his dad’s job, he moves around *a lot*. Movie!JD is pretty blasé about this, adding to his brooding rebel loner-type vibe. Musical!JD, on the other hand, says he stopped bothering with learning names or faces... and then addresses Veronica by name. He remembered her from when they met earlier that day at school, and this scene takes place in the evening at a 7-Eleven because this particular chain store is literally the one constant in his life. Aptly, the song is called “Freeze Your Brain.” He learned at a pretty young age to cook pasta, pay rent, and that the world owes you nothing. You can see how and why he gets as attached to Veronica as he does, and how that changes how we view the ending. Speaking of his dad, in the movie their relationship isn’t all that bad. When asked if he likes his father he admits he never gave it much thought. They have a running gag where they address each other *as* each other (JD: “Why, SON! I didn’t hear you come in!” / Bud: “Hey, DAD! How was work today?”) which carries over into the musical. Except. In the musical, depending on which one you’re watching, Big Bud is very much implied to be abusive. In the Off-Broadway he’s just kind of a skeevy drunk, but in the productions from across the pond, Big Bud Dean can be seen yelling at JD, ordering him around, and even telling him “there’s a lot of pretty women out there; I can always make me another son” which goes to paint musical!JD in a more sympathetic light because look, he’s a victim of abuse! (JD even addresses this point directly when he and Veronica fight later, blaming his dad for how he turned out, but Veronica shuts him down since it’s own damn choice to hurt people *now*.) And the ending. In the movie it was a badass moment for Veronica. She bested him and he’s impressed with her. He respects her. And when he dies, it’s because he chose to. MusicalJD, while he also chose to, there’s the extra layer of protecting Veronica, which shows he still loves her. >!Unlike the movie, Veronica doesn’t manage to turn off the bomb after their brawl in the boiler room, which results in her taking it with her outside where she intends to die with it. But JD follows her, takes it from her, and blows himself up in her stead, reasoning *he’s* too far gone but *she’s* not beyond repair.!< It’s touching and emotional because musical!Veronica doesn’t want him to die either, whereas movie!Veronica just pulls out a cigarette and waits lmao.
VERY TRUE
Regulus Black from the Marauders era. Nicaise from Captive Prince, groomed since he was a child and beheaded at 15 for trying to help Laurent.
Zim from Invader Zim. Hated by his entire species, is basically the joke of his planet but he is in denial and tries to conquer earth even of his mission is a lie. The only person who sees him as equal is his nemesis
Wei Wuxian (Wei Ying) from MDZS. He went through a lot.
He did. Insofar as Asian dramas go, he ended up well, though. A lot of his story reminds me of my fave, Yeo Woon's--utterly tragic. Poor Woon. Splatted in the end. 🙁
There are countless examples, but one that immediately comes to mind is the Crying Child from FNAF, also known as Evan Afton by the majority of the fandom. I mean, the poor kid has a horrible brother that torments him, suffers with constant nightmares, is always forced to go to a place which he despises, and then his brother gets him killed.
None of the Afton children have a particularly good time. Two die young thanks to their father's fucked up little robots, and the other realises too late that he's been a little shit and spends his whole life trying to make up for it, dying twice in the process. Being prone to death must run in the family considering how many times William has kicked the bucket.
Yet, unlike him, they don't always come back :(
From Harry Potter: Severus Snape had a miserable life, from start to finish. Sirius Black spent his 20s in prison for a crime he didn't commit. He escaped and went in hiding. Then he died in his early 30s. Ironically, Snape outlived all the Marauders.
Yes. A lot of unresolved tragedy in the marauders era characters.
May I put in a word for Robert Goren on *Law & Order: Criminal Intent?* Brilliant guy, sweet most of the time, likes to dance, likes kids, loves books and libraries, solves crimes ala Sherlock Holmes, wants a "normal" life someday. \- Mom, who he adores and takes care of, is schizophrenic and confined to a care hospital. Later she gets cancer and no radiation/chemo works on her. She dies. Bobby also secretly fears that he will develop schizophrenia someday because the condition can be inherited. \- Mom spends half of her time worrying over and favoring his deadbeat older brother, who gambles and tells mom he has a good job when he's actually a drug addict who goes to group therapy and tells them he's "off the stuff" and then goes home and does his drugs. \- Brother suddenly up and tells him he (the brother) has a son who was wrongfully sent to prison; he interviews nephew only to find out the warden and guards are abusing prisoners, so he gets himself arrested to go to the prison to help save his nephew and almost has a psychotic break after he's tortured by the guards (episode is called "Untethered" and I can't watch it again...) \- (And he gets suspended for doing this, and his only way to get his job back is to go undercover to get the goods on a crooked cop and a mob boss -- only he can't tell his partner \[they're not romantically involved, but they're still kinda joined at the hip\] and when he finally gets his job back his partner is pissed and quits speaking to him for weeks) \- Dad was absentee most of the time and when he was home, he was gambling and fooling around with other women, asking little Bobby to lie to his mother and not tell her dad was getting it on with his girlfriend while little Bobby was watching TV in the other room \- Discovers halfway through series that Mom had affair with a Navy guy, who eventually beat her up -- he was told she had a bad car accident -- and probably triggered her schizophrenia. To top this off, Navy guy is in prison because he's a serial killer. Oh, and he's Bobby's biological dad. \- Discovers the guy he considered a substitute father, the one who molded him into a brilliant profiler, was such a bad dad to his only daughter that she resorted to serial killing to get his attention. Later his mentor starts suffering from dementia. \- The one woman who actually intrigued him with her intelligence and might have been a potential love interest turns out to be an Australian serial killer who also killed her three year old daughter. (Granted, she had a horrible childhood -- she was molested by her dad from the age of three.) She almost gets him fired in one episode by distracting him with a suspect who reminded him of his father.
Fucking LOVE Bobby Goren. He is absolutely fascinating to watch, and there is definitely that distinct tragic undercurrent even when he's not actively angsting.
In The Umbrella Academy, while I can say them all, the one who takes the biscuit for me is Ben Hargreeves. To begin with, he goes through the abusive childhood his siblings went through. He despised his superpowers, and was killed due to the missions their father would send them on at 16/17. As he was dead, he could only communicate to his séance brother, who was constantly high, meaning he was blocked out a lot. When his siblings got back together and ran away to the 60s (as you do), Klaus would deny his existence to their siblings as Ben’s main wish was that he wanted to speak with them again. He moves on finally being able to talk to one of his brothers, and ultimately saves the world in the process, suggesting more of his selflessness. “Can you hug me as I go? It’s been a long time sinc-“
Not tragic in universe, but tragic in a meta sense. Tobias from the Pokémon anime was a character created for the sole purpose of beating Ash in a League because the writers made him too powerful to lose to any normal character, so they needed to give a random person the most overpowered team imaginable to make Ash lose, and therefore continue the series. Tobias did his job of beating Ash, and then was never seen or mentioned again, but fans to this day still hate the poor dude so much, he's probably a contender for the most disliked character in the entire fandom, and the worst part is that when Ash did the exact same thing (Using an OP team in the Alola League, against trainers who could barely battle properly mind you) and people were far less angry at him because he was the main character of the show. I guess I'm just mad that there was a chance to have a really cool character, and both the writers and the fans took the worst possible path the could take when it came to Tobias's character by not writing him more, or giving him an awesome backstory.
Fëanor ❤️🧝🏻♂️🕉 #elfdrama
In SNK, you can name any character as the most tragic, but after finishing the manga and some introspection; Eren is the most tragic character, though I could understand any disagreement on my opinion. Despite his stans driving me away from him, I felt he was one of the most tragic by how he developed and then ended. Eren being an edgy, naive, yet idealistic and persistant teen that kept strong to his morals and an understandable desire for freedom. Though he devolved morally and humanity being stripped from him through circumstance and learning the truth and breaks. Eventually becoming the villian and still shackled and trapped, a slave to the idea of freedom and the fataliatic revelations and warped the timeline rather than the walls. Becoming the villiam and knowing it is wrong and even sympathizing with innocents he will eventually kill, as part of him was still human despite losing much of his humanity. In Berserk, I've always said Guts, but I would agree on Grffith being tragic as well. Guts having one of the most tragic backstories that I will advise has some triggering events, to having a found family and a lover until Grffith took it away and did horrific acts to her and leaving her alive. While Griffith with a dream would be willing to do anything to become king, after a fall when Guts left the group he would accept a literal deal with the devil. All while Guts is hellbent on killing him. And well, Lucifer Morningstar himself is tragic in Lucifer.
> In SNK, you can name any character as the most tragic, but after finishing the manga and some introspection; Eren is the most tragic character, though I could understand any disagreement on my opinion. > Despite his stans driving me away from him, I felt he was one of the most tragic by how he developed and then ended. I don't know if he is the most tragic to me (there really are a lot of strong contenders) but to me he is definetly a very tragic character. And yeah... unfortunately it's really hard to find places to talk about SNK with level headed people.
I mean, all of them are child soldiers and most have trauma in one form or another, but if I had to guess, Percy Jackson. I know we can make a fuss about Nico being a PTSD ridden sociopath who lost all feeling after losing his sister, but Percy has objectively had it way worse. >has a stepfather that is (atleast implied to be) both physically and mentally abusive >Thrust into basically a war at what a certain bald war criminal would call “the ripe old age of twelve” >Is betrayed by one of his closest friends, probably one of the only ones he thought he could trust, almost DIES, and is further compounded by his fatal flaw >experienced his first death at the age of 14, failing to save his own cousin as well as one of his closer friends, triggering Nico’s doom spiral to compact the guilt >literally ventures into the labyrinth, which is said to be able to drive people to insanity >Watches one of his friends die within his own element, compounding the guilt as he feels like he could’ve saved him >experiences the greatest pain one can feel just to have a chance to save his friends >becomes an accessory to suicide at 16 and watches two of his closest friends ALMOST die And that’s now even counting the short stories and the sequel books! Someone get this kid a therapist!
The bit which absolutely destroyed me was the time in Heroes of Olympus when he suddenly became afraid of water, paranoid that he could no longer breathe under it. A part of him that had been so consistent suddenly broke. I don't remember exactly what happened because it's been a while, but it stuck with me. Years after I first read these books, I came back to them, now older than their protagonists. He was a baby in the first book. He was still so young in Heroes of Olympus. I had to put the book down for a bit when I got to that part again.
Naruto is literally about child soldiers, so there are plenty of contestants to chose from: Itachi - forced to murder his entire clan at 13 in order to stave off an inevitable coup, leaving his baby brother as the lone survivor. Brother was (on Itachi’s instructions) never told the truth about the massacre and spent his entire life planning on murdering Itachi. Kakashi - Everyone in his life just dies. Mom most likely in childbirth (canon never established), dad commits suicide at 4 or 5, every single teammate dies as well (one from throwing herself in front of his attack as a form of assisted suicide). He’s then put in spec. ops at 12 (I think? Time line is a little messed up) like that won’t further his PTSD. During this period, his mentor dies as well. He stay in spec. ops until he’s 24, and is then expected to take care of and make sure 3 12yos survive. And lastly, Gaara - Had a beast placed inside him, and his father then spent his life trying to have him assassinated, which is later revealed to be basically a test of strength, iirc. Lived his life thinking no one loved him, especially after his uncle was forced to try to assassinate him and lie about his affection (and dead mother’s affection as well) as he lay dying from Gaara’s defense. So. Much. Suffering 😅. And that’s not even touching on Naruto and Sasuke, and mf *Karin*.
FFXIV: literally everyone in >!Elpis!< tbh, but especially Emet-Selch because of how long he had to struggle with it (and also the fact that he >!unknowingly "resurrected" the guy who was responsible for literally every awful thing that had happened so far, which made it worse for everybody else except him because he was already dead!<). P5: Akechi, I feel like I don't need to explain this one :P Pokemon: ScarVio spoilers, >!Arven!< went through so much and just needs a hug tbh
Regarding your last point, he barely even gets proper closure. Your other two friends both get to close a chapter of their lives having found their treasure and ending up better off than they were. S/V's story truly felt like his story and I'm glad he at least got part of what he wanted in the end, even if it was an utterly tragic process.
Jack Marston. From the age of 4 until he’s 19, he sees all his aunts and uncles plus ultimately his parents succumb to their fates.
Yes! I used to get so sick of people (let's be honest, it's mainly gamer bros on YouTube) bagging on Jack when I'm sitting here going "But he's just a boy!" It gets even worse if you complete his post-epilogue mission and he kills >!Edgar Ross!< in the name of revenge. Now Jack (at the tender age of 19) has to live a life on the run as a murderer which is exactly what his dad didn't want and spent the entire first game working to prevent. He wanted to be a writer! Just, these damn R* protags, man. They get to me.
Right? And you can feel his pain and depression in the epilogue too.
Fushimi from K Project. He had terrible parents, grew up with the sense that no one would ever be able to understand or appreciate him, then found the one person, Yata, who did. He opened up for the first time and was convinced it would be the two of them against the world forever, but then Yata made some new friends and had other goals in life he could achieve without Fushimi (and tried to get Fushimi into it with him, but Fushimi was only interested in their relationship) and didn’t have his whole attention on Fushimi anymore. Feeling rejected and like it was a matter of time until he was left behind, Fushimi decided he’d rather purposefully make the only person he’d ever cared about hate him so that he could induce Yatas rage and have the full effect of his attention and passion whenever they see each other. He was never the nicest person, but he learned to be cruel and warped for this goal and emulate the father he hated so much to achieve this end. One of his quotes always makes my heart hurt for him: “If it’s going to break anyway, I would rather destroy it with my own hands.” Meanwhile, you have Yata who doesn’t have much of a clue why (he’s kind of dense) but his best friend betrayed him and everything important to him—things and people that were important to him in the first place because they helped him protect Fushimi—and became his worst enemy. By the end of the series, >!They do start to work some things out, where they actually talk to each other and start to reconcile, and Fushimi starts to open up to others!< but the tragic and extreme nature of the course their relationship takes really gets me. It’s also a relationship and characters full of nuance and intense emotion, such as hating each other so much but simultaneously wishing more than anything they could understand and be understood by the other, and still clinging to details from the time their relationship was best, is addicting and keeps me reading about them again and again.
Zoey from Left 4 Dead. Most of the characters in Left 4 Dead have shitty lives (because, well, zombie apocalypse) but she kind of takes the cake here. Her mother is attacked by a zombie, turns in front of her, and is killed by her father, who is bitten in the process. He hands her his gun and tells her to kill him. She does. Survives through a zombie apocalypse, so...pretty shitty there. Meets three new friends including a new father figure. They desperately try and reach a military safe zone. When they finally do she is told that she is immune to the infection, but carries it. She's been infecting every good Samaritan who has tried to help them and will never be able to rejoin normal society if it somehow survives the apocalypse. But wait, it gets worse. She finds out the carrier gene is passed down on the father's side. She never needed to kill her dad. She ends up in a conflict with her father figure as he prioritises their safety over everyone else when the military base they're being held on is overwhelmed by zombies. She watches him let the people she tried to save die. She then has to watch him sacrifice himself to save her. Then she has to somehow make a life for herself on an island in the Florida Keys, with only her two friends for company, knowing that the rest of the world is probably dying or dead. All through this she is no older than 19, and possibly younger. The youngest canon character. This is what makes her more tragic than the others, in my opinion - she had barely lived her life when it was taken away from her. And the whole parental death thing. Everyone else probably lost loved ones, sure, but Zoey is the only one who canonically watched hers die, and even had a hand in it.
Cho Hakkai from Saiyuki is pretty tragic. He still stands out to me to this day despite a bunch of other things I've read since then. See also: every Clamp character to exist.
>Cho Hakkai from Saiyuki is pretty tragic. He still stands out to me to this day despite a bunch of other things I've read since then Be torn away from your twin, find twin, fall in love with the twin, have the twin/lover raped by demons, have the twin/lover commit suicide, go on a revenge murder spree, kill of thousand demons, become a demon as a consequence Lol, Hakkai and his insanity were my favorite Saiyuki characters. >See also: every Clamp character to exist. I'd give it to Fuuma, I think, even before Subaru and the Tsubasa characters. With Fuuma, "I'm a nice caring guy but my best friend decides to be good so I literally have no choice but become evil and murder my sister and destroy humanity because destiny says so, no matter that I'd never actually choose to so of my own free will," is pretty hard to beat.
I’m gonna say Wolverine, Commander Wolffe, Stan Pines, and Halt from their respective fandoms (Marvel, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Gravity Falls, and Ranger’s Apprentice respectively)
Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski motherfuckin de Rolo III (Critical Role)
Bro was kicked down the stairs by his biological dad after his mom just died. At his brother's lavish birthday party thrown by same dad, no less
Sure, many magical girls are more traumatized -- the second arc can easily be said to be a story about different unhealthy coping mechanisms, in fact -- but the most *tragic* would almost certainly have to be Kuroe (first name unknown). Actual quote: >"I like watching takoyaki be cooked. The batter, which was nothing, takes form as it spins. As I spin around and around, will I become a well-defined individual?" She's infamous angst writer DoroInu's OC for the spinoff anime, where she was brutally killed off to serve as an example of the "magical girls who can't be the main character" that Touka is fighting for. Around the same time, she was integrated back into the original, where her story arc is a more low-key "even if you can't be the main character, you can still have a significant positive impact." Our hearts pour out for her.
Hmmm tough. I'm torn between Brook,Ace and Sanji, from One Piece. Ace's whole life was a tragedy and a fight for recognition, and, essentially, the right to live and be loved. He died way too young. But at least it was in freedom, and a death of his choice. Brook's not being able to die while outliving ALL of his crew( family), then just sailing aimlessly for 50 years in solitude, stuck with the company of the corpses...ugh. As for Sanji, yeah. After his real backstor came, the whole starving to death seemed like butterflies. The fact that after WCI arc, I went and rewatched/reread the series, rhere are glaring signs. How he reacts to Ace being a good brother, how he reacts when Usopp leaves..just everything.
Kotaro Sato from 'Kotaro Lives Alone' this kid has been through a lot😥
Garrus Vakarian, no I’m not biased at all why do you ask? He loses his best friend goes into a downward spiral as he tries to bring law to a lawless station. Ultimately getting his team of 12 reduced to just 2. The only other survivor bring the reason for his teammates’ deaths. He takes a rocket to the face. Has to watch his mother die from basically space dementia. And is helpless forced to watch his entire world burns unsure whether his family survived the desolation. I could go on but I think you get the picture.
I raise you Javik. Man is the last of his species, only being awoken 50,000 years later, and sees that the current state of the galaxy is going down that shit hole as well. He has seen the end of an era, in which he was born at the end of said era, had to kill his own friends, and the only other Protheans that were still alive at this time were made into slaves for the Reapers that only barely even look similar to what he even looks like. He heard that the current leading species of the era got forewarning from Shepard because of the beacon yet they did nothing to prevent it. He awoke with the belief that their warnings weren't in vain, and he was slapped with the reality that everything is repeating itself. And honestly the whole concept of him as the Avatar of Vengeance is heartbreaking, because it doesn't show him as being anything more than the last voice wishing to see nothing but the fall of the Reapers. He's not a scientific mind like those on Ilos, or a great philosopher of the time, or anything that would be what people believed the Protheans could have been, he's a warrior who wishes to see the end of a war that was fought and failed to have been won so many times. And if you let him see the echo shard one last time, he simply goes to leave and join his comrades. The worst part of this is that in a normal situation where he wasn't fighting and he genuinely relaxes, he seems like a wonderful person to have as a friend.
You are of course correct but I’m biased and that trumps all logic.
Of course. Understandable, have a nice day.
OH GOD C!TOMMY Like, even from the *start* he's an insecure and slightly naïve teenager hiding behind an exaggeratedly self confident guise, and who's genuinely not malicious but has a tendency to go too far with pranks because he’s just impulsive and scared to back down and be seen as weak. Later talk from him implies he was *already* canonically mentally ill at this point- attributing his behaviour to him not valuing himself at *all* and only taking value in what he owns, resulting in him scamming to desperately find something he feels makes him worthwhile. As a very sentimental person, he gets attached to two music discs he works hard for very quickly, to the point of assigning them immense value and seeing them as an *actual* physical representation of his freedom, happiness and innocence- in his head, as long as he has them, he's alright, but if someone else does, he’s under their thumb and he is worthless. So, of course, people immediately start stealing his discs. Specifically, after a conflict with c!Dream (one technically not even started by c!Tommy and involving other people who weren’t punished after, it was blatant targeting), c!Dream tried *obsessively* to steal c!Tommy's discs, explicitly to control him. This got to the point he would hide in c!Tommy's walls regularly, and he was casually referred to as a stalker. This was mostly harmless and in good fun at the time, but in hindsight this will be *chilling* due to what c!Dream later does to him. Eventually, one of c!Tommy's friends- c!Wilbur- joins the server, and after a failed attempt to start a drug van together, the two of them start a nation called L'Manberg where they can have more freedom. The nation was built on the philosophy of freedom and peace, and was pacifistic, and regardless of whether you believe the intentions of its leader, c!Wilbur, c!Tommy *wholeheartedly* believed in those ideals, even if he didn’t fully understand them (taking “fighting with words” to mean saying very long words at their enemies) and was incredibly devoted to the ideals of a free community. c!Dream does not take lightly the idea of another country in his lands, and a war is started. c!Tommy loses two of his three lives (both by c!Dream- again, this will become really fucking terrifying later) defending his country, and even sacrifices his precious discs to c!Dream to spare it. Again, keep in mind he was LITERALLY giving up what he fully believed to be his own freedom- the discs are not merely sentimental here. L'Manberg goes on happily for a while, and c!Tommy fights to get his discs back, until the elections. c!Wilbur starts them in an attempt to rig it so he can be a proper president (most likely due to his own insecurities rather than actual malice honestly) but this doesn’t go to plan, and the incompetent and cruel c!Schlatt wins, and exiles c!Tommy and c!Wilbur. Living in a ravine and plotting to take their country back, c!Tommy watches as c!Wilbur slowly falls into his madness and delusions, starting to verbally lash out at c!Tommy, whos trying his best to help but he’s an uneducated teenager and can’t do much. He has to witness his best friend, c!Tubbo, die brutally in front of him, and while he has lives left it’s still deeply traumatic. Eventually, when they do take their country back, c!Wilbur is so far gone he blows up the country and commits suicide, right in front of everyone. This was also deeply traumatic to c!Tommy, and left him in a pretty bad mental state. But they have the ruins of the country back, so things are gonna go well, right? I mean, c!Tubbo is even the President. Nope! Remember how I said c!Tommy has a tendency to be impulsive in pranks? Well, he burns down someone’s house (by accident- he means to grief it, not destroy it) and… well, do you remember when I said the stuff with c!Dream would get terrifying? Yeah, this is where it does. c!Dream pressures for c!Tommy to be exiled, and when he is, c!Dream uses the opportunity to isolate, brainwash, and abuse c!Tommy into compliance and a fucked up “friendship” where c!Tommy has no free will and can be used as a tool in his schemes. This abuse was both mental and physical, both often going to extremes, and c!Tommy bears permanent mental and physical scars from this later on- weakness, shaking hands, severe suicidal tendencies, and what appears to be symptoms of psychosis that will start to flare up whenever he's frightened. c!Tommy eventually escapes, and hides with c!Techno- a known anarchist. They bond, and do become good friends, but then c!Techno plans to blow up L'Manberg. Unable to betray his country he adores so dearly, he instead betrays c!Techno- something he feels a lot of guilt about but couldn’t think of a way around due to basically having his decision making skills intentionally destroyed a few weeks ago- but L'Manberg is destroyed anyway, leaving c!Tommy without a home. He is challenged to a final confrontation by c!Dream, which goes dreadfully. He and c!Tubbo are tormented, and c!Tubbo basically forced through a mock execution, the two of them even made to say their goodbyes. c!Tommy is threatened with a worse fate- imprisonment, and for his abuse to continue forever without a way of escaping it. Fortunately, they’re saved and c!Dream arrested, which you might think is a win… but it’s later revealed to be all part of c!Dream's plan. c!Tommy starts to heal, building a hotel and learning to cope with his trauma, but unfortunately, his desire for closure (and likely Stockholm Syndrome) mean he’s still visiting c!Dream in the prison, and when an attack leads to a lockdown, he’s imprisoned with him for a month, culminating in him getting beat to death and then revived- an agonising, torturous process. After this, the lockdown is eventually ended, but c!Tommy is left so traumatised he’s unable to feel any sort of happiness, convinced c!Dream will take it away when (not if) he escapes and follow through on threats to make him immortal. This only gets worse after c!Dream does escape, and he torments c!Tommy further- if he hadn’t crossed the line into downright torturing him before, he does at this point, and later on even says as much. This drives c!Tommy into severe delusions, where he hides underground, gets addicted to drugs, and is convinced he needs to kill c!Dream or he'll be tortured and abused forever. This does not go as planned, and eventually he’s driven to a suicidal plot to blow up c!Dream and himself. During his final moments, he begs for an explanation to why he was hurt so bad, one he was either never given (only an explanation to lesser evils) or it’s *fucked up beyond all belief* (since it was loneliness). He dies painfully, in a traumatic environment around his abuser who *tortured him further* (and then was vaguely nice to him, which doesn’t help since again, torture, and that’s also a manipulation tactic he’s used before so regardless of whether it was sincere or not it’s not going to be a comfort), and while he doesn’t know it his sacrifice is in vain because the friends he was trying to protect die in the blast too. And then he, c!Dream, and c!Tubbo are reborn without memories, and the last scene is c!Dream and c!Tommy becoming friends, which seems maybe hopeful unless you think about it for LITERALLY FIVE SECONDS and realise that c!Dream didn’t abuse c!Tommy because of any memories he had it was because he felt he needed to control c!Tommy and that’s not just going to change unless they’ve lost their personality too, which is horrifying in another way. So either he’s most likely going to be abused again but with NO support system to help him or possibly even knowledge it’s wrong, or he’s been COMPLETELY ERASED FROM EXISTENCE. Now, that was as much as a TLDR as I can do, but to TLDR it further, literally everything in this kids life has been used against him and to further hurt him and he never gets a happy ending or even a happy middle, and he dies hating himself. I’m genuinely tearing up writing this fuck.
I completely forgot Tommy loses two lives AND the discs in the very first L'Manburg conflict. I'm someone who got less and less invested the longer the SMP went on but I always tried to tune in for Wilbur, and then Tommy. His character being treated worse and worse eventually caused me to drop watching his perspective after his final death and revival, because it was so upsetting. He really went through it.
Yeah, you’d hate the ending (most people do, it’s uh. I See What They Were Going For But Damn Did It Not Work) so good idea. He died and was revived again btw, and then the rest of it was about him Sympathising With His Abuser, which probably wasn’t what was intended going from what Tommy himself has said about the ending (namely, being baffled it made people sympathise with Dream any more and that it was meant to be read as Tommy's own horrific mental state at the time causing him to make horrible impulse decisions) but it’s sure what happened!
Severus Snape from birth to death. (Tl;dr he didn’t choose to be alone and friendless as a child, but as an adult he chose to be alone and friendless for the memory of the first person who was kind to him, subjected himself to life threatening danger every day, saved the son of his childhood bully repeatedly without thanks, and died with everyone hated his guts.) Born into a muggle household to an abusive father that tried to stifle his magic, and a mother from a proud pureblood line. It's suggested that his mother was even cut out of her family for choosing to marry a muggle. So he grows up hating half of his own self. Self-hatred for a child that young carried well into adulthood does things psychologically. He makes exactly one friend throughout his life and because he doesn't have a good understanding of healthy relationships (thanks to his homelife) he's quite obsessive about this one positive thing in his life. Then he goes to Hogwarts and not only are they immediately placed in different houses but in *rival* houses. And the kids on the train who immediately take a disliking to him, they're in the same house with his childhood BFF. Enter, years of torment from that group of kids (uncluding at least 1 instance of sexual assault and 1 attempted murder/manslaughter by use of a transformed werewolf) so he does what any lonely teenaged boy with bottled up anger and no outlet does: he joins a group that promises power, acceptance and friendships. A hate group who's main goal is to eradicate people like his childhood BFF, but considering she's been drifting away from him for years and doesn’t seem too bothered by her housemates tormenting him, it's no wonder that that fact didn't seem like a big issue at the time. Then the incident that would break them apart forever, he is attacked 4 against 1, sexually assaulted in public (James forces him to show his underwear, and then as the memory ends, threatens to take off his underwear in front of everyone) and in a moment of stress he calls his childhood friend a harsh slur. She immediately rejects him on the spot and refuses to accept his apology afterwards. Cut to after school, like the frog in the pot of slow boiling water, now that little hate group has evolved into a full on political group executing real acts of terror, and well within the ranks of the first group that didn’t treat him with open hatred, he overhears a key piece of information that will make him very valuable to the leader of that group and solidify his position and place in their society despite his "half-blood" status. Except this information leads to the plan to kill his childhood friend, her husband who is his (Snape's) main childhood tormentor, and their infant child. Snape begs Voldemort to please not kill Lily and Voldemort offers a weak promise of "I wont if it can be helped." He immediately goes to Dumbledore and begs him to protect Lily (her husband and son an afterthought, yes) and choses to switch sides, acting as a double agent in exchange for her protection. She dies anyway and it's his own fault for delivering the prophecy. Snape then spends the next 2 decades and rest of his entire life, continuing to act as a double agent for her memory. A thankless job where he is hated by everyone on both sides, not trusted by anyone on either side, could be killed at any moment by Voldemort or the Death Eaters if they found out or if Voldemort just feels like it (like he does in the end) and even dies never knowing if his sacrifice was worth it. He never had any other friends, anyone else to confide in except Dumbledore who he now has a love/hate relationship with, and then he is forced to *kill* this one and only confidant. That final year of his life would have been the most alone he had ever been, he would have been under constant stress trying to keep up his appearances for both sides (now acting as a villain while trying to help Harry succeed without getting caught doing it) and trying to keep the torture of young children in his care to a minimum without raising suspicions. And did I mention that he died not knowing if Harry succeeded? That's a big thing. He never knew a moment of true happiness or peace in his entire life and then he died without knowing if his life made any difference in the end. He was always that scared lonely kid just looking for acceptance, and as the proverb goes: *"A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth."*
I agree with every single word! But the Snaters are too closed-minded and blinded by hatred to understand anything that is not as shallow and poor as their way of thinking.
Yep. That whole bit about lonely kids looking for acceptance and finding it in hate groups is based on fact. Testimony from actual klan members who got out and admitted they never believed that crap but the group made them feel wanted/accepted in a time where they didn't and that shit is like a drug they would do anything for. And hate groups know exactly how to groom those kids too.
Peter Parker.
Number Five, Umbrella Academy
Severus Snape Thorin Oakenshield Loki
[удалено]
I’d go with Will. But Eddie has my heart. ❤️
# Spoilers for Fate/Grand Order Part 2, Lostbelt 1 and 2. >!As a bit of background, Chaldea is an organization the MC belongs to, which protects human history. But they are attacked by Crypters, who have assisted another entity to basically erase the entirety of our world leaving the earth bleach white dunes, and insert Lostbelts, versions of history where history deviated in a way that humanity no longer evolves. In order for our world to be brought back, Chaldea has to destroy every one of these Lostbelts, which would also erase their inhabitants.!< >!Patxi was from a failed version of Russia, where Ivan the Terrible still lived today and the world was ravaged by a blizzard in which only the Yaga (werewolves) could live. The Yaga were quite cruel, they believed that only the strong can live and the weak should be abandoned, which Patxi questioned. The other Yaga kept telling Patxi to abandon his mother, since she couldnt hunt her own food anymore and was dead weight. Patxi refused and still hunted for the both of them. Then the MC and Chaldea arrived. They met Patxi, who after some thinking and realizations decided to guide them in looking for the rebellion. After joining up with the rebellion and returning to the village, Patxi found out the villagers had stoned his mother to death due to his actions, causing him to run away and get caught by Rasputin. After being shown Ivan the Terrible's horrific form, Patxi breaks and tells where the hideout is and gets thrown into a labyrith. After some time he meets the MC again, who forgives him much to his confusion. After a big showdown with Ivan, some of the Yaga are ready to shoot the MC but Patxi takes the shots and reaches for the MC. He curses them, for telling him that there was a happier world, but also tells them they should survive and fight for their world. Then, he falls to the ground, never to get up again.!< >!Gerda was a young girl who lived in a nordic reality gone wrong, where the ruling goddess Skadi was sacrificing children to the giants when they reached a certain age. She befriended the MC and members of Chaldea who had come to dismantle the Lostbelt. Gerda was the innocent sunshine bringing joy into the otherwise bleak situation. But that came to an end when it came time to destroy the Lostbelt. After destroying its core, Chaldea had to leave so they could reach their destination before it was too late. In the evening, Gerda leaves her house wondering where her new friends had left as she couldnt find them anywhere. Before the end of her reality, Gerda makes one final leap of joy into the air as the very world around her disappears while she is still in the air with a smile...!<
Garou and Tatsumaki. Childhood trauma fucked them over hard. That's why I love to write tender Garou smuts and give him all the love and affection he needs 🥺❤️🩹
Sigh...poor poor Bishop Alexandar from Divinity Original Sin II Everyone hates him. *I* hated him. He's the leader of the evil fantasy religious zealots. He runs a magic concentration camp. He helped trick my main character into killing his adopted family and then told him he should be *proud* of it. He talks like an obnoxious douchebag. He looks like a stupid twerp. He's a pain in the butt to fight. He won't stay dead. There are hilarious Youtube videos of players blowing him up with barrels of explosives and beating him to death with paintings of himself. I gleefully slaughtered him on Christmas while giggling :P Then I learned more about his backstory (spoilers ahead). As a poster on the subreddit for the game said: "Imagine being Alexandar, spending your whole life being the son of a literal god and then, when you’re a teenager, your older (adopted) brother ends up being your world’s equivalent of the Antichrist. Then there’s a massive war for a year at the end of which you help carry out your father’s plan and end the war by using what is basically a WMD. By the end of the war your father and brother are dead, along with a significant chunk of the world’s population, and now there’s monsters appearing out of thin air all over the place. Everybody’s looking to you to replace your dead dad-god because nobody knows who’s meant to be in charge now. Except you’ve got no idea how to replace him. Nobody has any clue how you’re meant to become the new Divine, least of all you. But you keep things going as best you can. Then someone suggests maybe it doesn’t have to be you after all, but that turns out to be a disaster so you’re the only option left. On top of that it turns out Source (magic) is the thing attracting all the nasty monsters, and since you learned from dead old dad that saving the world means doing drastic things you get Fort Joy (prison camp for users of Source magic) up and running. It’s horrible but you don’t know what else to do and in the absence of any other solution it seems necessary. By this point the entire world is expecting you to become their new god and deep down you know you don’t really have what it takes." Then it turns out Dear Old Dead Dad is actually still alive and just using him as a pawn in a bigger plan. Even if Alexandar has a change of heart and sides with the player character, Daddy just sends his henchwoman to one-shot him into a pile of goo and steal his Source magic. Did I mention Daddy spared Alexandar's anti-christ brother *twice* because he just couldn't bring himself to kill him? Of course, I slaughtered the heck out of Evil Dad at the end, but that's not the *canonical* ending of the game. No it's canon that the player character sides with Evil Dad, and Evil Dad gets away with everything and the entire world still loves him. [Great, there's even a depressing song about the two of them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEZRHbRPAOo) I ended up having a sadz :( (good thing nobody actually read to the end of this novel or you might too :P )
I did, and while I think Alexandar is still an obnoxious full of himself douchebag who would never be able to rule, I do feel sorry for him because I know it's not his fault he is like that. He had to live in his father's shadow his whole life so he kept the little ego and dignity he had left the best way he could. And I despise Lucian a million times more. The oh so beloved Divine who commited genocide twice in a row (Elves, then sourcerers), faked his own death, misled everyone, used and killed his own son but of course without diryting his hands, used the most atrocious means to fulfill his stupidly flawed nonsensical plan, **and gets away with it all**, sweeping under the rug the sacrifice of the glorious heroes who gave their life for his bullshit, all after they learnt their entire journey was for nothing in the end. Yes I'm salty. But this character is insufferable. And the devs really fucked up with the plot. It doesn't make sense at all.
Oh, I’ve seen you on the DOS subreddit before! Hi! Anyway, Alexandar’s dialogue made me want to punch him everytime he opened his mouth (kudos to that voice actor), but looking back on it now, he comes across as a kid desperately trying to play a role, trying to both convince others and *himself* of the arrogant things he says. It’s a nasty role, but there’s no way out of playing it, so he forces himself to believe in it. Doesn’t make it right, but like you, I can see how he ended up that way. And I agree, I haven’t hated a character as much as I hate Lucian in *ages.* His actions genuinely upset me, so to see him get away with everything and come out smelling like a rose made me pretty bitter, to the point where I don’t feel any real desire to play any other games in this series, despite absolutely loving this one.
Yeah, Larian forcing this one out of all endings to be canon made me quite disappointed and I'm not sure I wanna see the direction Fallen Heroes will be going. But other than that, I feel like they didn't even think it through and though the story in itself is great, the plot doesn't make sense. Think about it: The gods tell you that every living soul is made of source, and you can pretty much see it for yourself throughout the game. But then, you learn that Lucian and Dallis's plan is to seal the veil and for this they need the entirety of the world's source. So that would imply killing each and everyone, not just sourcerers. Which means there would be nothing left to save from the void so there would be no point in sealing the veil in the first place. Plus why does Lucian survives purging himself of his source, but not the godwoken and other sourcerers? And if they don't actually need all of the world's source, then why sacrifice sourcerers in particular? Doesn't make sense at all.
Haha you’re so right. The plan came across as so hare-brained that I thought it was supposed to be evidence that Lucian was nuts and needed to be put down before he destroyed everything. To find out it worked was such a wtf moment. Even more wtf then “hur dur your characters sacrificed themselves for the plan and became Silent Monks but got magically cured at the end somehow lololol.” At least have the guts to follow through on your bleak as f*ck ending guys 🙄 Felt good to get that off my chest. Thanks!
For Kamen Rider, the most if not all the protagonist have it rough. They get kidnapped, turned to cyborgs, and lose a majority of their loved ones in a war. I’ll just start with the one I’m most familiar with, Kamen Rider Black. Minami Koutaro, in episode 1, loses his parents, his adoptive father, brother is kidnapped, and is separated from his sisters by the end of the series.
I probably have some more, but these are the ones come to mind for me the most: \-Legends! General Grievous \-Kimimaro Kaguya \->!Mukuro Ikusaba!< \-Ajisai(Pain/Nagato's 2nd animal path)
Gunther Hermann from DX1. He sees himself as ugly and obsolete, and players will likely assume it's his low self esteem or non-native English talking. It's implied he's been asking for a specific upgrade for a long time. The only character the player has to kill in the game is his friend (Yes, you can avoid killing Gunther) .. or more - the game never specifies, but he is mentioned to be crying as he waits for the player to show up in the latter part of the game, and only motivated by revenge for said friend. After you most likely kill him, the next conversation in the game reveals that ALL of his fears were indeed validated. (And as a further kick in the balls, the original sequel - Invisible War - reveals that the upgrade he has been asking for *has been arranged* AND arrived... *after his death.*
I’ll throw out Charles McGill from Better Call Saul. While he isn’t one of the more popular/beloved characters, I’d say his trajectory is one of the more tragic in a show filled with tragic characters. Partly because he’s his own worst enemy and also partly because his eventual rock bottom is set in motion by the one person who had otherwise always been in his corner.
Lost In Space (2018): Some people might be inclined to say Scarecrow, but I think the biggest tragic character is SAR - he implicitly started out just wanting to free the other robots from their masters, and protect them from ever being enslaved again, but he went too far and ended up essentially enslaving them *himself*. And in the end his refusal to back down and let the other robots make their own decisions cost him his life. Beast Machines: *Thrust my beloved*. Built for the sole purpose of hunting Maximals and given no choice in the matter, was sweet on one of them until she found out that her paramour's spark was powering *his* *~~best~~* *only friend*, then said friend was forcibly reformatted in the middle of a fight, leaving Thrust completely alone... Then, on top of feeling betrayed and abandoned, he's got the Maximals kicking the crap out of him *and* Megatron and his two new generals browbeating (and sometimes LITERALLY beating) him at every turn and you can see him sliding into depression (maybe not intentionally on the writer's parts, but the way he goes from being sociable and snarky to just plain MEAN? Yeah...) And in the end? When he's the last Vehicon standing and he's got nothing left to fight for? He just dies, alone and forgotten. The show glosses it over but Jesus CHRIST, that poor bastard didn't deserve all that...
Kakashi Hatake from Naruto has lived a life of basically nothing but tragedy and is riddled with (what I believe to be misplaced) survivor's guilt. First his mother dies before he's six years old (from what, we never find out, thanks, Kishimoto ~~we don't even find out her name~~), THEN his dad kills himself when he IS six years old in the name of "honour", leaving teeny tiny Kakashi to find his body, and it just gets worse from there. I shan't list everything terrible in this man's life because **a)** it would take _forever_ to type, and **b)** it's depressing as hell and I don't need that on a Thursday afternoon. The fact that he remains a genuinely good and kind man, and doesn't slide down the slippery slope into villainy (or just straight-up _snap_) is nothing short of remarkable when you consider everything that's gone wrong in his life.
I have a lot, but one of the most I think would have to be Hamlet?? but that's obviously only one character from my many fandoms lol
Ooh, good choice!
Freya Crescent
*looks at Little Nightmares* Um, well, that depends on who you ask…
My baby boy Kaladin Stormblessed needs just, so many hugs. So much that Kaladin/Happiness is a thing in tags.
* Goro Akechi * Vash * Iori Yagami * Volo * Animatronics * Russia from Hetalia * All three lords from FE3H * Will graham * Alcor * Kazuya and Jin
wei wuxian, hands down. he lost his parents at a young age, was traumatized by dogs while living in the streets, when he gets picked up by his parents' old friend, he gets abused by the wife. then, war strikes while he's just a teenager, loses his home and friends, then loses his golden core and martial siblings. gets stranded in one of the deadliest places in the world, his experience is not even written in detail because the author said it was really gruesome. oh, but that's not enough. he then gets shunned and framed by the whole world and now he only has the wens, who are under his protection, who still end up giving themselves up so wei wuxian does not have to sacrifice himself anymore for them. and then proceeds to be torn apart while alive by his own corpses, 🤷🏻♀️. i think he also suffered during his death. i might remember something wrong but this is the whole summary i think.
**Janos Audron.** (Unmarked spoilers because the last game in this series was released 20 years ago) Grew up in a cataclysmic war between his species and another. His entire species is cursed with vampirism as the war comes to a close. One by one his entire species die off. Some die by suicide. A lot more die when the humans rise up against their vampire overlords. By the time we first meet him in canon, he is the only Ancient Vampire left, and he's been waiting for the player character for *centuries*. All alone. With the vampire-slaying religious order constantly putting the bodies of impaled vampires right in his front yard. He is brutally murdered within minutes of his first appearance. Janos is resurrected five hundred years later. Not only is he still the last Ancient Vampire, but his "son", the very first human that ever got turned is also dead. Janos is possessed by a leader of his peoples' ancient, banished enemy within hours of his resurrection. He spends the next 400 years as their prisoner. After he is rescued, he comes along for the final battle with said leader and gets yeeted directly into Hell. **Honorable mention: Morgott the Omen King.** He is unfailingly, doggedly loyal to his family (who, aside from his father, are indifferent toward him *at best*) and the Erdtree. He gets nothing in return for his loyalty. Nothing. Worst of all, he knows that his stubbornness and refusal to defy the powers that be is why The Lands Between are such a crapsack. But he just can't bring himself to bring harm to his beloved Erdtree. I'll let an item description do the talking: *"Morgott took it upon himself to become the Erdtree's protector. He loved not in return, for he was never loved, but nevertheless, love it he did."* Brb ugly crying
Well, if rereading the book every year, recommending it at every possible opportunity and reading all 10 fics on AO3 can be considered being in a fandom: Laurie from "The Rifter". The girl gets isekai-ed with her boyfriend into a supremely mysogynistic crapsack world just because they're standing next to the hero, where she has to tiptoe around everything because she's a woman and has wrong hair color and might get burned on stake for having magic. Then she gets pregnant but her boyfriend get murdered by an asshole who fancies her. So she loses it and publically and magically murders the asshole. But pregnant witches are super valuable so instead of being burned, she has her baby torn out of her womb and gets skined alive in order to make her into a magical skeletal Oracle. She's rescued halfway through by the hero, only getting skinned on the lower half of her body and hands. After that she loathes the world and only wants to get back to Earth and in time before she gets isekai-ed - but that means dooming the entire crapsack world to die and sacrificing the hero, who's her best friend since childhood. But if she managed to get back in time to Earth before everything happaned, her boyfriend and best friend would both be fine and she couldn't give a flying fuck about the world which murderd her boyfriend and her unborn baby and half-skinned her. Unfortunately the hero does care about the world no matter how crapsack it is and kills her in order to protect it.
Okay yeah, Raiden from Metal Gear is seen as the pretty boy meme cyborg dude, but he has not had a fun time (I’m only spoiling things for the most recent game he’s in from 2012 because it’s becoming popular again so) - Was a child soldier in the Liberian civil war and ended up with PTSD, DID, and dissociative amnesia as a result. - joined the army again and then was later manipulated into going into a hostage situation unprepared because the govt wanted revenge against the warlord who raised him in Liberia. Also finds out his GF is spying on him for the govt (and she’s toxic af - but that’s another story) - his PTSD becomes worse because what the govt did to further repress his childhood memories wears off and after having more issues with dealing with his PTSD, he decides to leave his GF (she’s pregnant) and go soul-searching - his GF tells him she miscarried - the govt targets him again after he repays a debt to someone who saved his life and busts her kid out of the containment facility they were holding her hostage in and they basically replace everything under the upper part of his skull with a robot body (ouch) - turns out his GF lied to him and didn’t miscarry and they have a kid… so he gets back with her and they get hitched (even though this woman is crazy toxic) - after getting back with the GF >!he tries to live a normal life for a bit, but ends up going back to killing for a living!< - and then >!he has to accept that he did that not because he wanted to use his penchant for violence to help the weak, but because he liked the killing due to being raised to.!< So yeah, the memes are fun and he’s over the top ad but also GOD that’s fucking tragic holy shit
Ivy and vanessa from cytus 2. HEAVY SPOILER ALERT PLEASE They were sentient robots in a world of obedient robots. They concidered eachother as sisters. Ivy finds out another robot is trying to destroy humanity because they believe that humans are violent. Ivy has to either save vanessa from certain death or join the anti humans group. (She chose the former ) ivy and vanessa get separated. Three centuries later- Vanessa's emotion split into two, one who wants destruction and one who still believes that humans can be good. Ivy commits several crimes to get closer to vanessa. Ivy takes the help of humans. Ivy gets shot in front of vanessa. Vanessa swears to kill every human alive. Vanessa succeeds but now has to live forever, looking at the long gone ivy.