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Break the Cutie/Video Games: Difference between revisions
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** A computer program in {{spoiler|fetal-position}}? That can't be good... I mean, she (it?) is a freaking computer program. Maybe Gravemind messed with her (it?) core programs, AKA {{spoiler|raped her}}?
* Despite being a borderline [[Villain Protagonist]], Kane from ''[[Kane and Lynch]]'' goes through this after {{spoiler|his wife is shot in the eye right in front of him, not to say of ''either'' of the endings}} or {{spoiler|his son's death before the game even starts}}. By the time the sequel rolls around, he is a shell of himself, growing a [[Beard of Sorrow]] and generally looking glum. [[It Got Worse|Not that Shanghai gave him anything to smile about.]]
* In ''[[F.E.A.R.]]'', the cute and innocent one, {{spoiler|an incredibly powerful psychic girl named Alma, was pretty much broken from birth. Born with the ability to sense and react to negative emotions, she was so bat-crazy that she was able to drive ''other'' people insane from simply being in proximity to them. Of course, this is before the evil faceless corporation studying her locked her away in a forced coma at the age of eight, then years later used her teenage body as an incubator for psychic [[Super Soldier
* Imoen from ''[[Baldur's Gate]]''. She starts off as a chipper and upbeat girl until {{spoiler|she, along with the protagonist and a handful of other characters, are captured by Irenicus in the second game and tortured mercilessly. Then, when she finally escapes to the city of Amn, she makes the mistake of using magic against Irenicus, who comes to stop your group (using magic in Amn is strictly forbidden without special permission.) She and Irenicus are arrested and sentenced to Spellhold, a nuthouse for crazy wizards, where Irenicus takes over the building, and then tortures Imoen even ''more'', eventually violently tearing out her soul, leaving her a broken, babbling mess by the time you catch up to her. She eventually heals...}}
** {{spoiler|But ''then'' she finds out she's one of the Bhaalspawn, and then has to deal with her newfound murderous impulses (she tells the protagonist at one point that during the last battle she suddenly had the urge to tear out the bad guy's throat with her bare hands.)}} Needless to say, she's not so chipper or upbeat anymore. Although given that it's Imoen, that's relative to herself, not anyone else. As one character notes well after she's found all this out, she "reminds [him] considerably of a squirrel on a sugar high with a death wish."
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* {{spoiler|Sakura}} from ''[[Fate/stay night]]'', as revealed in the game's final route, Heaven's Feel.
* ''[[Iji]]'' does this to [[Action Girl|the titular character]], who somehow, despite [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|an increasing guilt complex]], [[Fetch Quest|hallucinations]], and [[Last of His Kind|one of the only two humans she knows isn't dead]], [[Plucky Girl|remains sane]]... {{spoiler|Until [[Arch Enemy|Asha]] [[Moral Event Horizon|kills Dan]], at which point she [[Heroic BSOD|throughly becomes Psych Ward material]] and [[Dead Person Conversation|convinces herself he's still alive]]}}. Thankfully, this event [[Multiple Endings|isn't set in stone]], in which case she remains sane. Ish.
* ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'': {{spoiler|Aribeth.}} {{spoiler|Fenthick's death}} causes her to go from patriotic, god-loving Paladin to god-forswearing general of the [[
** The above, while certainly not a high point for the said character, is only the beginning. {{spoiler|Dread Queen Morag's sending false visions of her god abandoning her and the ensuing self-doubt/loathing is likely much more damaging to her already weakened psyche.}} So much for the Paladin's high will save...
*** And all of that doesn't even include all of the torments she underwent trying to rebel against Mephistopheles while in hell...
* Lili from ''Senko No Ronde'' is such a case. Apparently having been given to a laboratory by her family prior to the events of the game she still acts rather cute at first. She's shy, very insecure and easily scared... until she battles Ernula and it triggers something within her, causing a 180° turn in her personality and transforming her into an insane, blood-thirsty killing machine obsessed with beautifully destroying everything she can. As she gains an utterly evil look and an insane laughter she first starts by just beating up foes until she eventually resorts to even attacking her own comrades to satisfy her urge to destroy. She returns back to normal though when {{spoiler|Mika defeats her in combat and she dies}}.
* ''[[Fatal Frame]]'' series take it bad, [[
* [[Suikoden V]]. While the Godwins fail to break Lymsleia, the same can't be said of [[Genki Girl|Miakis]], given that {{spoiler|1=she's forced to watch as the Godwins use Lymsleia under threat of being stripped of her guardianship of her. When Lym refuses mourn her parents deaths (to deny the Godwins the satisfaction of seeing her cry), Miakis does so in her stead. She's eventually removed as Lym's guardian anyway, following her coronation and denied access to her; which causes Miakis to become increasingly despondent. Gizel finally orders her to aid Alenia in Doraat's defense; a calculated move to isolate Lymsleia from all support, aware Miakis would likely switch alliances and join Frey's army. But not before buying Alenia time to escape, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxuufS4-5kc resulting in this.]}} [[Tear Jerker|And we all cry with Miakis.]]
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'': Terra starts out the game pretty much broken. Celes tries to commit suicide after finding herself alone (Cid is dead or dying then) on a deserted island.
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** Ventus starts as an [[Adorkable]], cheerful little boy who "views every day as a new discovery". {{spoiler|By the end of Birth by Sleep, he's literally nothing but an [[Empty Shell]], and he was a [[Death Seeker]] for a brief period of time before that.}}
** Ienzo is introduced in [[Birth By Sleep]] shortly after his breaking, an adorable little boy lost and confused, not speaking out of depression and fear. [[From Nobody to Nightmare|To say he doesn't quite recover]] [[Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories|would be something]] [[Kingdom Hearts II|of an understatement]].
* Unbelievable as it may seem, [[Memetic Badass|Big Boss]] of ''[[Metal Gear]] [[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater|Solid 3]]'' counts as a broken cutie. He starts the game with an adorable, almost geeky personality (he's afraid of cheesy horror films), and the events of the game put him through the wringer. By the end he's angry enough to turn his back on his country and [[Unstoppable Rage|plunge the world into chaos]].
** Oh, Otacon. Otacon, Otacon, Otacon. He's an [[Adorkable]] nerd-boy who loves all things nerdy and Japanese, is enthusiastic about his work, and genuinely believes in people. {{spoiler|Also, he's a statutory rape victim, his father committed suicide, he's inadvertently responsible for the creation of one of the deadliest weapons mankind has ever known, his crush was shot, his long-lost sister was killed, his ''other'' crush was killed, and his [[Heterosexual Life Partner]]/[[Ho Yay|possible lover]], the ''only person who's ever stuck by him,'' is doomed to die of old age at forty-five.}} This series might as well be called ''Metal Gear Horrible Things Happen to Hal Emmerich.'' It's to the point where the ten years of happiness he gets {{spoiler|with Snake}} between ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' and ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'' feels almost like a slap in the face--"We're giving you a break from your horrible life. Enjoy it while it lasts, 'cause it's not going to last long!"
** Speaking of ''MGS4'', this is revealed to be in the backstories of all the Beauty and the Beast unit girls after they are defeated. {{spoiler|One girl was forced to kill off her people [[Nightmare Fuel|while laughing]]. One accidentally smothered her own brother to keep him from crying after escaping a raid and then killed an entire refugee camp's worth of kids [[Mind Screw|while hallucinating that a wolf did it]]. One found herself among kids that were kidnapped, abused, then abandoned to be eaten by ravens, [[Because Destiny Says So|somehow]] ended up being cut free instead of raven food, and [[Unstoppable Rage|hunted down the soldiers responsible, innocents be damned]]. And the leader was the only one who didn't kill anybody before being turned into her B&B self, but it's not like she got off any better. She was forced to run for her life after her village got burned to the ground, eventually got herself locked in a torture chamber, and only survived through the horrible conditions and the screams of villagers by drinking dirty water and hallucinating about a mantis teaching her to block out sound and feed like it. Combine all that with their [[Ms. Fanservice|gratuitous good looks]], it's enough to make someone wish the ''Metal Gear''-verse were [[Apocalypse How|destroyed emphatically]].}}
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* Merrill in ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' has a lot of this in her backstory, and even more in-game, especially if you take the Rivalry path.
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' isn't nice on anyone and nobody makes it through the series without marks (literally with Garrus, who loses half his face in his case), but following the themes of the series, they all learn to cope with it. Because there really is no coice. Some have it worse than others, though:
** While Liara takes the death of her estranged mother reasonably well, she is barely recognizable after Shepards return from the dead two years later. From a hopeful and socially akward scientists, she turns into a ruthless and occasionally mean leader of her very own spy ring [[Took a Level
** Kelly is probably the minor character for which Cutie is the most appropriate. In the third game you can find her again and she refuses to set foot on the Normandy due to PTSD, but she still manages helping refugees who had it as bad as her.
** And then there's Talitha, one of the few minor characters that you can comfort, and given the utter hell she's gone through -- {{spoiler|being captured from Shepard's village by Batarian slavers at the age of six after watching her parents burned alive and spending thirteen years as a slave during which she was abused severely}}
* City of Heroes Mission Architect Arch ID: 266877....title: The Most Important Thing.
* Pretty much ALL of the assistants in the ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' games. From Maya, {{spoiler|who finds her sister murdered, is then accused of her murder, tasered, accused of another murder which is set up by her AUNT, kidnapped, involved in another murder where it's revealed the victim is her mother who's been missing for most of Maya's life}}, to Ema, Pearl and Trucy (forgive this troper, remembering just all of these deeds is a bit beyond her). It's just cruel.
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* Ezio Auditore in ''[[Assassin's Creed II]]'' watched helplessly as his father and two brothers were executed as part of a conspiracy, and spent the next twenty years hunting down those responsible. It's painful to watch his transformation from the carefree, wise-cracking son of a banker into a revenge-driven assassin, and he only barely manages to avoid becoming just like his enemies. The execution scene is especially heartrending, because as soon as Ezio shouts "I'll kill you!", you know there is no going back to the way things were before.
** Also, {{spoiler|his girlfriend Cristina}} was shown to be killed in Assassins Creed Brotherhood in one of the flash-back missions.
* Almost every, single, girl in [[
** In [[Cute Monster Girl|Mak]][[Ms. Fanservice|oto]]'s notoriously nightmarish [[Bad End]], Relius does this via prolonged and precision-guided [[Mind Rape]]. Makoto apparently [[Your Soul Is Mine|does not survive the experience]].
** On the male end of the spectrum, there is Carl Clover, who witnessed his sister being turned into a machine by his father, and was scarred for life.
** Ragna went through this in his backstory. He loses his home, his foster mother, his sister, his brother to insanity, and his
** Litchi went for two tiers. The reveal that the corruption was getting to her in a quick succession that she could effortlessly beat down Tager shocks her, but on the reveal that Kokonoe just plain refused to help her drove her further to the deep end, now knowing that the only one she could think of to help just plain refused her and left her to slowly wither and die. And then, the rest is taken care of by Hazama. {{spoiler|Her rant towards Rachel after signing up to NOL shows just how broken she is and is trying the best to keep herself together with just no one to help... and Rachel's response and reprimanding, practically saying what the [[Hate Dumb]] perceive about her that she's just plain obsessed and selfish, ''did not help'' at all...}}
* Rose. Poor, poor, Rose. She gets to meet her [[Alan Wake|hero]], and then she gets [[Mind Rape|mind raped]] by the [[Big Bad]].
* [[Lux-Pain]] has, well, just about everyone in the main cast. [[The Hero|Atsuki]], [[Cheerful Child|Natsuki]] and [[Broken Ace|Hibiki]] were broken in their backstories. During the game, this happens to two of the female leads: [[Genki Girl|Mika]], who was {{spoiler|targeted by a serial killer (twice) causing Officer Mako Ando to be fatally wounded, and her best friend sent to the hospital}}, [[The Chick|Yayoi]] who {{spoiler|is driven mad by a mind parasite causing her to be jealous of her sister. She also tried to consult with a bunch of people she met online who were suicidal, but they ended up killing themselves.}} A few other Cuties, both male and female, end up snapping, like [[The Big Guy|Akira]], [[Meganekko|Sayuri]], [[Defective Detective|Yui]], [[Hospital Hottie|Honoka]], and the list goes on. Forget curing Silent, that entire town needs one big hug.
* Poor Guybrush Threepwood. He starts off as [[Adorkable]] and happy-go-lucky in ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]]'', but then {{spoiler|1=he sees his wife Elaine seemingly willing to trust a human LeChuck over Guybrush's objections.}} As if that wasn't bad enough, {{spoiler|1=he ends up getting his hand cut off by Morgan LeFlay; breaks down in grief after failing to protect her from being fatally stabbed by LeChuck; gets stabbed in the back (and [[In the Back|in the chest]]) twice (or maybe three times if you count the Voodoo Lady); and suffers a [[Heroic BSOD]] when it looks like Elaine has done a complete [[Face Heel Turn]] to leave him for LeChuck. It all ends with one [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|terribly brutal beatdown]] from LeChuck that leaves zombie Guybrush in such physical agony he can't even joke anymore. [[The Woobie|The poor dear]] really just needed a hug at the end.}}
* In ''[[
* {{spoiler|Dehl}}'s [[Dark and Troubled Past]] in ''[[The Reconstruction]]'' has this, ''in spades''. Possibly subverted, though, as it's part of the [[Backstory]] that is only revealed near the end of the game; most of what we see of him is after the fact.
** Happens to {{spoiler|Xopi}} as well, who, as {{spoiler|another Sikohlon child}}, is quite identical to how {{spoiler|Dehl}} used to be.
* In [[Fallout: New Vegas]], this is a possible fate for Veronica Santangelo. A member of the Brotherhood of Steel who wishes that the Brotherhood actually uses their technology to help others, if she's encouraged to leave them and join the Followers of the Apocalypse, she'll be told to wait a day before they sign her up. One day later, {{spoiler|she returns to find the Followers and their patients dissolved into ash, with Brotherhood Paladins stating that they've come to kill her for [[He Knows Too Much|spreading knowledge to outsiders.]] After they're dealt with, she ends up blaming herself for causing the death of innocents.}}
* Jin from ''Dead Island''. She starts as a [[Tomboy]]/[[Wrench Wench]] of unstated but clearly juvenile/young adult age. Her introduction as an NPC is occasioned by the revelation that her father was bitten by a zombie and has mere hours to live. She is a near-stereotype of the annoyingly naive [[Wide-Eyed Idealist]] (which has earned her no small amount of hate from online fans of the game). Then, in short order: {{spoiler|she is forced to join the Player group by said father in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]; she naively takes supplies to a gang, who immediately kidnap and (it is heavily implied) rape her (from which the Players must rescue her); she nearly faces the same situation from a gang of renditioned terrorists/prison inmates; she must kill her now-zombified father (and decides she must do it by herself in a [[Narm
* {{spoiler|Pit}} from [[Kid Icarus: Uprising]] goes through hell during [[Wham! Episode|chapter 18]]. {{spoiler|Pit's entire faith in Angel Land and fighting for justice is destroyed in a blink of an eye, the people that considered him Captain are now attacking him, and the Brainwashed and Crazy Palutena calls him a "puppet" and says she doesn't want to deal with him anymore. He gets over it (for the most part) in the next chapter, but it doesn't change the fact that those words will probably stick with him for a long time.}}
** It gets worse. {{spoiler|Chapter 19, Hades and Viridi constantly lay the smack down of insults on him and without Palutena to support him, Pit progressively gets quieter with the chapter (but he does get louder when he's asking Viridi if he's at the top of the tower yet). And then comes Chapter 20, where some of his insecurities are let lose as Palutena continues to berate him for being useless and naive. When he finally saves her from Chaos Kin though, he has to watch as her soul is ripped out of her and she turns to stone. And when he spends chapter 21 trying to get it back and succeeds with the help of Dark Pit, Chaos Kin wanted to make sure Pit suffered and tried to take Dark Pit down with him. Pit's response is to dive in and save him causing his wings to burn up in the process. And even though chapter 23 treats Pit's [[Sanity Slippage]] moment lightly, given what happened in the previous chapters, it's not hard to think he actually lost it.}}
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