Break the Cutie/Western Animation: Difference between revisions

Rescuing 0 sources and tagging 1 as dead. #IABot (v2.0beta9)
m (revise quote template spacing)
(Rescuing 0 sources and tagging 1 as dead. #IABot (v2.0beta9))
 
(3 intermediate revisions by one other user not shown)
Line 17:
* Happens to [[SpongeBob SquarePants|SpongeBob]] a lot.
* Aelita from ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' gets this treatment over the course of the series. She never actually breaks {{spoiler|(although she gets quite close to suicide in the Season 2 finale)}}, but dang, the poor girl's been to hell and back. {{spoiler|And it doesn't get much better in the end, when XANA is finally defeated... [[Bittersweet Ending|at the cost of her father's life]].}}
* 2-D of the [[Gorillaz]] gets pretty thoroughly broken over the course of the story. It all starts when he gets run over and knocked into a coma at age 19... which is how he met his [[Jerkass|'friend']] Murdoc. From then on he is run over again, has his front teeth bashed out, beaten silly countless times, kidnapped, held captive against his will, [[Organ Theft|harvested for organs]] and mentally tortured. Granted, 2-D is by no means a saint, but he was always pretty harmless. At this point, it's nigh-impossible not to [[The Woobie|feel kind of sorry for him.]]
* Averted in ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]''. Him seems hellbent on destroying the Powerpuffs (especially Bubbles) mentally and came close a few times (the episodes "Speed Demon", "Power Noia", and "All Chalked Up" come to mind). However he failed everytime.
** Though, played semi-straight in the episode "Bubblevicious". Bubbles essentially induces this on herself, trying to become as strong as her sisters. She loses her sweet act and becomes rather brütal (Read: bitchy). This culminates with Bubbles taking it ([[Agony Beam|quite literally]]) [[Up to Eleven]] after Mojo Jojo tries to torture her and break her even further. Bubbles wouldn't have any of that shit. Luckily, though, [[Beware the Nice Ones|after probably deadening a majority of Mojo's nerve cells]], her sisters come and snap her out of it quite quickly.
Line 23:
** Let's not forget Aang himself. He starts off as this rather goofy, optimistic kid. Then proceeds to learn that his own people have been killed off, basically everyone he ever knew it gone, that he's capable of pretty horrible destruction and might need to kill people.
** The episode "Appa's Lost Days" does this to [[Team Pet|Appa]]. Kidnapped by Sandbenders, sold to a circus, beaten, sleep-deprived, forced to abandon friends in need, and captured again. This flying bison needs a freaking ''break''!
** Hama. She doesn't cross the [[Moral Event Horizon]]. [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080501142827/avatar/images/thumb/9/90/Hama_004.jpg/250px-Hama_004.jpg She is forcibily thrown over it]{{Dead link}}. See [http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/File:Young_Hama.png before] and [[media:Hama_007.jpg|after.]]
** Katara herself suffered this very early in her life, before the series even started when her mother was executed in cold-blood.
** Heck, [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Jet]] counts. He's probably one of the last characters on the show anyone would describe as a "cutie" (Well, unless you're using [[Mr. Fanservice|a certain connotation of the word]]), but a flashback scene shows a little eight-year-old Jet sobbing while watching his village burn down... which is what turns him into the thug he is when the Gaang meets him.
Line 30:
* ''[[Wakfu]]'', episode 19: {{spoiler|Sadlygrove, possessed by the demon of his sword, proceed to crush both forearm and bow of [[Love Interest]] Evangelyne, who has only just begun to reciprocate his feelings, in one grasp. The tears of physical and emotional pain she show afterwards are enough to cause a [[My God, What Have I Done?]] moment in Sadlygrove, almost making him another broken cutie.}}
* ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'': Mac goes through tis a ton of times. Escpecially in "Bye Bye Nerdy", when he comes to the conclusion he's a nerd.
** Then in "Afair Weather Friends", when he found out Bloo was hanging with another kid behind his back.
** When he found out that [[Santa Claus]] wasn't real in the [[Christmas Special]]. (in this case, he was) (He gets better)
** When Bloo became a celebrity and was ignoring him (it was actually because his manager was nasty). (He gets better).
* Rusty Venture on "[[Venture Brothers]]"
* [[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]] arguably subverts this in Dog Of Death. When Burns gets a hold of Bart's friendly, gentle pet dog, he [[A Clockwork Orange (film)|straps the dog to a chair, sets up a machine that holds the dog's eyes open, and forces the dog to watch several images of animal abuse]] to, as Burns himself put it, turn the dog into "a vicious, soulless killer." However, when Burns sends said dog after Bart, the dog's memories of good times with Bart prompt him to lick Bart's face instead of attacking him. When the other dogs come after Bart, said pet dog [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|growls at the other dogs and scares them off]], only to proceed to lick Bart's face AGAIN. Burns' attempt at breaking the dog's spirit yields, if any change in the dog at all, a result of the dog [[Took a Level Inin Badass|taking a level in badass]] while no longer being on Burns' side in the long run.
** Played straight with Ralph when he takes Lisa out to Krusty's anniversary special, only for her to dump him ''on live TV''.
{{quote|'''Bart''' (replaying a video of the event): Watch this, Lis. You can actually pinpoint the ''second'' his heart breaks in half.}}
Line 59:
** Pinkie breaks again in "Baby Cakes", where she [[Badly-Battered Babysitter|suffers all sorts of indignities trying to prove she's responsible enough to look after the Cakes' new foals]]. After Pound Cake (a pegasus) and Pumpkin Cake (a unicorn) start manifesting their respective powers of flight and magic and making even ''more'' mischief, Pinkie finally snaps and bursts into tears.
** Applejack gets this treatment ''two episodes in a row''. In "The Last Round-up", her inability to win a single blue ribbon or earn any prize money for Ponyville breaks her so hard she can't face returning to Ponyville since she feels she let everyone down. In "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", the apparent loss of her home and vocation drives Applejack to tears.
** Pinkie (again; she seems to get a lot of this) and Rarity are driven to tears by numerous insults from Fluttershy, when the pegasus tries to act more assertive in "Putting Your Hoof Down." Included among these is Fluttershy calling Pinkie "simple," calling Rarity "petty," and saying that what is essentially both of their lives' purpose is useless. Note that neither of the did ''anything'' to deserve this treatment -- they only tried to help Fluttershy and expressed concern about [[Took a Level Inin Jerkass|her recent behavior]].
** Fluttershy gets this ''hard'' in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2 /E22 Hurricane Fluttershy|Hurricane Fluttershy]]''. In fact, it happens ''three times!'' First when Rainbow Dash trying to get her to join in making the tornado brings up a pretty brutal bullying incident from her foalhood. Second when some ponies laugh at her wing speed test, sending her running off practically crying her eyes out. And then, after she manages to train a lot, finding out it wasn't nearly enough and once more running off in tears. [[The Woobie|Poor thing...]]
* [[Scooby Doo Mystery Inc]] breaks all four at once in the season finale. After Mayor Jones is {{spoiler|revealed to not only have been the Freak Of Crystal Cove and kidnapped Freddy as an infant from his real parents to raise, but now Freddy has dissolved the team to look for his parents. Meanwhile, Shaggy's parents are shipping him to military school, and Velma is on the outs with everyone for keeping Angel Dynamite's identity a secret from them. Daphne is absolutely devastated as Fred had proposed marriage to her in episode 24, but now that's off as Fred seeks to discover who he really is.}}
* The ''[[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]]'' episode "Failsafe" breaks {{spoiler|Miss Martian, after she loses control of her powers and accidentally pulls a [[Holodeck Malfunction]] on the team during a training exercise, rewriting their memories to make them believe the simulation was real and leaving them all in comas when they "died." She collapses in tears at the end of the episode when she learns what happened.}}
** The {{spoiler|[[Holodeck Malfunction]]}} a pretty good job of breaking {{spoiler|Robin}}, too. It's not really touched upon until the following episode, but the burden of {{spoiler|sending his friends to their deaths}} took its toll on him, and made him realize {{spoiler|that he didn't want to become the Batman}}.
** In "Misplaced" it's {{spoiler|Zatanna's}} turn to be broken {{spoiler|when her father takes her place as Nabu's host (effectively killing him). One of the last scenes of the episode is Zatanna sitting alone in her new room at Young Justice headquarters crying her heart out.}}
* The eight children of ''[[All Grown Up!]]'' play a role in this trope. As babies in [[Rugrats]], Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and Kimi (excluding Dil, due to being a few months too young at the time for character development) basically had no serious worries (aside from Angelica and other episodic misunderstandings) compared to their 10-year pre-teen future-selves. In All Grown Up, the children deal with various life difficulties as they attend school. Occasionally, the problems they face would delve into heavier issues, which would put them at each other's throats, like a loose spoof of [[Degrassi]], making their toddler years seem like bliss.
** Some example would include Tommy and Chuckie's friendship being strained in "Fear of Falling" and "TP + KF", Phil & Lil having a less-than-inseparable bond in "Coup Deville" and "Seperate But Equal", and Chuckie and Kimi's sibling bond being strained in "Memoirs of a Finster and "Petition This".
* This happens to [[Adventure Time|Finn]] a lot, but by far his biggest example was in "The New Frontier". Nearly losing your best friend/only relative to a [[You Can't Fight Fate]] type of suicide? Not the best thing to happen to you. He also has another one in "Too Young" when Princess Bubblegum just broke up with him, and he goes through a [[Heroic BSOD]] when she pushes him further away in "Incendium".