Butt Monkey/Oral Tradition


 * Job in the Book of Job. Getting literally everything taken from him by Satan -- with not only God's consent but God's encouragement -- made him the ultimate Played for Drama Butt Monkey and Cosmic Plaything.
 * Another Biblical example: while he made good in the end, Jacob's son Joseph waded through a lot of crap to get there. His older brothers planned to kill him for mouthing off so they tossed him in a pit, then changed their minds and sold him into slavery in Egypt. Things were okay for a while after that until Joseph's master's wife started hitting on him. When he refused to sleep with her, she accused him of attempted rape and off he went to prison. He was stuck there for years until one of Pharaoh's staff remembered he was good at interpretting dreams. And he was played by an Osmond in the musical.
 * Humanity itself in Greek traditions. Almost every god or goddess had at least one story in which they got bored and wanted to randomly screw with a mortal or groups of mortals. And then there's that hideous mess with Pandora and the plagues ruining all our lives collectively.