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Sometimes, age can be the deciding factor on whether a scenario is "pathetic but funny", "kind of sad", "upsetting", or "gut wrenching."
Broadly speaking, viewers have more sympathy for young characters. We expect children to have an emotional response to everything, and so we expect them to experience the emotion more acutely. "[[Be Yourself|Staying true to yourself]]" is more important to young characters than "[[The Stoic|maintain your dignity at all times]]", so it's
The audience may feel mildly betrayed when a young character suffers a tremendous tragedy. Children are ''supposed'' to have an idealistic outlook on life; their parents should be there to protect them, [[Children Are Innocent|they don't have to worry about money or jobs, and their daily trials and tribulations should be minor]]. Of course, it doesn't ''feel'' like "no big deal" when you ''are'' a child, and many children could tell you that this [[Best Years of Your Life|blissful interpretation of childhood]] does not match up with their reality. In general, though, kids aren't expected to have too many worries. So when kids get whacked over the head with the [[Reality Ensues|Reality Stick]], in the form of [[Parental Abandonment|divorce, bereavement]], illness, poverty, etc., it seems like a betrayal of the child's inherent trust in the world. Adults, on the other hand, are supposed to know that it's a [[Crapsack World]] out there and not be too surprised when life goes to hell in a handbasket.
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In extreme cases, this can be the difference between comedy and tragedy. A grown up [[The Unfavourite|unfavourite]] is usually a pathetic loser who blames all his problems on his childhood; a young unfavourite is a tragic [[The Woobie|woobie]].
However, in other cases, a situation will be seen as devastating to an adult when they're shrugged off as a minor issue for children/teens. A thirteen year old who's heartbroken after breaking up with her first boyfriend will get a talk with her mum in which she's told that it's part of growing up, and she'll get over
The clincher is often material security. Children (usually) live with their parents and siblings, so divorce, [[Parental Favoritism]], moving house, and the death of a parent have a major impact on their
Conversely, issues affecting employment, dignity, independence, and romance hit adult characters harder than kids. A teenager loses his [[Burger Fool]] McJob and it's no big
The most glaring difference turns up in instances involving grief. An adult who loses a parent gets less time to grieve than a child who loses a parent. The adult will be given one episode to cope with their loss, after which the parent is almost forgotten by the plot; the child will never really get over it, and the deceased parent will be frequently mentioned. An adult who loses a child, though, will probably be defined by that loss; outliving your own offspring seems unnatural and grossly unfair.
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== [[Anime
* In ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]'', the death of Ms. Orcot has a bigger impact on her second son, Chris, who she died giving birth to, than her oldest son, Leon, who was eighteen when she died. Chris mentions his mother often, while Leon only really talks about her once or twice (although, arguably, a scene where an unconscious Leon dreams of speaking to his mother suggests he wasn't so much "unaffected" as "doesn't like to talk about it"). The manga makes some justification of this though; Chris feels the guilt of having "killed" his mom after his cousin accuses him of it, even though she realizes she went too far and feels badly for it. The fact that he never really knew her makes her an almost mythical figure in his mind. Leon, however, has his own, genuine memories of his mother, giving him an advantage over Chris.
* The pain of characters losing someone close to them is a key theme in ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'', particularly in the manga. For Satella, Rosette, and Azmaria, the pain comes from lost parents and siblings. For the much-older Chrono? His lost loved one is his friend and possible love interest, {{spoiler|Mary Magdalene.}} Of course, this is averted with {{spoiler|Aion}}, who is also mourning his family members ({{spoiler|his mother and twin brother}}) in a way.
** {{spoiler|Sister Kate}} is another good
* Negi Springfield of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' is an odd case. He's ten years old and witness his [[Angst? What Angst?|entire remaining family in the village he grew up in]] [[Taken for Granite|turned to stone]] at age four, now frequently ending up in life-threatening situations, including being run through with a sharpened rock spear and having his left arm sliced off (he had it reattached with [[Magic Antidote|magic medicine]]). Despite it all, he shrugs off everything that happens as a way of overcoming weakness and [[The Pollyanna|still likes to remain happy with his]] [[True Companions]]. The rest of the cast tell him he should act more like a kid and stop putting himself in such dangerous situations. He acknowledges his friend Anya as being stronger in this regard than him, given her [[Fiery Redhead|fiery personality]].
** In recent chapters, {{spoiler|he is taunted by Kurt Godel into attacking him by telling him that he caused said destruction of the village. Negi then enters a pseudo [[Super-Powered Evil Side|evil side]] with which he [[Curb Stomp Battle|curbstomps]] Godel in a [[Unstoppable Rage|massive display of rage]] by using his [[Black Magic
* Some speculate that this has contributed to some of the hatedom for Shinji Ikari in viewers of the English dub of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''. In the original Japanese version, he is voiced by a woman, [[Megumi Ogata]], and his voice sounds like that of a prepubescent child. In English, he is voiced by a man, [[Spike Spencer]], and sounds more like a mid-puberty teenage boy. The theory is that audiences are more tolerant of angst when they hear the voice of a child than that of a more masculine, older-sounding voice, even though the scripts between the two versions don't differ significantly in their portrayal of the character.
** In the ''[[
== [[Comics]] ==
* A variation: [[Batman]], though an adult, is totally ''defined'' by his single great childhood trauma. It's what drives him for the rest of his life. He never had to worry about ''security'', because his parents were billionaires who left him everything, but he was ten, and his only remaining parental guidance came from someone who was as much servant as authority figure. In a recent comic, on a date, his date was tiptoeing around the issue... and the art is laid out in such a fashion that when he says he "got over it", even if it this weren't a Batman book, the reader would ''know'' he was lying. Also, unlike most modern rich characters' parents, who tend to [[Parental Abandonment|be distant]] in order to grant as much sympathy as possible to the character in question (or at least excuse the fact that they're a raging [[Jerkass]]), young Bruce Wayne's parents appeared to be very involved in his
** In addition, his various sidekicks are mostly kids who have parental issues of their own. And if they don't, they tend to get 'em fast.
== [[Literature]] ==
* The ''[[Ramona Quimby]]'' books are driven by this trope. Throughout the entire series of books, the things that Ramona goes through really are appropriate things for her to angst about, like being afraid of being called a copycat in a class project when it was Ramona who was being copied, having to deal with a big scary dog, and being late for school after reading the clock wrong. ''Ramona Quimby, Age 8'' also averts [[Death
* The ''[[Harry Potter (
* Something of a subversion in ''[[
* Subverted at the conceptual level by ''[[The Curious Case of Benjamin Button]]'', who ages in reverse.
* [[IT]] plays with this trope. Derry is a town that has regular periods where the local [[Eldritch Abomination]] eats kids. The main characters end the killing spree twice. When they're kids, they recover quickly from all the scares, and they don't get caught up in angsting about all the dead kids. When they're adults...
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== [[Live Action Television]] ==
* In various ''[[
* Dog training show ''At The End Of My Leash'' featured a daughter unable to control her Great Dane pet. According to the dog trainer, this was due to a lack of confidence and low self-esteem. When all the surveillance footage showed was the daughter's mother screaming at her, berating her, and ordering her out of the house, most viewers could take a guess as to just why the girl had low self esteem. The trainer "cured" her by... screaming at her, insulting her, and accusing her of invading her parents' privacy. Why? Well, she was thirty, and had just moved back in with her mother and
* In ''[[
* Inverted in ''[[Sports Night]]''. Jeremy learns that his father has been having an affair for decades and his parents are divorcing, and tries to be stoic while the rest of the cast is supportive and wants him to let it out. Jeremy ends up throwing himself into a work project, projecting his feelings into it until he hits the breaking point.
** Aaron Sorkin must have had this happen to
* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'''s Sam and Dean have never really got over the loss of both their parents. Although this could be because they feel like it's their fault. After all, Mary only died because the demon was gunning for a six month old Sam and John died (and stayed in hell for a whole season) in a deal to save a comatose Dean's life. Also, the mother burned to death in a very graphic grisly inferno, and they spent their entire childhood's being carted around the country on a revenge quest, dealing with horrific monsters and violence no child should have to contend with, with Dean having to play substitute parent for his younger brother (starting when he was ''four''). These aren't exactly normal childhood issues, so it's no wonder they continue to have some degree of impact.
* The characters in ''[[
* Subverted in an episode of ''[[
* This is sort of subverted in ''[[
* In the ''[[
* In ''[[
* Roundly averted in ''[[
* ''[[Noah's Arc]]'': Brandon's reaction towards Ricky's lack of any meaningful interest in him beyond sex, though its fairly subdued compared to most examples of this trope.
* This is oddly and consistently subverted in ''[[Star Trek:
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' as a child, Fructose Riboflavin {{spoiler|witnessed his bandit father's death at the hands of the emperor's guards. He'd given Fructose a device to prevent this, but Fructose was too little to use it right. The Emperor was then a complete callous jerk ass to the newly orphaned child. Fructose screamed that ''he'' would become emperor one day, ran away, and then spent almost ''two thousand years'' seeking revenge against the Nemesite royal family.}}
* In ''[[Shifters]]'' most of the main cast are in their late teens and attending [[
== [[Web Original]] ==
* One of the reasons ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' can be so heartwrenching is that it covers situations that no teenager should ever have to experience (the murder of close friends, occasionally [[Rape
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[[Category:Truth in Television]]
[[Category:Sadness Tropes]]
[[Category:Age
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
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