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Break the Cutie/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions
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*** More like [[Broken Base|break the fanbase]].
** When Riley is introduced, he is happy with his job at the Initiative and thinks they're doing good work, and all in all is a pretty normal guy, 'cept the whole demon-fighting thing. Then he falls in love with Buffy, who his boss and mother-figure {{spoiler|tries to kill}}, he learns that Maggie {{spoiler|created a Frankenstein-like monster who will take over the world, and Riley is meant to become like the monster too}}, while he's going through horrible drug withdrawal from {{spoiler|all the chemicals the Initiative pumped into him to make him (and every other Initiative soldier) into a [[Super Soldier]]}}. He gets discarded from the Initiative and loses his faith in what they did, and two people he cared about are turned either into zombies or {{spoiler|Adam Mk. II}} by Adam. After that's all over, he comes to realise that no matter how much he loves Buffy, she doesn't feel as strongly about him and never really will. All these issues, especially Buffy's lack of love for him, lead to him {{spoiler|masochistically paying female vampires to suck his blood}}, and eventually he leaves town completely. When he makes a one-episode return in season 6, he seems a lot better.
** Season 5 dedicates itself to doing this to Dawn, and does not let go. It starts with Dawn finding out that she's the
*** In season 6, she's dealing with all the grief, until Buffy is resurrected, only to spend the season ignoring
*** In season 7, this is mostly absent, except for the entirety of "Conversations With Dead People". But this time, Dawn doesn't break.
** Don't forget Anya, who spends most of her time on the show as the perky and bubbly comic relief. Then {{spoiler|Xander leaves her at the altar}} late in season 6. She reacts to this by {{spoiler|returning to vengeance. She finds herself unable to do it properly at first, but when she does get back into the swing by slaughtering ten frat boys who humiliated a girl, she suddenly realises what she's done and plunges into [[Death Seeker
* Literally done with Kes from ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''.
** Then there's [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Data]]. One of the male examples. His "older brother" turned out to be a [[Evil Twin|murdering psycho]], he found his long lost father not long before already said father was murdered by psychotic brother. He saw the woman to whom he "lost his virginity" murdered before his eyes for no reason but malice. He had to go to court over his right not to be dismantled, created a daughter who died after they tried to take her away from him and she couldn't deal with the shock. Was kidnapped by some rich guy who drove him to attempted murder (possibly Data's defining [[Break the Cutie]] moment), went through the whole [[Long-Lost Relative]] plot, tried to kill his best friend under mental coercion (psycho brother's fault again), was possessed a couple of times... Have to say, if he [[Tin Man|actually ''had'' emotions]], they would have screwed him to hell and back by the end of season seven.
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*** This troper thinks Data did actually break despite his inability to feel emotion. The troper above already mentioned the instance i am talking about; its the episode where Data gets kidnapped by an "art collector" who threatens to kill his servants if Data attempts to escape. When Data and the servant attempt to escape, the servant is caught by the art collector, who executes the servant in a very painful manner. Data manages to get his hands on the torturous killing device. The art collector then proceeds to torment Data by taunting Data's inability to feel rage or sadness over the servant's death, and gloating over Data's programming that is preventing him from killing the art collector, and then threatens to kill more servants if Data doesnt surrender. After a moment of silence, Data aims the torturous killing device at the art collector and pulls the trigger - just as he is teleported away by the Enterprise. Data's "Breaking moment" is confirmed when Riker tells Data the transporter noticed the weapon discharge, after which Data LIES to Riker by claiming it was a malfunction. Data pretty much never lies; especially to a higher-ranking officer.
*** Alternatively, he was trying to rationalize his breaking moment as a malfunction on ''his'' part.
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' did this with a lot of its characters but particularly Daniel Jackson and Colonel Sam Carter. However it resulted in them becoming Cool [[Badass
** O'Neill losing his son really takes the cake, though.
* Randy Wagstaff of [[The Wire]]. {{spoiler|Starts out as a sweet, likeable kid trying to make the best of life in his surroundings but gets fucked over by Herc, causing him to be wrongfully branded a snitch. His house is burned down and his foster mother badly burned such that he has to go back to the group home, where takes numerous beatings from the other kids. By the next time he's seen, he become mean and violent just to survive.}}
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** The next two season finales do arguably worse:
*** In ''Journey's End'', the Doctor has to literally wipe the mind of Donna Noble or risk having the Time Lord thoughts destroy her mind. She is not particularly pleased about this turn of events, and the Doctor is crushed by it too.
*** Then there's ''The End of Time.'' The Doctor is already tormented by the prophecy "[[Arc Words|He will knock four times]]". But then the Master comes back, beats him to a fare-thee-well and then forces the Doctor to watch as everyone he knows and loves on Earth (with the exception of Wilf and Donna) is [[Grand Theft Me|turned into The Master]] (it's never said, but a foregone conclusion that Sarah, Martha, Tegan, Barbara, Ian, Ace and so on were Mastericized by the incident). Then, the Time Lords return, threatening to [[Apocalypse How|destroy all of time]] so that they can [[A God Am I|gain apotheosis]] and finally gain a (pyrrhic) victory in the Time War. The Doctor has to send
**** A madcap [[Bow Ties Are Cool|bow-tie]]-wearing, [[Nice Hat|hat-loving]] [[The Woobie|perma-Woobie]].
**** During the more [[Foe Yay|"serious"]] scenes between the Doctor and the Master, you can see the Master himself suffers this because of the drums. Suffers it horribly, in fact. Which means that ''everything the Master has ever done'' was the fault of {{spoiler|Rassilon and the Council}}; he started out as a completely normal child. Poor mad Master.
** Pretty much the entirety of [[Doctor Who/Recap/S29/E09 The Family of Blood|The Family of Blood]] is devoted to breaking the character of John Smith (an amnesiac, human Doctor) into teeny tiny pieces after setting him up as a rather lovely bloke in the prior episode. It's [[Tear Jerker|effective.]]
** ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S30/E10 Midnight|Midnight]].'' When a mysterious unseen creature strikes his transport, the Doctor watches helplessly as his "listen to me, I'm clever and I can help" attitude not only fails miserably but starts to turn the rest of the passengers ''against'' him and leaves him open to immobilizing [[Mind Rape]], resulting in one of the most intense cases of [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|Humans Are Bastards]] in the whole series. If you don't find yourself wanting very desperately to [[The Woobie|give him a hug]] when it all ends and he's lying sprawled on the floor and clutching his chest gasping "It's gone... it's gone... it's gone..." then I don't know what to do with you.
** In ''A Good Man Goes To War'', both Amy and the Doctor get pretty broken. First, {{spoiler|Amy gets her baby taken away, the baby she hadn't even known she was pregnant with until a month before; then, the Doctor saves her and Melody, only to realize that his entire plan has led them all into a massive trap. Melody is not really Melody but is Flesh!Melody, who then dissolves in Amy's arms. Amy, understandably, freaks out. The Doctor tries to hug her, but she won't let him. [[Tear Jerker|That broke him, hard.]] And then, just to pour salt into his open wound, River shows up and gives him an interestingly inverted version of a [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] in which she tells him he's getting too good at what he does and becoming a mighty warrior, exactly the opposite of what he wanted, and because of this, it's his fault that Melody was taken. Ouch.}}
** There's a subversion with Rory. First his girlfriend snogs another bloke, next they get trapped in some creepy dream world where you can't tell fiction from reality, he discovers the happy home he's been building with Amy is all a big lie and dies while he's there, then he gets killed ''again'' before being erased from history, and to top it all off {{spoiler|his [[Tomato in the Mirror|Plastic Auton self who he somehow remembers being]] watches over an incredibly powerful reality altering box for two thousand years because his not quite dead yet girlfriend is stuck inside and he wants to stay there and protect her}}. And yet in spite of all this, he still comes out of it fighting.
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** Esther gets it too over the first half of ''Miracle Day''.
** Jack. Series 2, 3 and 4 have been one long [[Trauma Conga Line]]. Not to mention the time gap between losing the Doctor and the start of the series.
* At the start of ''[[Supernatural]]'', Dean is pretty happy with his life, comic relief to Sam's big ball of angst, and loves the hunt. Sam starts out as basically [[The Heart]] to Dean's cynicism. They each end up with a hefty [[Guilt Complex
** Its various methods of bending Dean to breaking point have included: getting tortured by his possessed father and possessed brother at two different times, making him feel [[It's All My Fault|guilty]] because someone died to save him in the first season and ramping that suicidal guilt up to 100 when his father dies for him in the second season, having [[Protectorate|his]] [[Big Brother Instinct|brother]] [[Despair Event Horizon|die in his arms]], sending him to hell at the end of season three, and having enemies taunt him and allies accost him with how worthless he is.<br /><br />And even all that pales in comparison to what happens to Dean in Season 4: clawing his way out of his own grave, being an (albeit extremely pretty) angel's bitch, getting guilt-tripped from victims he couldn't save, [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|going back in time]] and apparently causing [[You Already Changed the Past|the events]] leading to his mother's death; getting infected with a ghost sickness that makes him even more of [[The Chew Toy]], remembering all his forty years of hell, breaking after thirty and enjoying torturing other victims for ten, having suddenly to remember the events of "In My Time Of Dying", having to torture Alistair for information and learning that he was the first seal and that his Dad spent a century on the rack but never broke.<br /><br />And most of all, finding out he's the only one who can stop "it", and then discovering ''this '''isn't''' referring to the Apocalypse''. Instead, he's meant to let the [[Light Is Not Good|angels]] engineer the [[Godzilla Threshold|Apocalypse]] and then end it by [[Summon Bigger Fish|having Michael possess Dean]] and [[Destructive Savior|destroy]] most of the world fighting and [[Utopia Justifies the Means|killing Lucifer]].▼
The show is [[Crapsack World|made]] of [[Deus Angst Machina|this trope]].
** Its various methods of bending Dean to breaking point have included: getting tortured by his possessed father and possessed brother at two different times, making him feel [[It's All My Fault|guilty]] because someone died to save him in the first season and ramping that suicidal guilt up to 100 when his father dies for him in the second season, having [[Protectorate|his]] [[Big Brother Instinct|brother]] [[Despair Event Horizon|die in his arms]], sending him to hell at the end of season three, and having enemies taunt him and allies accost him with how worthless he is.
▲
And most of all, finding out he's the only one who can stop "it", and then discovering ''this '''isn't''' referring to the Apocalypse''. Instead, he's meant to let the [[Light Is Not Good|angels]] engineer the [[Godzilla Threshold|Apocalypse]] and then end it by [[Summon Bigger Fish|having Michael possess Dean]] and [[Destructive Savior|destroy]] most of the world fighting and [[Utopia Justifies the Means|killing Lucifer]].
*** And then [[It Got Worse|it gets worse]]. At the end of season five, Dean has to let his brother {{spoiler|[[Heroic Sacrifice|throw himself]] into hell to stop Lucifer,}} in season six, he {{spoiler|has to deal with [[Came Back Wrong|soulless Sam]], loses the family he'd always wanted,}} ''and then'' in season seven Dean has to deal with Sam going crazy and [[Eldritch Abomination|monsters]] they can't kill trying to eat the world {{spoiler|because his like-a-brother buddy Cas [[Jumped Off the Slippery Slope|betrayed them all]] [[Knight Templar|trying to save the world]], [[Moral Event Horizon|killed his angelic allies]], and [[Kick the Dog|broke Sam's mind]] before taking in [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|dangerous power]] that [[A God Am I|pushed him over the edge]] and released those monsters.}} Just when it seems like Dean has lost nearly everything and everyone, {{spoiler|with Bobby dead, Cas apparently dead, and Sam dying because of his memories of hell, Cas returns only to sacrifice his mind to save Sam's.}}
** Sam Winchester got broken down courtesy of having a demon infect him with its blood, his mother die because of him, having a crappy childhood/life, his father disown him, his girlfriend die just to set him on the path to evil, having demonic powers, having his father die, and having to watch his brother break down before his eyes and then pretty much commit suicide for him ''and then'' be killed in a hundred different ways '''''and then''''' get ripped apart by hellhounds
Over half of that was a [[Corrupt the Cutie]] plot aimed ''directly at Sam'', which pretty much ''worked''—at least to the extent that they managed to [[Despair Event Horizon|manipulate]] [[Unwitting Pawn|him]] into alienating his resurrected brother and doing [[The End of the World as We Know It|exactly what]] [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|the bad guys wanted]]. Then he began a [[Redemption Quest]] to [[Must Make Amends|prevent Lucifer from razing the world]] by taking him back to hell, and even his brother didn't believe in him. [[Be All My Sins Remembered|Not that Sam believed in himself either]].
*** [[Fate Worse Than Death|It got much worse]]. At the end of season five, {{spoiler|Sam [[Self-Sacrifice Scheme|had to let Lucifer possess him]] [[Fighting From the Inside|to take]] Lucifer [[Heroic Willpower|back into hell's solitary confinement]].}} In season six, {{spoiler|when Sam finally got his soul back after being brought back to life, Castiel broke his mind to let the memories of probably 180 years [[Fate Worse Than Death|being tormented by Lucifer]] overwhelm him.}} In season seven, Sam has been losing his grip on reality at a time when they're facing a threat they can't kill, to the point where he {{spoiler|almost dies because a hallucination of Lucifer won't let him sleep. And then has to deal with knowing Castiel sacrificed his mind for Sam's}}.
** We can now add John to this list. Once upon a time, he was a naive, innocent, sweet little himbo and look what happened to him. But unlike his sons, who have been broken slowly and horribly over the past few seasons due to numerous events, he just snapped from the one event (his wife dying) and became the borderline abusive, jerkass parent who was so at the end of his rope that he committed suicide for Dean in the most self-righteous way possible.
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'''Michael:''' She's sweet. At least she was until today. Today we drain her of her soul. }}
* Zack, from [[Bones]], anyone? He was an [[Adorkable]] kid who was very socially awkward, but overall well liked and definitely a cutie. {{spoiler|Then, we find out that he's the apprentice to a cannibalistic murderer, and he confesses to murdering somebody (although we find out later that he didn't actually kill the guy). He is then sent to a mental institution.}} Definitely qualifies as breaking the cutie.
* Wellard in the second [[Horatio Hornblower]] series. Also Archie Kennedy, though in his case the breaking took place mostly off-screen (first before the series even started, at the hands of Jack Simpson, and then after he was imprisoned for an indeterminate amount of time, including a month in an oubliette.). Archie at least seems to have recovered from most of his torments by the second series, but {{spoiler|Wellard is shot and dies before he has the chance.}} Additionally, Simpson tries to do this to Horatio in the first instalment, which is what results in the titular duel. (Well, technically a game of cards was what caused the
* Sam from [[Glee]] seems to be headed this way, due to {{spoiler|Quinn cheating on him with Finn}}, Santana's consistent insults about his mouth and dorkyness, and just general pressure.
** {{spoiler|Aaaand... now he's homeless.}}
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