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In fiction, it's dangerous to carry one's head [[Smug Snake|too high.]] What kind of character is used for this story varies; it can be anyone from a [[Jerkass]] to a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]. Extra points if the character has not only a high opinion of themselves, but also a low opinion of everyone else.
But unfortunately for them, they are usually so busy [[
The "breakings" usually involve [[Humiliation Conga|misfortunes increasing in unpleasantness]], [[Mind Rape]], killing everyone they love, [[And I Must Scream]], disease, [[Cold
Which is a [[Older Than Feudalism|rather old idea]]: The [[Greek Mythology|Ancient Greeks]] considered Hubris (overbearing [[Pride]]) to be one of the greatest and most self-destructive sins. Thus, there are quite a number of stories about how those guilty of it are punished, either by circumstances or by the gods (although circumstances are generally also considered caused by the gods). The Greeks even had a god specifically for the punishment of hubris, the goddess Nemesis. Or, as [[Snatch|Brick Top]] put it, "Do you know what 'nemesis' means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent..." The Greeks loved <s> irony</s> poetic justice; the proud were always brought down by something....appropriate.
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Often seen in a [[Slobs Versus Snobs]] conflict or a [[Backstory]]. If the [[Hubris]] is society-wide, see [[Look On My Works Ye Mighty and Despair]], and [[And Man Grew Proud]].
{{examples
== Anime & Manga ==
* Both [[Pride]] and [[Big Bad|Father]] get a taste of this in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. Pride, the [[Anthropomorphic Personification|incarnation]] of the homunculi's [[Humans Are Flawed|superiority complex over humankind,]] is pushed to the brink and tries to save himself by taking over Ed's body. [[Psycho for Hire|Kimblee,]] [[Too Spicy for Yog
* In ''[[Kaleido Star]]'', May Wong thought she could [[Hard Work Hardly Works|skip the "hard work"]] and become the star while breaking her rival Sora and charming her idol Leon. Well, when Leon {{spoiler|deliberately ''dropped'' her during an act as a test of strength, seriously injuring her in the process}}, she was ''brutally'' proven wrong and had to start from scratch.
* Autor from ''[[Princess Tutu]]'' generally comes off as a snob, lording his grand knowledge about the Story-Spinning powers over another character, only to be humiliated when the character is "chosen" over him and he turns out to have no trace of the powers in question.
* Asuka from ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' is a subverted version of this. In both her first story and "The Day Tokyo 3 stood still" she is set up for such a fall. In the first one, everyone pulls together and she learns no "lesson". In the second she makes a fool of herself trying to take charge, until the real battle. Then she starts giving orders that make sense and takes over and the whole [[An Aesop|Aesop]] is just ignored. After she snaps out of her [[Mind Rape]] induced [[Heroic BSOD|coma]], in [[The Movie]] she's just as cocky as she ever was. Though she ''is'' physically broken very [[It Got Worse|very]] thoroughly. At the very end, she seems to have softened slightly, but she still has to get the last word in (and it's not sweet).
** Debatable in that Asuka really never thought highly of herself so much as wanted others to think highly of her. If anything, her self-confidence increases after she gets out of her coma because she becomes self-reliant and learns her mother loved her. As for the last line, considering [[Dude, She's Like, in A Coma|what happened earlier...]]
** Shinji, on the other hand, gets to have one moment of being the best on synch tests, and then is promptly devoured by an Angel moments later.
** Ritsuko. She at first is portrayed as a frigid, detached bitch with an intense hatred of Rei and a liking to [[Playing With Syringes]]... then she goes on a [[Motive Rant]] and is reduced to a sobbing wreck in episode 23 when she realizes that Gendo was just using her, spending the next episode and the first few minutes of ''EoE'' in the brig. First thing she does after being released is setting up her revenge in the form of [[Taking You With Me]]. [[Mad Scientist]], much?
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** In the case of Gary, after spending the entire first season mocking Ash, he not only gets [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb stomped]] by Mewtwo, he also loses in the ''preliminaries'' of the tournament both he and Ash spent a year preparing for.
*** Although to be fair to Gary, he was absolutely dominating Giovanni before Mewtwo, the strongest Pokemon in existence at the time, stepped onto the field.
** In May's case, she develops an [[Ted Baxter|over-inflated ego]] after learning she had a group of admirers. She ends up pushing her Pokemon too hard during the contest and [[What the Hell, Hero?|gets reprimanded]] '''[[What the Hell, Hero?|hard]]''' by ''[[Beware the Nice Ones|Nurse Joy]]'' of all people.
** Ash's Charizard also went through this in an early Johto episode. Upon arriving at a Charizard sanctuary, they reveal that Charizard (for a long time the most powerful Pokemon in Ash's party) is actually ''weak'' compared to the others there. Then he gets beaten up by anyone that it challenges, including a ''female'' said to be the weakest Charizard there. Ash leaves Charizard behind to get stronger. This mellows him out ''a lot''.
* In the original manga of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh]]'', Mokuba Kaiba undergoes this, changing from a stuck up brat who secretly longed for his big brother's approval to someone who was... well, [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold|still a jerk sometimes, but mostly okay]], after Yugi defeated him at Capsule Monsters. Seto Kaiba sure could have used this plot in the anime, but no matter how many times he lost a duel, he came out of the subsequent [[Heroic BSOD]] as arrogant as ever.
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* Erenfried of ''[[Neo Angelique Abyss]]'' is initially presented as a insufferable prodigy until {{spoiler|his inventions stop working on the [[The Heartless|thanatos]], his team is wiped out in a thanatos attack, his plan to kidnap Angelique fails causing his mentor to scold him, this same mentor gets sentenced to death for the property damage Erenfried's machines caused forcing him to ask for help from The Organisation, he is forced to give up his [[Ridiculously Human Robots|robot assistant]] and once he finishes his work The Organisation betrays him and throws him in prison.}} He's a bit different after all that.
* ''[[Hell Girl (Anime)|Hell Girl]]'': This happens to the many of the people the Enma Ai takes to Hell.
* In ''[[Naru Taru]]'', [[Alpha Bitch|Aki Honda]] goes [[All of the Other Reindeer|to insane lengths]] to break [[The Ojou|Hiroko]] [[Lonely Rich Kid|Kaizuka]], and to keep reluctant [[Girl Posse]] member [[Shrinking Violet|Miyoko Shito]] from finding her conscience in time to stop the spiraling madness. Well, [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|the cutie is broken]], and then, in some of the most gruesomely memorable sequences in animanga, ''the cutie breaks the haughty''. {{spoiler|One of the girls (Hiroka) is a mere thug, and dies a simple, but still brutal death in front of her classmates. One (Mihaya) is almost as sadistic as Aki, and her remains are left unrecognizable in a dark alley. The aforementioned Miyoko confesses her and the group's sins in public after witnessing Hiroka's death and lives, but she has a leg ''ripped off her body'' and is both forever scarred and haunted by how she could have stopped this. While Aki is reveling in her rule-breaking to the point of openly breaking one of the great taboos, and plotting still ''more'' impossible to pin on her attacks on Hiroko, the broken cutie's vengeance finds her, and exacts her revenge in a magnification of Aki's worst atrocity against her. Miyoko's pleas of sorry earn the former bully her life -- not so for Aki, whose pleas come only as she dies, and who is left with no doubt who's killing her and why, despite appearances}}.
* ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'' has the [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|Celestial Dragons]], or [[Aristocrats Are Evil|World Nobles]]. For good measure, as descendants of the World Government's originators, anyone who opposes them risks the wrath of a Marine Admiral. Too bad {{spoiler|one of them, Saint Charloss, shoots [[The Atoner|Hatchan]] in front of [[Beware the Nice Ones|Luffy]]. [[Berserk Button|Luffy got a bit mad.]] Just enough to punch Charlos's face so badly that Luffy leaves a HUGE crater on the side, drives the poor sap through rows of seats, and sends him crashing into a wall.}}
** Charloss's predecessor, Bellamy, got much the same treatment when he arrogantly laughed off the crew's goal of Sky Island and robbed one of their friends.
*** That's not even the worst of it. When Doflamingo, Bellamy's employer, heard of Bellamy's ignoble defeat, he had Bellamy cut down by one of his own crew mates and left him to die in the street, saying [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|he had no need for weaklings in his crew]].
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* Nanami of ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]''. [[Jerkass Woobie|Poor girl.]]
** To elaborate, from the Utena character page: After discovering that her brother, who she loved ever since she was a child, {{spoiler|was not her blood sibling, she feels like the connection she had her whole life was a lie.}} After that, she {{spoiler|runs away from home, into the house of a pair of close, happy siblings...only to walk in on them having sex.}} And after that she walks in on her brother {{spoiler|making out with a member of her old gang, to hear that her brother said he not only never loved her to begin with, and to have her ex-friend claim she has no connection to her anymore.}} And then after that she gets the {{spoiler|Akio Car treatment, where her brother attempts to rape her, much to her horror. Her proceeding duel has her break down in tears, claiming that she doesn't have any connection to the brother she loves, and is horrified as being just like the other girls he sees absolutely nothing in.}} It's very hard not to feel sorry for her after all that, even if you thought she was a raging [[Rich Bitch]].
** Several secondary characters go through this, with the manipulative and prissy [[Attention Whore|Shiori]] being ''the'' most prominent. She both admires and despises [[Defrosting Ice Queen|Juri]], a prodigal student and fencer; unknown to the former, Juri is actually ''[[Les Yay|in love]]'' with her (and not with a boy they both knew before, as noted in a flashback). {{spoiler|Enter Ruka, an old flame of Juri's and former fencing team captain, who sleeps with Shiori and makes her his Rose Bride for a duel with Utena...only to purposefully lose and both [[What the Hell, Hero?|call out]] and humiliate Shiori for it. Cue Shiori begging him to return to her in front of the entire school, true nature exposed. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Ruka purposefully acted this way]] to force Juri out of her broken state, even if it's true a big-ass [[Jerkass Facade]] -- and while being almost at the brink of his own death.}} Whereas the other secondary characters stay the same, Shiori mellows out by the end of the series.
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', Neji Hyuuga is a [[Insufferable Genius|genius who knows it]] and keeps insisting that everyone else's destiny is to lose to him. He is brought down ''hard'' by the titular character, [[Defeat Means Friendship|becoming much more likeable]].
** A quote from Kakashi, early in the series, would seem to indicate a trend:
{{quote| '''Kakashi''' ''(to Sasuke)'': They say the nail that stands up is the one that gets hammered down.}}
* {{spoiler|Mikael}} from ''[[Tenshi Ni Narumon]]'' {{spoiler|got thoroughly broken at the end of the series after going evil and insane over his obsession of becoming an angel, leaving him totally dependent on his teacher who still let him stew in his own juice}}. But it got subverted at the very end, because {{spoiler|his actions, however morally dubious they were, got him promoted to a position of an angel teacher}}.
* In ''[[Inuyasha]]'', [[Aloof Big Brother|Sesshoumaru's]] entire [[Character Development|journey]] is one long trip along [[Break the Haughty|this path]] until he learns the value of [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway|compassion]] which enables him to [[It Was With You All Along|achieve his true power]]. He doesn't stop being [[Pride|prideful]], but he does mellow from being a [[Jerkass]] to being a [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold]] and move from villain to [[Anti
* In ''[[Kichiku Megane (Visual Novel)|Kichiku Megane]]'', [[Jerkass|Midou]] suffers this {{spoiler|after being repeatedly and brutally tortured by Katsuya}}. (Though it happens in both the game and the manga, the manga goes on in more detail, including flashbacks from Midou's perspective, [[Jerkass Woobie|woobiefying]] him a bit)
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* The Jedi Council is the bane of many a ''[[Star Wars]]'' fanfiction writer, particularly those writing about the [[Knights of the Old Republic|KotOR]] era. It seems to be generally accepted by people that the council members are all a bunch of stuck up, worthless dicks who are completely wrong in their assessment of what leads to the [[Dark Side]] (apparently people forget that Obi Wan was a council member) and so many writers want to write about a character who gets one up on the council, which can range from mild humiliation to full blown mass murder. Of course, the problem is if a Jedi character does this, it automatically proves the council 100% correct. Mind, given the Council gets slaughtered by the Sith Lord they were hunting, who had manipulated them and the Republic into the Clone Wars, and who then stole their prized Chosen One...well, Palpatine kind of trumped any fanfic writers, didn't he?
** Some of the politicians of the SW universe can be examples of this trope, such as Borsk Fey'lya.
* Obviously, the "Pride" victim in ''[[Se7en]]'', although she obviously didn't deserve to have {{spoiler|her nose cut off, what happened next was nobody's fault but her own. Especially considering that [[What an Idiot!|she could have just gotten surgery to fix it]].}}
** First, we're dealing with a {{spoiler|woman whose career was based on her looks. Maybe the plastic surgery can give her back a nose, but not necessarily one that will let her keep her job.}} Second, you have a young woman who was probably shown {{spoiler|her own face with a bloody hole cut in the middle of her face. She's in pain, her disfigurement is, to forgive the express, plain as the nose that was on her face, and she's got a much more painless way out.}} Are we really expecting her to rationally weigh her options?
* This is most of the plot of ''[[Spider Man (Film)|Spider Man]] 3''. When Peter Parker puts on the black suit, he gets a swelled head and a severe case of testosterone poisoning, turning him into a [[Jerkass]]. Eventually he gets enough sense beaten into him that he goes back to being his old self again.
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** ''[[God of Cookery (Film)|God of Cookery]]''
* A number of [[Katharine Hepburn]] films revolve around Hepburn's character getting this treatment, as in ''[[The Philadelphia Story]]'' and ''[[Woman Of The Year]]''.
* This is the driving motivation behind the [[Villain Protagonist|Villain Protagonists]] in ''[[The Final]]''. Rather than kill their [[Alpha Bitch|pretty]], [[Jerk Jock|popular]] classmates, they instead [[Cold
* The entire point of the 'dragon balls' scene in ''[[Harry Potter (Film)|Harry Potter]] and the Half-Blood Prince''.
* 1, in the movie ''[[
* It was quite ''fun'' watching the victims' terror just before they were attacked in ''[[Dead Friend]]'' (aka The Ghost), considering what haughty bitches they were in the past. The movie even emphasizes how cruel and nasty they were in flashbacks.
* James Bond goes through this in ''[[Casino Royale (Film)|Casino Royale]]'', first getting lectured by M, {{spoiler|then loses to Le Chiffre in Poker, then gets captured, stripped, and tortured via [[Groin Attack]]<ref>which he admittedly takes in stride</ref>}}, but the one that really does him in is falling in love with {{spoiler|and getting betrayed by}} [[Femme Fatale|Vesper Lynd]]. [[Big Bad|Le Chiffre]] himself goes through this as well after his [[Evil Plan]] fails, {{spoiler|getting attacked by the Africans he owes money to, losing to Bond after he thought Bond was out of the game}}, and then [[Incredibly Lame Pun|dying after scratching Bond's balls]].
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* [[Jane Austen]]'s works have a lot of this trope.
** ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'', of course: Mr. Darcy's obviously a rather haughty type who gradually realizes that he has to take himself down a peg or two; Elizabeth's own pride in her ability to judge people gets a few dents over the course of the novel, particularly from Mr. Darcy's letter; happens to Mr. Collins when Elizabeth refuses to marry him; and to Lady Catherine when Elizabeth refuses to promise that she will not marry Darcy.
** It also happens in ''[[Emma]]'', where Emma is forced to realize how little she knows about [[Shipping|matchmaking]]. She also [[Kick the Dog|publicly humiliates]] a [[Kill the Poor|poor]], [[Dude, Where's My Respect?|old]], [[Break the Cutie|harmless]] [[And That's Terrible|spinster]] who [[Moral Event Horizon|had been a family friend for years and partly depended on Emma's charity]]. Spinster's reaction was "I will try to hold my tongue. I must be very disagreeable, or she [[Tear Jerker|wouldn't say such a thing to an old friend]]". Emma then gets the [[Break the Haughty]] of her lifetime by some guy whom she [[Slap Slap Kiss|eventually marries]].
** And ''[[Northanger Abbey (Literature)|Northanger Abbey]]'', where Catherine is forced to realize what an idiot she had been treating [[Real Life]] as if it were a gothic novel...
** ... And ''[[Sense and Sensibility (Literature)|Sense and Sensibility]]'' where Marianne has to realize how idiotic she behaved toward Willoughby, and confesses that her illness stems from neglecting her health in a manner she knew to be wrong at the time...
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* [[Older Than Feudalism|Virgil]] suggested that the motto of the Roman Empire was ''parcere subjectis et debellare superbos,'' which means something like "To spare the humble and with war to crush the proud."
* In the ''[[Mortal Instruments]]'' series, the Inquisitor gets a ''glorious'' one in the second book. After being nothing but condescending to Jace merely because he's the son of the [[Big Bad]], she finds out that her plan to trade Jace to Valentine for the two Mortal Instruments that he has isn't going to work, because despite what she thought, Valentine doesn't care about Jace, only the instruments. This causes her to have a [[Freak Out]] and a bsod until Maryse snaps her out of it.
* In [[Robert E Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[The People of the Black Circle (Literature)|The People of the Black Circle]]" the wizard subjects Yasmina to reliving all her past lives to humble her with [[Made a Slave|slavery]], [[Cold
* John Norman's ''[[Gor]]'' novels do not so much use this trope as ''harp'' on it to the point where it really becomes little more than a [[Take That|take that]] to women who are ''not'' slaves. One example includes a viking queen named Hilda the Haughty (sic) as well as another viking queen named Bera - who end up as slaves, side by side, and emphatically happy about it. And the first, arguably not-too-bad novel in the series has this as an important part of it, too.
* ''[[Fate Zero (Literature)|Fate Zero]]'' gives us the [[Aristocrats Are Evil|aritoscratic]] [[Smug Snake|prick]] [[Awesome McCoolname|Lord El-Melloi Kayneth Archibald]]. Thinking he's entitled to all of the niceties that have been handed to him, and claiming a vain sort of chivalry in the form of a [[Worthy Opponent]], he walks into battle against [[Combat Pragmatist|Kiritsugu]] with disdain, thinking it's all beneath him. He scoffs when Kiritsugu sprays a shower of low caliber rounds at his [[Tempting Fate|perfect defense.]] {{spoiler|Then Kiritsugu tricks Kayneth's defense and blasts him in the shoulder with a 30.06}} A fluke! This vermin thinks he's won? Look, he's trying the same trick again. The same trick won't work twice on ''the'' '''''Lord El-Melloi'''''-- {{spoiler|Then Kiritsugu fires his [[Depleted Phlebotinum Shells|Origin Bullet]], permanently ''crippling and stripping Kayneth of magecraft.''}} By the end, the once-proud Kayneth resorts to desperately accepting a cease-fire. {{spoiler|And gets mowed down with a machine gun.}} [[Kick the Son of A Bitch]] ended ''way'' [[Jerkass Woobie|before the end.]]
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* ''[[MASH|M* A* S* H]]'' did this all the time with Major Winchester, especially the occasional failing and having to rely on others. Sometimes resulted in legitimate [[Character Development]] and sometimes [[Snap Back|not]].
** Subverted in "Major Topper", where Winchester was set up for this, but it turned out he was right/had been telling the truth.
* Jool from ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'' looked perfectly set to be [[The Scrappy]] in her first appearance. Most of the rest of her time on the show consisted of this trope applied very thoroughly, with her suffering such indignities as being told [[I Ate What?|the liquid she's been drinking is actually urine]], and having to slog through a waist high swamp of bat feces.
* Q, in the ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "Deja Q", is stripped of his powers. Within the first five minutes of his appearing on the bridge of the Enterprise, he's forced to wear a really awful outfit, has Troi announcing to the entire crew that he's terrified, and is thrown in the brig. Later things get worse. [[Crowing Moment of Funny|Oh, and he gets stabbed in the hand with a fork]].
* Celia, resident [[Stepford Smiler]] [[Rich Bitch]] of ''[[Weeds]]'', goes through an incredible amount of [[Break the Haughty]], culminating in her {{spoiler|being kidnapped in Mexico and almost killed and sold for organs by her daughter}}. It doesn't work; she still maintains her old attitude despite her laughable situation.
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** In season four, Joan starts out almost as successful as she was in season one. She has her own office and takes part in the partner's meetings. While the junior execs may not respect her personally, even they acknowledge she's one of the two people who "really" run SCDP (the other being CFO Lane Pryce). While her marriage is still miserable, her husband has decided to enlist in the Army and is being sent to Vietnam. As of the most recent episode, Joan's been brought down again when it's revealed that {{spoiler|she's pregnant with Roger's child as the result of a one-night stand they'd had, and is pretending it's her husband's after letting Roger believe she's had an abortion.}}
** Pete Campbell also gets one of these. He starts as an arrogant, entitled bully who more or less rapes Peggy and struts around Sterling Cooper as though he owns the place. Repeated humiliations at the hands of Roger, Don, and even Bert Cooper, plus his inability to conceive with his wife Trudy, plus his family's continued problems, end up destroying his pretensions...and end up turning him into a much better man, an excellent account executive, a good husband, and (gasp!) a sympathetic character.
* [[
* We have a scene in ''[[ER]]'', where two [[Rich Bitch|rich bitches]] were making fun of Abby and Neela. After one of them twisted her ankle and Neela went to check on her, she told Neela to get her hands off of her and that she wanted a second opinion, even after Neela told her she was a doctor. So Neela calmly went up to Abby for the second opinion and Abby told the lady that she had a twisted ankle and [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|that she's a bitch.]]
* Averted on ''[[The West Wing]]'': on his N-tieth birthday, Josh is glorified by the papers as "the 101st senator" and the President's get-it-done man. The same day he loses a blue-dog Senator to the Republicans forever and has his portfolio heavily reduced because of it. However, Josh himself was actually very insistent on downplaying the story (and his birthday), not that it helped him.
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* [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Twelfth Night]]'' also has a good example of this, where the arrogant and obnoxious steward Malvolio is tricked into thinking his employer Olivia is in love with him. He is persuaded to behave and dress in entirely inappropriate ways, all the while thinking this is exactly what she wants, and ends up being locked in a dungeon for lunacy before being released for a final dose of verbal humiliation at the end of the play.
* ''[[A Streetcar Named Desire]]'' is a deconstruction of this type of story, questioning why Stanley needs to see Blanche brought down. It's because he's a bully who can't stand the fact that, after all that's already happened to her, she's still an idealist.
* ''[[Angels in America]]'': Roy Marcus Cohn is introduced as a man [[Screw the Rules, I Have Connections|who can get just about anything he wants]], and will happily flaunt it. By halfway through part two, {{spoiler|he is wasting away in a hospital bed from AIDS, alone and friendless.}}
* Athena, helped along by ''[[Ajax (Theatre)|Ajax]]'' himself, does a stellar job of turning Ajax from the best warrior on the Greek side to a madman held in complete ridicule and anger by the army. When the madness is removed and he realizes all this, he [[Driven to Suicide|kills himself]].
== Video Games ==
* Princess Kara goes through this in ''[[Illusion of Gaia]]''. At the start of the game, she's a complete and total snob who [[
* Luke Atmey in ''[[Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney]]: Trials and Tribulations''. An ''Ace Detective'' with an overinflated ego, turns out to be {{spoiler|a blackmailer and a killer}} and his whole reputation comes crashing down.
** Hell, T&T had a ''field day'' with this trope. Remember {{spoiler|Winston Payne's rapid hair loss}}? Or {{spoiler|Dahlia's exorcism/HumiliationConga}}?
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* Kolorado from ''[[Paper Mario (Video Game)|Paper Mario]]'' is a famous and respected archaeologist... by people who've merely heard of his accomplishments. However, "He's bold, I'll give him that! Bold and certifiably insane..." as anyone who actually has to work with him can attest. He often runs into situations where it'd be more prudent to stand back and take stock of things before proceeding. This tendency burns him quite literally a few times in Mt. Lavalava, Yoshi Island's volcano.
** To be fair, it's made clear that it isn't because he's a bad guy, but just because he's really excited about discovering these artifact and would do near anything to get them. Plus he kind of wins in the end.
* [[Jerkass|Luke Fon Fabre]] in ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'': He first gets a minor [[Pride Before a Fall]] in the beginning when he's teleported halfway across the globe and stranded without any friends or resources in a place where his family name is a death sentence. {{spoiler|This doesn't do much except inconvenience him. Then, he's [[Et Tu, Brute?|betrayed by his mentor]], [[What the Hell, Hero?|chewed out and abandoned]] by his [[True Companions]], and finally [[Tomato in The Mirror|discovers he's a clone of one of the villains who was created to die in the villain's stead]].}} At which point, he pretty much [[Heroic BSOD|snaps]].
* Sonia in ''[[Fire Emblem]] 7'' at the moment of her death, when she discovers {{spoiler|[[Tomato in The Mirror|she's actually one of the morphs she despises so much and has basically been duped by Nergal all this time into thinking she was the one perfect human]].}}
** An even more tragic example in ''FE 4'': Alvis. {{spoiler|First he's a [[Magnificent Bastard]] / [[Well
* The Camarilla ending of ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' has {{spoiler|your [[Bad Boss]] Prince Lacroix}} reduced to the level of begging at your feet for the game's [[MacGuffin]], sniveling and whimpering about the inevitable [[Chinese Vampire|Kuei-Jin]] invasion until he's finally arrested.
** The Anarch and Lone Wolf endings feature him first being slashed half to death with a letter opener, ''then'' reduced to sniveling and whimpering, before finally {{spoiler|finding himself on the business end of one of the most [[Just for Pun|explosive]] [[Xanatos Gambit|Xanatos Gambits]] in history}}.
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* Kharisma from ''[[Something Positive]]'' was an example of this; she started out as a truly detestable vain, shallow, and selfish rich playgirl, but over the course of the series she lost all her money, received disfiguring burns to the face and head, was framed (sort of) for murder and then sent to prison for it, where the local prison warder and the other inmates conspired to make her life a living hell until she was freed by a misguided admirer during a prison transfer and had to resort to life as a fugitive. If the point was to make the audience feel bad for wishing bad things on her, it would be about right for ''S* P''.
** However, unlike Mike, who got a similar [[Break the Haughty]] moment for being a pretentious rules-lawyering jerkass, Kharisma hasn't changed that much, other than gaining a little blue monster imaginary friend.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Drow Tales]]'', {{spoiler|Val'Sharess Diva'ratrika}}, who was never the nicest person, earns her [[Jerkass Woobie]] status in a big way after being set up and betrayed by her daughters and trapped for a year in her throne room with only a single slave for company. Eventually she stops wearing clothes because they've gotten too dirty and deteriorates physically to the point that it's implied she starts hallucinating. It finally gets to the point that {{spoiler|she effectively kills herself and transfers her aura to the slave, Ragini, so she can escape. This is how the [[Cloudcuckoolander]] Liriel came to be}}.
* Morita of [[Red String]] gets broken very harshly. She goes from the top of the school, wanted by all the boys, envied by all of the girls to an outcast that no one will offer any help or friendship to and suffers constant humiliation from her former friends (including physical abuse). All this because she dared to turn her cruelty on someone more popular than she was.
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* In ''[[The Gamers Alliance (Roleplay)|The Gamers Alliance]]'', Captain Amano and various other arrogant Yamatians suffer this fate when the rebels they thought of as "weak" end up beating their asses.
* In ''[[Dimension Heroes]]'', neither good nor evil are safe from this trope, most noticeably Wyn and Clonar.
* In ''[[The Guild]]'', Tink gets Bladezz to buy her more than he can afford by promising him sex. When she [[Card
* The [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Broken Saints]]'' is all as proud and self-righteous {{spoiler|until Our Heroes ruin his grand plan}}.
** Most of the villains in this series start off arrogant and end up humbled.
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* Whenever [[The Nostalgia Critic (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Critic]] starts thinking too much of himself, he's usually pretty quickly broken down. In [[Kickassia]], he manages to avoid it for a while but the world's order is restored in the last episode.
** In an interesting contrast, this was subverted by [[The Nostalgia Chick (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Chick]]. The quasi-demonic forces of evil tried so very hard to break her down, but unlike her [[Spear Counterpart]] who falls almost instantly, she was too oblivious to even notice.
* In ''[[Doctor
{{quote| '''Captain Hammer''': Ohhhh, I'm in pain! I think this is what pain feels like! Mama... [[Buffy
* [[Sir Ron Lion Heart]] has always been quite the [[Large Ham|hammy]] [[Boisterous Bruiser]], [[Catch Phrase|FANTASTICALLY]] so, but after {{spoiler|Palom and Parom sacrifice themselves}} in ''[[Final Fantasy IV (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IV]]'', he realizes just how deep he's dug himself.
* Marie Swanson from Erika's Old Big Sister, the sequel to [[Erikas New Perfume]], gets broken ''hard'' after having her [[Fountain of Youth|regression]] undone, due to the fact that she spent so much time at an age that suits her bratty nature and thus is unable to readjust to the life of a teenager. She gets plenty of [[Jerkass Woobie]] moments throughout the story.
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