Dark and Troubled Past: Difference between revisions

[[File:tragicpast_8463tragicpast 8463.png|link=Peachi|frame|''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty|TRAGIC]]'', we tell you!]]

* Physical and, sometimes, [[Rape Asas Backstory|sexual abuse]] by [[Abusive Parents|parents]] or [[Domestic Abuse|lover]].

Female characters with a [['''Dark and Troubled Past]]''' include the [[Dark Magical Girl]] and the [[Broken Bird]]. Male characters with a [['''Dark and Troubled Past]]''' are instant [[Mr. Fanservice|bait]] for the [[Estrogen Brigade]] who have [[Draco in Leather Pants|bought him leather pants.]] Expect all nearby female characters to become afflicted with attraction to his [[Troubled but Cute]] appeal, and try to help him heal his heart. [[Don't You Dare Pity Me!|Not happening]]. [[Epiphany Therapy|Or maybe it will?]] Either way, [[Triphop Anthem]] is typically the background music that plays while the [['''Dark and Troubled Past]]''' is explored.

* Kenshin Himura from ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'' and ''[[wikipedia:Samurai X: Trust %26 Betrayal|Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal]].'' After the death of his parents, Kenshin (a child at the time) is taken by slavers, who are later violently killed in front of him by bandits. After burying the mutilated victims alone, Kenshin is resolute to “create a peaceful world where people could live without fear”. To accomplish his ideal, Kenshin trains with the master of the “Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū” (a fighting style so deadly that, to truly master, it means death to the teacher) and, at 14, became the legendary assassin "Hitokiri Battōsai”. {{spoiler|Kenshin goes into hiding years later and marries a mysterious woman named Tomoe for appearance only, but they later fall in love. After a series of events, Kenshin kills Tomoe unintentionally in battle. As Tomoe died, she gave Kenshin half of the X shaped scar on his cheek. Kenshin later finds out, after reading Tomoe’s diaries that he had killed Tomoe’s fiancé (a man who years earlier, gave Kenshin the other half of the X shaped scar) before he met her and she only married Kenshin out of revenge, but, after living together, fell in love with him.}} Broken and filled with remorse for killing countless people, Kenshin wanders off wielding a sakabatō or reverse blade sword. He is determined to never kill again and to aid those in need, as atonement for the murders he committed.

* Hiei from ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]''. {{spoiler|Being tossed away by your clan, brought up by bloodthirsty thieves who later abanndon you, and going through torture just to find your homeland only to learn that your mother committed suicide and your twin sister has been kidnapped by a sadistic psycho will make you be just a little bit dark.}}

* The entire main crew of ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' has this to some degree. Spike Spiegel used to be an enforcer for the Red Dragon crime syndicate, essentially Space [[The Triads and Thethe Tongs|Triads]], only to fall out with them and his former best friend and fellow assassin Vicious over a girl named Julia, resulting in him [[Faking the Dead|faking his death]]. Jet Black used to be a cop until his own corrupt partner and best friend set him up and tried to kill him, though he got off with merely losing his left arm and needing a cybernetic replacement -- thisreplacement—this, after the love of his life dumped him for, basically, being too controlling. Faye Valentine lost her family, her memories, and her past after she was placed in cryogenic suspension after a space shuttle accident, and after she was revived, the one man who seemed to care for her "died"...and left her stuck with a debt reaching into the millions. Radical Edward's father was so absent minded that he was barely aware of her existence, so she spent her entire childhood wandering aimlessly in and out of orphanages and possibly over most of the planet. The only one exempt is Ein, the genetically engineered "data dog".

* In ''[[Baccano (Light Novel)|Baccano!]]'', there's Czeslaw Meyer, a young boy who, when his grandfather and caretaker died, was taken in by his grandfather's alchemy student, Fermet. A few years later, they become passengers on the ship the Advene Avis. {{spoiler|Cue both of them becoming immortal}}. Fermet's [[Complete Monster|true nature]] begins to shine through, and he starts experimenting on Czes, claiming it's for science. {{spoiler|This torture continued for the next two hundred years.}} The torture and abuse is only ended when Czes finally manages to {{spoiler|kill Fermet, in a way that causes Czes to gain all of Fermet's memories. This means that Czes now has both his own memories of being tortured and memories of sadistically enjoying torturing himself.}} Because of all this, the kid now has intense trust issues.

* Guts's childhood from ''[[Berserk]]'' is singularly horrific. His mother was hanged presumably as he was being born (yeah, we don't get it either), and he was adopted by a mercenary named Gambino, who trained him as a [[Child Soldiers|child soldier]]. During his time in Gambino's band, Guts had to endure some seriously [[Harmful to Minors]] stuff of both the horrific violence and the sex varieties -- hevarieties—he was even raped at one point in the manga when Gambino sold him to a pederast soldier in his band as a child prostitute. It all came to a head when Gambino, his leg having been blown off by a cannonball and thus making him unfit for combat, got drunk one night and tried to kill Guts because he blamed the kid for the death of his lover from the plague. Guts had to kill Gambino in self defense and then get away from the camp to escape the wrath of the other mercenaries. And that's just peaches compared to the stuff that comes afterwards.

** Casca's past isn't much better -- shebetter—she lost her village at an early age and was sold to a noble who wanted a new serving girl, only for it to transpire that he wanted her for sex. Just as he's about to rape her, though, Griffith shows up. Instead of killing her would-be rapist, however, he makes her do it instead ("If you have something you wish to protect, take up that sword."). She has a relatively easy life afterward, until the Eclipse goes down and she suffers a ''horrific'' ordeal that ends with her being driven insane.

* None of the other characters in ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' had a fun childhood, but Fai's was, by far, the worst. Though unlike most characters here, his childhood trauma didn't turn him into a crabby, jaded [[Jerk Withwith a Heart of Gold]] (that's [[Perpetual Frowner|Kurogane]]), he kept all of his bitterness and heart break under a [[Stepford Smiler|facade of perpetual happiness]]. Or, [[Cerebus Syndrome|he did at first...]]

* Kaoru in ''[[Ai Yori Aoshi (Manga)|Ai Yori Aoshi]]'' (physical abuse, betrayal, abandonment), to the point of not even remembering his childhood friend when he meets her again.

* ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'': every character that joins the crew (and then some) have a tragic past, as if it's a requirement to jump aboard a ship with Luffy. Most pasts, however, take a usually "boring" subject and draw them out into originality. A good example is Sanji; everyone knows being stranded on an island sucks, but this is hardly an island: it's a mushroom rock that's too far above sea water to fish and incapable of sustaining any life...because it's a ROCK. Not to mention, he realizes that the only other person on this island has a big ol' bag of, what he thinks is, food, much bigger than the one he gave to Sanji. However, it turns out that other guy just had a bunch of money and absolutely NO food, and that instead of keeping any for himself, gave ''all'' the food he recovered to Sanji and ''broke off and ate his own leg'' to survive. And on top of all ''that'', the food that Sanji got was barely enought to last 20 days (though it lasted 25 days). It took ''eight-five days'' for a ship to find them. One can only imagine how hellish the last 60 days (''two months'') must have been. No wonder Sanji considers wasting food to be a horrible offense.

** Though this trope is often used to arouse sympathy for villains, in [[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]], often the only character who do not get tragic pasts are villains. Conversely, almost every character with a tragic past gets befriended by Luffy.

** And Ishida, who saw his ''grandfather'' get killed by Hollows, with the shinigami nowhere in sight, when he was a child. {{spoiler|Later, it turns out that the whole incident was planned. His grandfather didn't die in the Hollow attack, but was captured by Soul Society and experimented upon by [[Complete Monster|Mayuri Kurotsuchi]]. When Ishida fights Mayuri, he even shows Ishida a photograph of his grandfather's body whilst gloating.}}

* Played straight with Mitsumi in ''[[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure]]''. She was raised by Cyrus to be a [[Complete Monster]] devoid of all feelings toward Pokemon and human, her only purpose to defeat her opponents. Rowan eventually softened her up though, and made her realize that there's more to Pokemon than fighting.

* Ciel from ''[[Black Butler (Manga)|Black Butler]]'' was a happy, loving, carefree child before his tenth birthday. Then, his parents were murdered, the mansion set on fire, and he's kidnapped. He's locked in a cage with other children his age and eventually made a child sacrifice until he accidentally called upon a demon in his desperation to live. His past is still being pieced together so more details will probably surface. No wonder he's a bitter, driven [[Troubled but Cute|13-year-old.]]

** The children in [[Circus of Fear|Noah's Circus]] had a pretty bad past, too. Too bad the man who helped them {{spoiler|turned into a crazy [[Stalker Withwith a Crush]] and, with some [[Mad Scientist|psycho doctor]], killed children so their bones could be used in the making of prosthetics.}}

* Mist and Euphemia from ''[[Knights]]''. The former is a [[Hero Withwith Bad Publicity|knight of African heritage (in Medieval Europe)]] whose mother was burned at the stake by his father, who is also trying to kill him. The latter was accused of witchery and was [[Prison Rape|raped in prison]].

* The characters in ''[[D .Gray Man-man]]''. Specifically, a whole bunch of the main Exorcists. Kanda and Lenalee, in particular, had their traumatic pasts inflicted on them by the "good guys" so they could fight the "bad guys". Allen was abandoned, beaten, and such until he met Mana, who died shortly after. Miranda was always teased for being wimpy and useless. Krory has never left the castle in his life. Lavi used to be cold and emotionless.

* Hei, [[Badass Longcoat]] [[Anti-Hero]] of ''[[Darker Thanthan Black]]'', falls into this ''bad''. Start with [[Dead Little Sister]] and betrayal by his girlfriend and work up from there: {{spoiler|his little sister became a Contractor and was recruited by [[The Syndicate]], and he joined as a [[Badass Normal]] to [[Big Brother Instinct|try to protect her]]. [[Child Soldiers|They were both in their early teens]]. After a few years of very mixed feelings, guilt, and trauma later, his then-girlfriend Amber (apparently) betrayed him, and his sister disappeared when Heaven's Gate exploded. He basically woke up with her powers, no sign of her, and ''no clue what the hell happened''.}} Add a few years more spent working for [[The Syndicate]] as an assassin because a) they'd kill him otherwise and b) he's never done anything else, it's no wonder he's a [[Stoic]] [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]].

* This is how the ''[[Plus Anima (Manga)|Plus +Anima]]'' children are usually depicted gaining their animas, animal spirits of sorts which grant them the animal's abilities. It comes from the need for help to escape from a dangerous situation, such as being close to death.

* For all that it's a gag series, ''[[Gintama (Manga)|Gintama]]'' features characters with these. Gintoki is a [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]], Kagura comes from a lethally [[Dysfunctional Family]], Kyuubei had an...unconventional upbringing, etc.

* In ''[[Wild Fangs (Manga)|Wild Fangs]]'', it turns out Syon was [[Bio Augmentation|artificially engineered]] and grew up in a [[Mad Scientist Laboratory|lab]] where he was constantly experimented on but had no one who remotely cared for him. Subverted in that he doesn't remember it all that well so it's not as big a deal as others think it is.

* If anyone in ''[[Monster (Animemanga)|Monster]]'' appears ''not'' to have a [[Dark and Troubled Past]], just keep reading/watching and one will be revealed.

* From ''[[AragoARAGO]]'', there are the four horse men. Each one of them has deeply rooted reasons why he or she despises humanity.

* Joe Asakura of ''[[Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (Anime)|Science Ninja Team Gatchaman]]''. His parents were murdered almost right in front of him, and then the assassin tried to kill him.

* It's mentioned in ''[[Fairy Tail (Manga)|Fairy Tail]]'' that everyone in the guild has ''some'' sort of hidden pain in their pasts. A lot of them are explored in each arc of the manga as it goes on.

* [[Incredible Hulk (Comic Book)|Incredible Hulk]]: Bruce Banner and his mother were regularly abused by his father, Brian. Brian eventually killed his wife, in front of Bruce.

* Ah, Thug-Boy from ''[[Empowered (Comic Book)|Empowered]]''. The general criminality is how he met the love of his life, and she knows the basic outline of the whole 'Witless Minion' scam (although the detail about their last employer/victim still searching for the only survivor has apparently been glossed over). But then there is San Antonio. {{spoiler|Cape-killing terrorist anyone?}}

* The eponymous ''[[Max Payne (Filmfilm)|Max Payne]]'' had one, his family was killed in a mysterious robbery. Made extra saccharine thanks to the [[Flash Back|Flash Backs]]s being in a warm ember tone compared to the rest of the film's drab winter blues and grays.

** To be even more specific, in [[Max Payne (Video Gameseries)|the game]] the movie is based upon, his family got killed by V-head junkies {{spoiler|as part of an attempt to silence Max's wife for [[He Knows Too Much|knowing too much]] about Project Valhalla}}. Tragically, {{spoiler|Max's wife didn't have a clue what the memo meant and wanted to talk to Max about it, but he didn't listen to her because he had to go to work for the day}}.

* In the new ''[[Star Trek (Filmfilm)|Star Trek]]'' film, Captain James T. Kirk lost his father [[Birth-Death Juxtaposition|just minutes after his birth]]. He was [[Abusive Parents|frequently abused]] by his stepfather while his mother was working off-planet, his brother ran away when he was still young, and he was already a repeat offender long before enlisting in Starfleet. It is also possible that he survived [[Final Solution|Tarsus IV]] (if future movies keep with [[Star Trek: theThe Original Series|the original series]]).

* The main character of ''[[Hoosiers (Filmfilm)|Hoosiers]]'', Norman Dale, moves to the small town of Hickory, Indiana to take one last shot at redemption as a basketball coach after {{spoiler|ruining his coaching career many years earlier when he lost his temper and punched one of his own players}}.

* Subverted in ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', where the Joker likes telling stories about his [[Dark and Troubled Past]] to explain his scars...but every story is different.

* The first five minutes of ''[[The Descent (Filmfilm)|The Descent]]'' kill off the main character's husband and young daughter, leaving her traumatized and sometimes hallucinating. A big part of what fuels her trip into {{spoiler|[[Ax Crazy]]}}, particularly if the [[All Just a Dream|monsters don't really exist.]]

** Considering she found out she was adopted only a few minutes before, when Luke asked her about her mother's death, she may have been referring to her adoptive mother.

* Megara in ''[[Hercules (Disney1997 film)||Hercules]]'': she sold her soul to Hades in order to save her boyfriend, and he dumped her shortly after that. Also, it's hinted that she probably had more problems to face in life besides that.

* Will in ''[[Snow White: aA Tale of Terror (Film)|Snow White a Tale of Terror]]'' still has nightmares about the events that led to his banishment and scars.

** And {{spoiler|Dumbledore, who went through the following events in his lifetime: 1) his sister was rendered [[Power Incontinence|magically unstable]] due to being attacked by [[Bullying the Dragon|three ]] [[Muggles]], 2) [[Parental Abandonment|his father was sent to prison for attacking said Muggles,]] 3) his mother was accidentally killed by his unstable sister, 4) he then neglected said sister and spent all his time planning a takeover of the Muggle world [[Utopia Justifies the Means|‘for the greater good’]] with his [[Ho Yay|crush]], [[Love Makes You Evil|Gellert Grindelwald,]] and 5) he possibly accidentally killed his sister in a three-way duel with his brother and Gellert Grindelwald. ([[Word of God|Rowling even says]] [[The First Cut Is the Deepest|that what he did while infatuated Grindelwald turned him asexual]]).}}

** Not to mention Harry himself: bothBoth parents murdered before his eyes at age one,? nineCheck. Nine years living with abusive guardians,? Check. beingBeing bullied at school by his cousin and friends,? aCheck. A dead godfather,? aCheck. A dead mentor,? theCheck. The most evil person in his world has a connection to him,? aCheck. A life and death battle every year,? andCheck. sometimes hisHis friends sometimes turn their backs on him? Totally major. And the fact that he’s the title character he’s the one that takes the cake the most.

** Nevil Longbottom also deserves a mention. Lives with his grandma because his parents were tortured into insanity by Death Eaters and feels that he can never live up them and has no self confidence at all. He also thought for a long time that he was a squib and only discovered his magical ability by being dropped out of a window.

* Most of the vampires from ''[[Twilight (Literaturenovel)|Twilight]]'' seem have dark and troubled last minutes of their '''''human''''' lives, the terrific pain of the transformative venom probably doesn't help matters.

* Vin from ''[[Mistborn]].'' Born the daughter of a skaa (peasant) woman and an Imperial nobleman (a death sentence from the get go), her earliest memory is of her insane mother killing her little sister {{spoiler|and performing Hemalurgy to transfer some of her soul to Vin}}, before being rescued by her older half-brother. Said half-brother genuinely cares about Vin, but he's a cynical, abusive [[Jerkass]] who hammers into her head the idea that she can't trust anyone because everybody is selfish and manipulative. They spend the next several years working as petty thieves on the lowest rung of society, until the half-brother runs out on her, {{spoiler|though it turns out that he was actually captured and executed}}, leaving Vin without a protecter in a den of scum. Of course, from there, she gets recruited by [[La Résistance]], finds out that she's an [[Extraordinarily Empowered Girl]], and [[Took a Level Inin Badass|takes a level in badass]], but still. Is it any wonder the poor girl spends most of the trilogy wrestling with crippling paranoia?

* Francis Crawford of Lymond in Dorothy Dunnett's ''Lymond Chronicles''. He's got almost everything: rejection by his father, didn't fit in as a child, betrayed by his early--perhapsearly—perhaps first--loverfirst—lover, framed as a traitor, physical and perhaps sexual abuse as a galley prisoner, self-hatred because he blames himself for his sister's death, and pretty much everyone he cares about dies as a result of knowing him.

* Niall from ''[[Wicked Lovely]]'': 1. [[Cold-Blooded Torture]], 2. [[Rape Asas Backstory]], 3. both were orchestrated by the one he loved above all others, 4. inadvertently responsible for the deaths of several mortals. That's not even counting what happens to him ''during'' the series. He is [[The Woobie]], indeed.

* [[The Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]]. [[Death Byby Childbirth|Never knew his mother]], his dad died when he was a kid, bullied at an orphanage, adopted by an abusive [[Evil Mentor]] who tried to turn him to [[The Dark Side]], had to kill him in self-defense, arrested by the White Council, barely escaped the death penalty for violating the Laws of Magic, and is still under the Doom of Damocles and being stalked by an [[Inspector Javert]] type at the beginning of the series.

* Another Charlotte Brontë example: Lucy Snowe in [[Villette (Literature)|Villette]].

* In the ''[[Warrior Cats (Literature)|Warrior Cats]]'' series, there are several.

* Kvothe from ''[[The Name of the Wind]]'' had his entire troupe die, lived homeless for three years, got kicked out of the only place he felt he belonged after the death of his troupe...and that's just what we know so far.

* In ''[[HeartsHeart's Blood]]'', Anluan’s entire family history, all the way back to his great-grandfather, Nechtan, {{spoiler|who had an evil summoning spell go VERY wrong}}.

* ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'' Tobias. His natural father had to leave, and he was given a fake father, who then left himself. His mother was in an accident and didn't even remember him, besides being blind. He was bounced among aunts and uncles who didn't really care about him and became a bully magnet.

* In [[Devon Monk]]'s ''[[Age of Steam (Literature)|Dead Iron]]'', Cedar's brother Wil dragged him west after the loss of his wife and children. Then they went on the wrong land and were [[Curse|cursedcurse]]d into [[Werewolf]] form. Cedar came to find himself at the end of a bloody trail, and backtracked to find his brother's wolf corpse, its throat torn out by himself.

* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''[[Freckles (Literature)|Freckles]]'', Freckles does not remember his dark and troubled past, but knows it happened:

{{quote| ''Does it seem to you that anyone would take a newborn baby and row over it, until it was bruised black, cut off its hand, and [[Door Step Baby|leave it out in a bitter night on the steps of a charity home]], to the care of strangers? That's what somebody did to me''}}

* Ned from ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' was abandoned by his father, accidentally killed both his mother and the father of his childhood sweetheart, and spent most of his childhood in a [[Boarding School of Horrors]]. This, along with being given the sometimes unfortunate gift of bringing people [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]] with a touch, led him to grow into a nervous and shy adult with some trust issues.

* The initial sequence of the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' pilot episode shows Sisko being bodily dragged out of his quarters because he refuses to voluntarily leave his wife's corpse behind, despite the fact that the ship was critically damaged by the Borg and he doesn't have enough time to dig her out of the rubble before it explodes. Then we flash forward three years to his arrival at the space station.

* Elle Bishop of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' - originally introduced as a demented vixen (everyone's favourite trope), but then revealed to be ridden with several issues, including being experimented upon as a child, locked up, and pumped full of drugs, eventually leading to her being diagnosed as a sociopath and the subsequent use as an "Executioner" by her own father.

* Giles in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' is one of the most well mannered and uptight middle-aged English Gentlemen you will ever come across. However, one old friend from College still calls him by his old nickname, [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Ripper]], and their conversations drop tonnes of hints that he used to be one [[Evil Sorcerer|evil, badass warlock]] in his youth, whose feared reputation was very rightfully earned. It's never explicitly mentioned what he and Ethan did in the past and what [[You Do NOT Want to Know|happened to the other people in their group]], nor what made him change into the champion of good he is today.

* Then there's the ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'' side. There's Gunn, who ended up a street teen because vampires killed his family, and Fred, who got sent to a hell dimension, enslaved, and lived in a cave for five years.Plus Wesley, who was emotionally abused by his father and locked in a dark closet for hours. Plus Angel himself, of course. And Connor, good lord, Connor. Raised in a hell dimension to hate his real father and once tied to a tree and left behind at five years old so he could work to escape and find his foster father.

* Several character in ''[[Series/Babylon Five|Babylon 5]]'':

{{quote| ''"It doesn't matter how my parents raised me, because I loved my parents. Sure, they could be a little 'strict', but I often think back fondly on the memories I haven't repressed. The truth is, I wouldn't be the man I am today if it wasn't for the way my parents raised me."''<br />

* Almost everyone on ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' qualifies.

** Dr. House himself [[Teen Genius|figured out at age 13]] that his "father" wasn't actually his biological father, and he was therefore the result of his mother's infidelity. The father who raised him was a strict military man who moved them all over the world and was fond of punishing his rebellious son with ice baths and other forms of corporal punishment. Also, there's the whole "losing part of my leg against my will thanks to a decision by [[Love Interest|Stacy]], leaving me with chronic pain and a limp" thing. He didn't want his leg amputated. Later on in the series, when he has to go under for surgery again, he tells Cuddy not to let the doctors amputate it unless there's no other choice.

*** She also {{spoiler|killed her brother (upon his request) when his Huntington's got too advanced.}}

* Quite a few characters on ''[[NCIS (TV)|NCIS]]'' - Gibbs with his {{spoiler|[[Dead Little Sister|dead daughter]] [[My Greatest Failure|and wife]]}}, Tony with his hints of [[Abusive Parents|parental abuse]], and Ziva with all her siblings dying violently ({{spoiler|[[Kill the Ones You Love|one by her own hand]]}}) and her father basically being a sociopath who raised her to kill people. Even Ducky gets into the act in some episodes. The {{spoiler|late}} Director Shepard also had a screwed-up childhood. Basically, the only ones with possible good pasts are cheerful [[Perky Goth]] Abby and [[Hollywood Nerd]] McGee.

** Walter's also directly responsible for another [[Dark and Troubled Past]]: to save the other dimension's Peter after losing his own to a fatal illness, Walter kidnapped that Peter to this dimension. The ensuing years were implicitly turbulent and unhappy: by the time Peter was 13, Walter had been committed to a mental institution, and after Peter split for Europe at 18, Elizabeth Bishop committed suicide. We *still* don't know everything that Peter did or saw before joining Fringe Division, but it was apparently not all sunshine and puppies.

* In the eighth season of ''[[Twenty Four|24]]'', it is revealed that Renee has one of these.

{{quote| ''People with happy families don't become spies. A bad childhood is the perfect background for covert ops: You don't trust anyone, you're used to getting smacked around, and you never get homesick.''}}

* On ''[[Stargate SG -1]],'' Dr. Daniel Jackson's cringe-worthy backstory explains how he can keep going in the face of the constant perils he faces on the show. He lost his parents to an accident (which he witnessed) as a kid, and his own grandpa was too busy to take him in, so he went to foster care. He was ridiculed for his (true!) archaeological theories and lost his apartment and research grants before he joined the Stargate program. There, he falls in love with a woman on another planet and stays with her, but she's kidnapped one year later and he leaves to go tramping around the galaxy trying to find her (which remains his motivation for continuing with SG1 until she dies, possesses, and almost succeeds in killing him). Add that to what happens to him during the actual run of the show, and he's still the first one to give anybody the benefit of doubt.

** While usually ([[Hidden Depths|but not always]]) portrayed as more of a [[Knight in Sour Armor|jaded]] [[Deadpan Snarker|goofball]] than a dark character, Colonel Jack O'Neill doesn't have the most pleasant background. He is ex-[[Elites Are More Glamorous|Special Ops]], and his professional backstory appears to fall under 'you don't want to know' territory. It was stated that he's done some 'distasteful things', and a few allusions have been made to his 'file' and his having a 'strong stomach'. He was also left for dead by his friend and teammate, Frank Cromwell, resulting in four months [[Fate Worse Than Death|in an Iraqi prison]]. The Iraqis were not known for being nice to their prisoners, and he carried a grudge for at least seven years, to the extent that he refused to forgive Cromwell even when the planet was about to be sucked up by a black hole. [[They're Called "Personal Issues" for Aa Reason|This was never mentioned again]]. The specifics of his early life are unknown, but when Sam Carter was trying to get him to empathise with some new Air Force Academy graduates, he retorted that '[He] was never their age.' That one has about even odds of being a joke or a hint-within-a-joke, but it's a weird thing to say if it doesn't have any basis in fact. Finally, his son Charlie accidentally killed himself with O'Neill's sidearm, and O'Neill blames himself. He was suicidal and, {{spoiler|were it not for the intervention of Daniel Jackson, he would have killed himself with a nuclear bomb and [[Moral Event Horizon|knowingly taken five-thousand people]] with him.}} All this before the show happened. At a later date, there was a little episode called [[Cold-Blooded Torture|Abyss.]]

* Jack Harkness gets a lot of this in ''[[Torchwood (TV)|Torchwood]]''. The audience knows a bit of it due to remembering his origins in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', but his actions over the last 100 years without the Doctor include {{spoiler|giving up twelve children to aliens who wanted to use them for substance abuse in exchange for a cure to a deadly virus, being a member of a less than morally outstanding Time Agency earlier, having his blood drained as part of an immortality plot}}, and there are probably a few other things we haven't been made aware of.

* Speaking of ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the Doctor himself has elements of this trope. At first, it wasn't that bad - sure, he stole the TARDIS from his own people and broke their laws on non-intervention. Of course, then the Time War happened off screen, and now his back-story includes a horrible war, at least two (near) genocides, and the destruction of his fellow Time Lords.

* Hinted at, and later proved, with several characters on ''[[ER]]'' -- Luka—Luka, Sam, etc.

* Admiral Al Calavicci of ''[[Quantum Leap]]''. His family was pennyless, his father was [[Absent Father|gone]] most of the time, and his mother ran out on him and his sister, Trudy, who happened to have Downs Syndrome. When his father eventually found another job out of country, and left Al in an orphanage and Trudy in an institution, their father came back in time to free his kids and then die of some unspecified cause. Al, ten years old by this time, went back to the orphanage and his sister back to the institution. Al spent his time running away and stirring up trouble, and, in his late teens, engaged in both boxing and theatre, but apparently, his grades were good enough to earn him entance to Annapolis. Then, when he went to spring his sister from the loony bin, he was told that she had [[Dead Little Sister|died]] of pneumonia some time before. Time goes on, though, and he graduated Annapolis to become a Naval pilot. He met the woman he referred to as the love of his life, a Navy nurse named Beth, and married her. Now, just when you think things are getting better, Vietnam came along. During his second tour of duty, he was shot down over enemy territory, and, depending on the timeline, spent either six or eight years as a prisoner of war. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was listed as MIA, and when he was finally repatriated, he found out that his wife had him declared dead and was already remarried. He went on to remarry four times and gradually declined into alcoholism. Though he did get better, sort of.

** ''{{ [[CSI Miami}]]''

* Who in ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' does ''not'' have this?

* ''[[Community (TV)|Community]]'' has this quite a bit. Jeff's father-abandonment and abuse, Annie's drug addiction, Shirley's alcoholism, and Troy's...Troyness.

{{quote| ''Lord Of The Winter Snow'': Back again to my tragic past<br />

''Demonheart'': Shocked again she opened the gates / of her tragic past and bloody images / came back to her mind<br />

''Dargor; Shadowlord of the Black Mountain'': For his tragic past he disowned the sunlight<br />

''Legend of Steel'': Break the chains of the past forever<br />

''Black Dragon'': Had to fight the reputation of his bloody past<br />

* [[Mega Man (Videovideo Gamegame)|Dr. Light]], as told by [[The Protomen (Music)|The Protomen]]. His father died in a mining accident, leading him to build robots to do the work instead and "take the death away". Unfortunately, things [[It Got Worse|do]] '''[[Despair Event Horizon|not]]''' [[It Got Worse|improve from here]].

* Florence in ''[[Chess (Theatretheatre)|Chess]]''.

* The Phantom in ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]'' was used as a circus sideshow freak until he escaped.

* The ''[[Tales Series(series)]]'' practically needs its own folder for this trope: heroes, villains, teammates of questionable morality, ''and'' the NPC who shows up for five minutes and is never seen again.

*** Actually, Isabela was sold into marriage at an implied young age by her mother for a few silvers and a goat. Then Zevran was hired to kill him, and she inherited his ship and decided to become a pirate. Her stories about her past are the most fragmented of the party, and generally [[Noodle Incident|Noodle Incidents]]s. Also, that relic she's looking for? {{spoiler|She stole it from the ''Qunari''.}} This actually [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|comes back to bite the party]] in a serious way in Act II.

* Just about every single major character in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has some sort of tragic backstory. Even [[Player Character|Commander Shepard]] can be customised to have one -- theone—the Colonist background involves everyone in Shepard's [[Doomed Hometown|home colony]] being massacred or taken by slavers, while the Earthborn background gives him or her a criminal history, and the Sole Survivor psychological profile involves Shepard losing everyone in his or her unit to a thresher maw attack.

* Kla in ''[[Warbears]]'' is implied to have one.

* Jennifer from ''[[Rule of Rose]]''. There's a reason why the narrator never fails to refer to her as the "poor, unlucky girl".

* The Heavy from ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' subverts this to hell and back.

{{quote| '''Director''': Your father was a counter-revolutionary. When he was killed, you, your mother, and your sisters were transported to a North Siberian gulag. Paint me the picture.<br />

'''Heavy''': No. This is my gun. I like to shoot this gun. Is all you need to know.<br />

'''Director''': Your family only lived in that gulag for three months. In December 1941 it burned to the ground. All of the prisoners had escaped. All of the guards had been killed. Tortured to death.<br />

* [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Shadow the Hedgehog]] probably has the darkest past of all the Sonic characters. He was created as the [[Ultimate Lifeform]] in an attempt to cure a [[Littlest Cancer Patient|terminally ill twelve-year-old girl]], had his home ambushed and [[Dead Little Sister|said ill child die in front of him from a gunshot wound]], was thrown into stasis and had his memories [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|tampered by his creator]] to turn him into [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|a ruthless killing machine]]. And all it took to turn his character around was a [[Rousing Speech]] by a ''different'' twelve year old girl, a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] which resulted in him''getting amnesia'', spending [[Sonic Heroes (Video Game)|not one]], [[Shadow the Hedgehog|not two]], but ''[[Sonic Battle|three]]'' games trying to remember things properly again, and [[To Serve Man|the near planetary takeover of an alien race]] to snap him out of his amnesia for good and to put his past behind him. ''Yikes.''

* Every character in ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro Nini]]'' starts out seeming normal, but ends up having one of these - even Keiichi.

* Archer's dark and troubled past in ''[[Fate/stay Stay Nightnight]]'' inspires him to {{spoiler|prevent it from occurring by murdering Shirou, his pre-[[Jade-Colored Glasses]] self, and thus possibly prevent himself from [[Time Paradox|existing as well]]}}.

* Miles Edgeworth in ''[[Ace Attorney (Visual Novel)|Ace Attorney]]''. His father was murdered when he was ten {{spoiler|and Edgeworth spent fifteen years believing he was responsible for his death.}} He was adopted by the [[Amoral Attorney|honorable]] and [[Complete Monster|kindly]] Manfred von Karma, {{spoiler|the one who really murdered his father}}, and brought up to be a cold and ruthless prosecutor with no regard for whether the people he prosecuted had actually done anything wrong. {{spoiler|Just like von Karma planned.}} It's surprising he came out as well-balanced as he did.

* Arguably, Church from ''[[Red vs. Blue (Machinima)|Red vs. Blue]].'' {{spoiler|While he doesn't remember it for the most part, the original Church is what you get when you brutally torture an AI into splitting into pieces, even to the point of using parts of its own mind against it (Gamma and Omega). The result is a constantly angry person who doesn't even understand why he's so angry all the time. Epsilon!Church probably remembers more about the torture, but chooses to suppress it to keep from going crazy.}}

* In ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (Webcomicwebcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'', Claire. [http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/03-15.html Introduced, she muses about how easily a woman could become a witch without realizing it and implies something about her own child.] Later she [http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/04-44.html refuses to explain] why she no longer has her baby with her. And she comments that she had hated her parents—and now she knows she's no better.

* Grace, Susan, and Tedd in ''[[El Goonish Shive (Webcomic)|El Goonish Shive]]'', though Grace appears to have been the only one who suffered physical abuse. "Lord Tedd" from the alternate universe seems to have a dark and troubled past of truly epic proportions.

* Many of the characters from ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20171212154432/http://www.goldcoincomics.com/ Gold Coin Comics]'', such as Lance, whose entire village was burned to the ground.

* Parodied in ''[[The Noob]]'' [http://www.thenoobcomic.com/indexcomic/245/ here] (continued [http://thenoobcomic.php?pos=com/comic/248/ here]).

* ''[[Dissonance (Webcomic)|Dissonance]]'': both of the main characters have one.

{{quote| '''James''': When my mother died, my father always told me that god had a plan for those he allowed to pass. But god took my father years before he finally allowed him to pass.}}

{{quote| '''Sarah''': I think if I were meant to mother, there would be at least one positive sign.}}

* In ''[[Blue Yonder]]'' this is brought up against a cape: [https://web.archive.org/web/20130110073401/http://www.blueyondercomic.net/comics/1404300/blue-yonder-chapter-1-page-47/ he used to be a cop, and was thrown off the force for stealing evidence.]

* ''[[Tasakeru]]'''s primary characters, the Outcasts, are shining examples of this trope, it's pretty much a prerequisite for being one. {{spoiler|One is a runaway [[Samurai]] suffering from [[Survivor Guilt]], one was thrown out on the streets with her mother as an infant and grew up in poverty, and one was disowned by her family for [[Magic Is Evil|being a mage]].}} And that's just the ones we know about...

* When you put them all together, even though they're played for [[Black Comedy|dark laughs]], a lot of bad things have happened ([[Jerkass Woobie|that weren't actually his fault]]) to [[The Nostalgia Critic (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Critic]]. [[Abusive Parents]], hiding in the cupboard when he got scared, breaking up with someone three times and getting stalked for it, pitied by his classmates for acting like a brat, date-raped on his prom night, and that's just what we know so far. No wonder he's a weepy [[Psychopathic Manchild]] with issues.

* [[The Nostalgia Chick (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Chick]] had a judging mother and an emotionally distant father who both were alcoholics and yelled at each other constantly, had an uncle that molested her, got bullied at school for being the awkward dork, became an alcoholic herself and somehow got fixated on guys she could fix and control to do whatever she asked of them.

* [[Protectors of the Plot Continuum|Ithalond]]. An Elf from Imladris, he was pulled into ''[[Celebrian (Fanfic)|Celebrian]]''. Need I say more?

* In ''[[GutsandGuts and Sass|Guts and Sass: An Anti-Epic]]'', Efeddre was captured and tortured for nine years, and ended up a [[Jerkass Woobie]].

* any of the Organization's Agents in ''[[LIS_DEADLIS DEAD]]'' count, considering what we've learned of the Organization so far.

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' ''lives'' on this trope. Let's look it over;

** [[The Chick|Katara]] and [[Badass Normal|Sokka]]: mother killed in a Fire Nation raid when they were little, and their father and all the men of the tribe left three years prior to the show's start. This left Katara with abandonment issues, and Sokka feeling that he wasn't good enough as a warrior. They may not show the effects as much as Zuko does, but it catches up to them later on (Sokka risks his ass breaking into a Fire Nation prison, Katara has her dark night of the soul tracking down her mother's killer).

** [[Badass Grandpa|Iroh]]: was once a very powerful warrior and general in the Fire Nation army, leading a siege on Ba Sing Se. Then, his son died, he went into a [[Heroic BSOD]], and 'betrayed his nation'.

** All this isn't even counting the pasts of more minor characters such as Jeong-Jeong, Pakku, Hama, Jet, and, hell, even [[Magnificent Bastard|Azula]].

* The [[Sequel Series]] ''[[The Legend of Korra (Animation)|The Legend of Korra]]'' has given two of its main characters a [[Dark and Troubled Past]]: Mako and Bolin were street kids growing up, and Mako had to take care of his little brother.

* Kevin E. Levin from ''[[Ben 10 (Animation)|Ben 10]]'' and ''[[Ben 10 (Animation)|Ben 10]]: Alien Force'': probably abandoned as a young child because of his power, became a criminal to survive, then, for kicks, became a literal monster by the age of eleven, and got sent to a hellish prison dimension. {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|Turns out, he wasn't really abandoned; it was just his powers playing with his mind.]]}}

* Denzel Crocker on ''[[The Fairly Odd ParentsOddParents]]''. At first, he had a life [[Not So Different|similar to Timmy's]]: he had a neglectful mother who left him with an abusive babysitter. He also had fairy godparents {{spoiler|(Cosmo and Wanda, in fact)}}, which he used to do good things for people. The end came when he lost his godparents: he forgot all his happy memories, the town shunned him because they forgot all the good things he did, he became obsessed with proving fairies exist thanks to a note he left himself, causing him to lose his sanity, he was laughed out of his college for promoting fairies, and he lost [[Unlucky Childhood Friend|Waxelplax because of his obsession]]. Yeah, not very fun.

* Casey Jones was given one of these for his ''[[TMNTTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' 2003 incarnation, in order to explain his vigilantism: when he was a kid, the Purple Dragon gang, led by a teenage Hun, burned his father's store before his very eyes. Afterwards, when Arnold Casey Jones Sr. tried to extract retribution, he was killed. Eventually, writers for the [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mirage (Comic Book)|Mirage comic book]] integrated a modified a considerably less sanitized version of the story into the original canon.

* Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man", never told Treves a single detail about his family, even that his mother was dead, because the whole family situation was a [[Dark and Troubled Past|Dark And Troubled Mess]]. Dead mother, a classic case of [[Survivor Guilt]] over his dead four-year-old brother, crippled sister, abusive father, [[Wicked Stepmother]], and step-siblings who were, as he put it, "more handsome". This may actually have been the source of the misnomer "John" -- His—His father was also named Joseph, and he may have wanted to separate himself as far from that as he could, possibly out of paranoia of having to go back home.

* [[Guns N' Roses (Music)|Axl Rose]], read the biography "Guns And Roses: The Band That Time Forgot" for the full details, needless to say, it's no wonder he's such a [[Jerkass]] sometimes.

* Richard O'Brien. Born abnormally small, bullied at school, and then growing up genderqueer in what amounted to a conservative country town in the 1950s/60s...ouch. And then [[Rocky Horror Picture Show|his baby flopped in cinemas]].

[[Category:Dark Andand Troubled Past]]