Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,481
edits
Iron Woobie: Difference between revisions
update link
No edit summary |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (update link) |
||
| (One intermediate revision by the same user not shown) | |||
Line 3:
''I have not winced nor cried aloud.''
''Under the bludgeonings of chance''
''My head is bloody, but unbowed."''
|'''William Ernest Henley''', ''[[Invictus]]''}}
{{quote|''"You know what you get for being a hero? Nothin'. You get shot at. You get a little pat on the back, blah, blah, blah, attaboy. You get divorced. Your wife can't remember your last name. Your kids don't want to talk to you. You get to eat a lot of meals by yourself. Trust me, kid, nobody wants to be that guy."'''
|'''John McClane''', ''[[Live Free or Die Hard]]'' }}
The Iron Woobie is a character who is not just ''a'' [[Woobie]]; he is ''the'' [[Woobie]]. Most Woobies are the victim of external circumstance. That may be how it started out for this little guy, but after having to deal with too much guff, he's lost the ability to feel sorry for himself, and will continue standing in the path of inevitable misfortune. He will [[Rage Against the Heavens]] in anger for the ridiculous extent of his trials and tribulations, but when it comes right down to it, he's not expecting the big guy to start doing him any favors now.
Line 14 ⟶ 16:
Opposite trope to [[Sympathetic Sue]]. Contrast [[Martyr Without a Cause]] and [[Angst? What Angst?]], and compare the more snarky [[Knight in Sour Armor]]. See also [[Don't You Dare Pity Me!]] and [[Stoic Woobie]]. Most [[Inspirationally Disadvantaged]] characters are portrayed this way, often with [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|insufficient justification]] and/or to the point of it being their entire characterization.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]]
* ''[[Angel Beats!]]'': Angel.
* ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'': Arguably ''every'' Nation.
Line 27 ⟶ 29:
** Travelling a city that can be best described as multiple galaxy sized megastructure that is filled with hostile Cylicon Life and the Safeguards which are always out to hunt him and anyone close to him down in gruesome way.
** Constantly having stuff blown out of him. Losing an arm? Headshot? Impalement? Decapitation? Being blown to pieces by explosions that rivals a supernova? '''''Regular occurences.''''' By the end of the series, he had suffered too much physical trauma (that would have easily killed entire cast of your average Shonen fighting series multiple times) that he {{spoiler|loses an eye and a leg}} permanently. Doctors? What doctors, just {{spoiler|stick a iron rod down your leg stump}} and keep going.
** Having no companions,
** Going through all that for at least three
** Massive suffering with absolutely no hope whatsoever. There's no guarantee that he actually
* ''[[Bleach]]'': Ichigo. Chad. Rangiku. Hitsugaya. {{spoiler|The Vaizards as a whole}}. And several others.
* ''[[Change 123]]'': Kosukegawa Teruharu. He has become one in a big way. 98-pound weakling? Check. Unapologetic otaku? Check. Willing to put himself on the line against combat-trained opponents when his friends are in danger, including some who definitely qualify as [[Ax Crazy]]? You bet.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'': It's a pretty crapsack world, so most characters with backstory are either this, or normal woobies. Main character Lelouch is on the extreme end of this: Murdered mother, crippled sister, father who invaded a country that was using him as insurance, fleeing in a war zone where the natives hate his race, and the invaders are killing everyone, all long before he hits puberty. [[Hurting Hero|It gets worse.]] Still, he's very rarely shown to feel bad for himself, and goes around standing up for the little guy while trying to get revenge on the people who made his life hard.
Line 46 ⟶ 48:
*** Why do tears pour with such ease from Kenshiro? In spite (or because) of his kind and soft heart, he resolved to bear the sadness of the ''entire'' world, torn by nuclear fire, on his broad shoulders '''alone''' so ''nobody else'' has to cry ever again. The big guy himself puts it best:
{{quote|"I refuse to build my own future on the blood and tears of others!!"}}
*
* ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'': Hayate. Despite surviving [[Social Services Does Not Exist|terrible neglect and danger and loneliness as a child]], he retains a noble and compassionate demeanor as well as an [[The Determinator|unbreakable determination]]. Small wonder everyone loves and admires him.
* ''[[Hellsing]]'': Seras.
Line 52 ⟶ 54:
* ''[[Inuyasha]]'': Let's see, from we have the titular character himself, Sango, Kohaku... Heck, pretty much every character in the series falls into this at some point or another, and most for darn good reasons.
* ''[[Karneval]]'': Gareki.
* ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'': Kimba. Look at him. He's a cute little white lion cub. Guess what? Both of his parents managed to die in the first episode. Guess what else? He's the hero, he's the only character other than Roger Ranger to freaking [[It's Up to You|
* ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' -and his sequel, ''[[Great Mazinger]]'': Shiro Kabuto. Even his themesong implies this: he is sad that during Sunday, he dont have parents to hang with, and Koji, Boss, and Sayaka are most likely busy with a [[Robeast|Mechanichal Beast]]. And then, you have [[Star-Crossed Lovers|Lorelei]]. And then you have he is an orphan. And in one of the last episodes, [[Big Bad]] Dr. Hell sent to the Institute a saboteur robot impersonating his mother, and he had to shoot at it before knowing for sure it was not his real mother. And in the sequel he states he feels lonely because Kouji and Sayaka left and he has to hang around with Boss since then, and he does not get letters from his older brother. And later he finds out his late father {{spoiler|[[Daddy Had a Good Reason For Abandoning You|had been alive all these years]]}}. Yup, it sucks being him. On the other hand, he never [[Wangst]] about it.
* ''[[Mobile Fighter G Gundam]]'': Domon Kasshu. {{spoiler|Has his master betray him, his own government screws him over, he's forced to fight his brother and was convinced for a long time his own father was a viciously evil bastard, even has his eventual girlfriend eaten by a monster.}} Somehow, he manages to deal with all of it by beating the crap out of the causes of all the above and a lot of [[Hot-Blooded]] screaming.
** Rain, as well. She's always calm and kind, offering support to everyone as the good [[Team Mom]] that she is and serving as Domon's support. She only fully breaks down when {{spoiler|she think she's failed in her mission and to Domon}} and when {{spoiler|she finds out the role that her dad had in a certain
* ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'': Half the appeal of Dr. Kenzo Tenma isn't that [[Break the Cutie|his universe seems completely dedicated]] to eviscerating his spirit—it's that his universe seems completely dedicated to eviscerating his spirit, and yet he ''[[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|still]]'' [[The Messiah|won't]] [[Shut UP, Hannibal|break]].
* ''[[Nagasarete Airantou]]'': Ikuto. Before coming to the island he was drifting on a life preserver for seven days without food or water. He spends the first episode/book futilely throwing himself against the same few whirlpools until it's absurd but only until he points out that he did that to '''learn''' their flow and sneak between them (there's an even larger one beyond it, sadly). His grandfather gives him through [[Training from Hell]] and its gives him a fear of heights. In a free-for-all game of tag for marriage the day after he arrives, he gets dropped from a tremendous height and thrown an incredible distance, and loses only by an involuntary gesture of bravery on his part. And the hits keep coming. On the other hand, with renewed training, he becomes a [[Badass Normal]] who manages to outwit or fairly beat four of the island's most powerful champions in a span of two days.
** Ayane is definitely a woobie who can take a beating. As the [[Butt Monkey]] of the harem, she gets stepped on, used as her sister's plaything, and gets stuck with some pretty rotten luck for no good reason. Her punishment threshold is leagues beyond most other members of the island and, for her troubles, has a curious number of immunities that help her with smaller problems. Also, despite sometimes being looked down upon she gets depicted as more competent than most of the harem (though it may be narcissism) and character development has boosted her beyond most of the harem in terms of understanding how they feel about Ikuto.
* ''[[Naruto]]'': The title character himself is this, where he is the pariah of an entire
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': Shinji Ikari. Say what you want, but it can't be denied that he saves the world on a regular basis despite the pain it brings him.
** The trope specifies someone who does not feel sorry for himself, Shinji
*** Do the new movies coming out count as canon? If so, he might still fit under this.
* ''[[Nightschool]]'': The [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Sohrem]] actively seek children like this to use as [[Demonic Possession|hosts]], including [[Little Miss Snarker|Alex]], {{spoiler|who is cursed to have anything she likes face destruction,}} [[Lovable Alpha Bitch|Ronee]], {{spoiler|who suffers crippling pain whenever her little sister cries,}} and [[Waif Prophet|Marina,]] who must regularly take special medication or risk losing her mind thanks to her visions.
Line 67 ⟶ 69:
* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'': Homura. Basically, what would happen when [[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni|Furude Rika]] [[More Dakka|is armed with an armory's worth of guns]]. [[Lovecraft Lite|Yeah, it's]] [[So Cool Its Awesome|that kind of show]]. And fighting the [[Eldritch Abomination]].
* ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'': Utena.
* ''[[Saint Seiya]]'': All of the main Bronze Saints. Yes, that includes ''[[The Scrappy|Seiya]]'' himself. He may be ridiculously superpowered and an [[Idiot Hero]] and all, but he's got a good heart and loves his friends the Bronze Saints, and the few times Seiya cracks and ''cries'' are inevitable [[Tear Jerker
* ''[[Science Ninja Team Gatchaman]]'': Joe "The Condor" Asakura.
* ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]'': Lain Iwakura.
Line 74 ⟶ 76:
* ''[[Tekkaman Blade]]'': Takaya aka Tekkaman Blade.
* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'': Viral.
** And {{spoiler|Simon too. Sweet heavens, his ultimate fate would break
* ''[[Texhnolyze]]'': Ichise.
* ''[[A Certain Magical Index]]'': Touma. He qualified after {{spoiler|losing all of his memories saving Index from [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]]}} and then carrying on, keeping this a secret from ''everybody''. He also continued to help anyone who needed it, even though most confrontations lead to him being hospitalized, even his wins. Plus, his [[Anti-Magic|Imagine Breaker]] negated his own luck, so he was perpetually unlucky to boot.
** The light novels also reveal that his powers gave him
* ''[[Trigun]]'': Vash. Yeah, he does [[Ten-Minute Retirement|break down]] eventually—but he gets up again, and when you consider [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|how many years]] he's been doing this already, and just how bad it's gotten, it's frankly terrifying that he hasn't given in yet.
** His brooding tendencies late in the anime damage this cred, especially the way he was so busy moping over being unable to stop Caine the Longshot from blowing out his own brains that he failed to notice {{spoiler|that Wolfwood had been mortally wounded in the meantime and was in the process of dying, and let him go off to die alone without looking up.}} But...still. All things considered, he passes.
** He complains all the time about little things, which seems to be either a coping behavior or [[Obfuscating Stupidity]], but when
*** He is usually distracted by someone else's pain or the need to protect. For example, he would have been within his rights to have wigged out in anger or guilt or ''something'' in the second part of the Inepril arc when Miss Elizabeth brought up July, but he just smiles a very sad smile and gives her a hug. Because that's what you do when people try to commit domestic terrorism on a horrific scale in order to murder you. [[The Messiah|You hug them.]]
* ''[[Violinist of Hameln]]'' manga: Pretty much the entire main cast. Don't be fooled by their crazy and goofy everyday behavior - only one of the major characters did not experience some soul-shattering tragedy and loss in the backstory. The actual story eventually corrects this oversight, and piles even more horror on the rest, [[Earn Your Happy Ending|yet still they persevere]].
* ''[[Black★Rock Shooter (
* [[Those Two Guys|King Dedede and Escargoon]] in ''[[Kirby Right Back At Ya]]''.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[Empowered]]''. Seriously, just [[Empowered]]. After the events in volume one alone, most people would have given up on superheroing for good. Emp's six volumes in and counting. Pain, humiliation, mortal terror, repeated failure, and the constant verbal abuse of her teammates do not stop her. It's either noble dedication or the worst case of [[Chronic Hero Syndrome]] I've ever seen. She could walk away at any time. No one would blame her. [[Determinator|She doesn't. She never will.]] She's the poster girl for this trope, and anyone who says otherwise hasn't read the comic.
* Dara Brighton from ''The Sword''.
* Cassie Hack from ''[[Hack Slash
* [[Spider-Man]] takes more crap, deals with more tragedy, [[My Greatest Failure|blames himself]] for his his shortcomings, and gets less credit than almost any other A-list superhero, all while constantly taking immense beatings by going up against threats way beyond his power level, but he [[Determinator|never lets it break his spirit.]]
* [[Gentle Giant|Colossus]] from the [[X-Men]] is a very [[Chrome Champion|literal]] example. He's seen his brother "die", come back after many years, and exile himself from this realm. He's seen his sister die from the Legacy virus. He the sacrificed his own life to find a cure for said virus. An alien resurrected and imprisoned him, tortured him for two years, and shortly after he was freed, his girlfriend disappeared in space. She came back recently... only to discover that she was trapped in her intangible form, and unable to interact with the rest of the world, including Colossus. And he's still one of the noblest of the X-Men.
** Recently{{when}} Colossus' sister also came back. She may or may not be a [[Damaged Soul|soulless]] [[Came Back Wrong|abomination]]. Regardless, she acts more emotionless and detached than before, and endangered the entire world for her own vendetta. Colossus still stands by her.
* Mother of Champions from [[The DCU]]'s ''Great Ten''. Essentially being prostituted by her country to strange men so that her [[Explosive Breeder|special gift]] can be exploited is bad enough, but the children that result from these unions have a lifespan of roughly ''one week''. She had never given birth before she had her first 25 boys, and eight days later they were all dead. The fact that she remains the picture of motherly dignity and poise is a testament to her emotional strength.
** And note that the "strange men" part is occasionally changed; she's slept with most of the male members of her team, though her heart belongs to Socialist Red Guardsman alone.
Line 98 ⟶ 100:
* [[Batman]] is the definition of the Iron Woobie. His parents were cruelly gunned down by a mugger when he was eight years old, and that's just the beginning. He's had one of his allies crippled by the Joker, then lost his adopted son to the very same man in the course of a year. To make matters even worse he had his spine broken once and then had aforementioned adopted son return to life, now permanently blaming him for his first death. Yet despite this he has NEVER broken his moral code (except once in [[Final Crisis]] when he {{spoiler|shot [[Darkseid]] with a substance that fatally poisoned him- and by that time he [[Asshole Victim|truly]] [[Complete Monster|deserved it]]}}- in any case there was no alternative). His refusal to break it, even in the face of the Joker (who Batman would like to kill but won't), is the reason he remains a highly prominent A-List superhero and the world's best detective.
** Dick Grayson is quite the Iron Woobie too, for many of the same reasons.
* [[The Hulk]]. Abused as a child, turned into a green monster, endured the death of ''three'' wives, chased around the world by the Army, shot into space, enslaved by an alien empire, loses the empire once he conquers it, has his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] crushed by a [[Heel Realization]], and fails to save one of his troubled sons. Man it ''
* Some incarnations of [[Iron Man|Tony Stark]] qualify especially if he's being [[The Determinator]] and disregards his health.
== [[Fan
* Takato Matsuki from the ''[[Tamers Forever Series]]'' could be the poster boy for this trope, the amount of physical and mental torment he suffers through over the course of the series must be seen to be beleived, but he take it all on with a ''smile'' on his face. Seriously, the kid is a walking talking [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
* Akiko Yamaguchi/Star Reverie from [[Magical Girl]] [[Mega Crossover]] the ''[[Battle Fantasia Project]]''. [[The Call]] came to her at eight years old against [[Cult|The Church of The Eclipse]] for about a year, then for the next two there was the [[Circus of Fear|Carnival of Blood]], an evil carnival made of warped versions of the usual fare that [[Body Horror|warps people]] ''[[Body Horror|into]]'' [[Nightmare Fuel|the horrors the longer they stay there, assuming they don't get killed]], who [[Wham! Episode|killed her]] [[Familiar]] part-way through ''that'' little adventure, and now for the past four years she's been fighting the Nightmare Factory, which spawns [[Monster of the Week|Monsters Of The Week]] that are both spawned from and create nightmares, [[Mind Screw|as well as play with Akiko's mind]], and they may or may not be grooming the girl into [[Eldritch Abomination|something else]]. By the time we meet her, she's been [[Parental Abandonment|disowned by her parents]] due to her maintaining [[The Masquerade]], she's on her own, and has had seven years of rapidly escalating psychological torment heaped on her. So it's no surprise that we first meet her right as she's [[Driven to Suicide|attempting suicide]] on live national Japanese news, calling for someone to save ''her'' for a change. However, in doing so she reveals the existence of Magical Girls, and starts off the series of events that leads to the formation of the Magical Girl Alliance.
** That's what makes her a Woobie. The ''Iron'' part comes from how she ''still'' wants to be a Magical Girl after she's recovered, been depowered, and the [[Big Bad]] of the First Arc has been defeated. And from the consensus on the thread, she gains a new powerset, and becomes a [[Badass Teacher]].
* From the war-torn future of ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' comes an Ogryn named Gav from the fanfic ''[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Gav_and_Bob The Ballad of Gav and Bob]''. Ogryn are a [[Undying Loyalty|naturally loyal]] race of huge, [[Psychopathic Manchild|violent manchildren]] fanatically devoted to the Emperor, and Gav is no different. He remains steadfastly loyal even after {{spoiler|losing his Commissar and his best Ogryn friend Bob; seeing his new best friend Tarla gored by the tail of a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh and losing his left arm to said Daemon; living to see Tarla turned into a mind-wiped servitor because of her repeated exposure to Chaos.}} Gav is so loyal that he [[Earn Your Happy Ending|ends up on the retinue of a Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor, Traela]].
Line 302 ⟶ 304:
* In the best-known [[Let's Play]] for the [[So Bad It's Good]] [[Pokémon]] romhack ''[[Pokémon Quartz]]'', a young girl named Foxy contends with a land filled with rapists, idiots who mangle the English language, a villainous band with the stupidest goal in the history of the Pokemon world, a creepy molesting stalker, Groudon and Kyogre's deformed cousins, a Pokemon family ''based on the idea of [[Memetic Molester]]s'' (one of which she catches and trains), a Pokemon professor who's a huge creep and a Marty Stu [[Author Avatar]], [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|an over-abundance of flying-types]], and gym leaders who have an ''infinite supply'' of full restores. She also ''wins'', and even [[Katanas Are Just Better|pulls a katana]] on her stalker-rival.
* To a certain degree, [[Chuggaaconroy]]. His deleted 50 facts video revealed that he had four siblings that died in miscarriages, he nearly died from an allergic reaction as a kid, and he was bullied in school. He's also admitted that he was only pretending to be enthusiastic in his [[Super Mario Sunshine]] LP since he had been worrying about health problems during it. However, he doesn't talk about it or let it stop him from being the goofy, nerdy gamer we all know and love.
* Chiaroscuro Themyst from ''[[Sinai
== [[Western Animation]] ==
| |||