Jerkass Woobie/Video Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Jerkass Woobies in Video Games include:

Subpages

Examples that have not yet been sorted by game genre

  • Gunther Hermann in Deus Ex. While, like his partner Anna, he is a killing machine, it would appear that he has been handed the short stick in life, and he apparently had feelings for Anna, as he relentlessly hunts down JC after he kills her. A diary entry in the catherderal level mentions that the author heard him crying once.
  • The town of Nipton in Fallout: New Vegas. Yes, it was a Wretched Hive, but it didn't deserve what Vulpes did to it
  • Mass Effect 2:
    • A Renegade Shepard can be this. S/he's an asshole, but s/he also has been dead for 2 years, and if you picked Ash or Kaiden, s/he also gets dumped. Poor Shepard. Oh, and Liara has...changed, which also has the ability to make him/her a Woobie.
    • Jack! Nothing in that woman's life has gone right, leading to us nearly forgetting that it's turned her into a Sociopathic Hero with a persecution complex. It's also worth mentioning that the player can effectively turn her into even more of a woobie. She has been used and abused all her life and believes that everyone in the galaxy is only interested in themselves and what they can get out of other people. If Shepard chooses the Renegade sex option when she confronts him, that just confirms her belief, meaning she will continue to forever circle the drain of self destruction, making the realization that you could have been her first true friend and yet refused so much worse.
  • Kain of Legacy of Kain could be the poster boy for Villain Protagonist, being the main protagonist of the series and a cold, bloodthirsty, manipulating, selfish schemer. However, he's only this way because he's learned that everyone in the world, stretching back and forwards through time, wants him dead. Why? Mostly because it it's Kain's destiny to save the world by conquering it (long story), and a lot of people are trying to take over Nosgoth too. This leads to him staking the existence of the space-time continuum on a single spin of Xanatos Roulette to reclaim his proper destiny that others have robbed him of. His incredibly selfish and jaded outlook is spawned partially by all this, and partially by the fact that he was corrupted with the insanity of Nuprator just seconds out of the womb and so was pretty much ascertained from birth to grow up to be a bastard.
  • Silent Hill 4: Walter. As mentioned on the Anti-Villain page, it's hard to decide whether or not you want to kill him because of what he did or because he needs to be put out of his misery.
    • Also, Cynthia. Yes, she might have been a bit of a bitch, but did she really deserve that?
  • Yosuke of Persona 4. A lonely teenager who is also the game's resident Butt Monkey. The girl he loved is murdered (possibly raped beforehand) and he finds out that she hated his guts when he goes to investigate. Most of the town hates him because his parents managed the new large chain store, driving out the local businesses. On the other hand, his social skills are nearly non-existent; his foot is pretty much permanently lodged into his mouth and he can never seem to tell when his comments or jokes cross into insensitivity territory.
  • Morrigan of Dragon Age Origins has had no human contact except for her uncaring and sometimes cruel mother for her entire life and has spent a lot more time as an animal than as a human. Her trust issues and pragmatism-at-the-expense-of-compassion attitude follow naturally.
  • Fenris from Dragon Age II won't pass up an opportunity to remind everyone how horrible and dangerous mages are and how magic spoils everything it touches. Of course, he happens to be an escaped slave from a country run by power-hungry Complete Monster mages and lost his memory of everything that happened before the ritual that gave him his lyrium markings (which amplify his fighting abilities at the cost of causing him pain and an aversion to touching), so mages being horrible is literally all he knows of life before his escape. He has trouble adjusting to freedom, in part because his former master is still after him. He's illiterate, sucks at social interaction, justifiably paranoid, has trust issues, and often lets his temper get the better of him, for which he tends to apologize afterward. He also treats the mages in the party like crap; this is somewhat justified with Anders, as the story progresses, who is just as much of an ass, but he berates Merrill ceaselessly at the worst possible moments. Romancing him and helping him get over these issues is one of the many heartwarming moments in the game.
    • We can't have Fenris without including the king of this trope, Anders. Replace every instance of "slavery" with "the mages' plight", and every "mage" with "templar" and his issues are nearly identical to those of Fenris'. Anders was abused in the circle and, now that he's free, he focuses all of his attention on gaining freedom for all mages, to the exemption of all else. He is the biggest hypocrite in the game, constantly whining about how Fenris has let one bad experience shape his life, and how Merrill is the worst person ever for dealing with a demon. Anders becomes more and more of a jerkass as the game progresses, to Hawke and all other party members. He kicks Merrill when she's down, gets on everyone's case for not choosing a side, gets on your case if you don't help every single mage you see, and even applauds if you agree to sell Fenris back into slavery, even though he's fighting against the enslavement of mages! At the same time, if you played Awakening, you see how far he has fallen from the lovable wise-cracking cat-lover he was, and you can understand and sympathize with his decision to let the lost spirit Justice possess him. With each passing year in Kirkwall, you see him fall further into his obsession with freeing mages, and want to save him more. Unfortunately, even if you romance him, you can't heal him, and in the end, there's no stopping him from blowing up the chantry and starting a war.
    • Isabela is a milder example, her irresponsible temperament and resistance to attachment are depressingly well-justified by the backstory she reveals if Hawke romances her.
  • Believe it or not, Jin Kisaragi from BlazBlue falls to this as well. He's a huge dick and can be called a disgrace to humanity in how he behaved. However, in the times when he was sane, he's actually a courteous man who seems to be ready to put his past as an Annoying Younger Sibling behind, until things from the past gets to him, and his Evil Weapon amplifies his emotions of the past, making him even more of a jerk than he usually is. There's also the fact that even when he worked his ass off to attain his position in NOL, his adopted family think that it's the family name that got him his position, making him feel like an outcast even in his own family. His "reincarnation" as Hakumen proves that, without said Evil Weapon, he can actually be a true hero, but still a jerk.
    • The main "protagonist", Ragna the Bloodedge, qualifies as well. Though he does have his good sides and moments, he is for the most part rude, foul mouthed, verbally abusive and is perfectly willing to kill any and all innocent Punch Clock Villains that get in his way on his quest to bring down the NOL... In fact, it could be argued that the only thing keeping him from being an Anti-Villain Protagonist is the fact that 1) the real villains in the BlazBlue-verse are MUCH worse than Ragna could EVER be, and 2) the most active of the Big Bads have seemingly made Ragna his designated victim, and has put lots of effort into fucking Ragna's life up as badly as possible. For example by possessing the earlier mentioned Jin, Ragna's little brother, and, through Jin, cutting off Ragna's right arm.
  • Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes and its sequel. He's a perverted fanboy who kills for money and enjoys it, but he's being conned the whole time and, when he finds out, genuinely feels bad about killing all those people for no real reason. His parents were also killed by his first love who, he later discovered, was his half-sister, who revealed that she had been molested on a regular basis by his father. Poor guy's trapped in an endless cycle of violence. No wonder he wanted to "find the exit".
  • Left 4 Dead:
    • The church guy. He locks you out of the safe room, and deliberately rings a bell to get the other survivors killed by a hoard of zombies, yet he's had such a rough time that you can't help but want to wrap him up in a blanket and give him a hug - especially as, at various times, he's almost sobbing his lines and obviously absolutely terrified. The poor guy also spends a lot of the time desperately trying to convince himself that he's immune. He's not.
    • A less traditional example might be the witch. A pathetic, sobbing heap...until you get too close.
  • Nessiah of Yggdra Union sits on the borderline between one of these and a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, and has a number of characteristics of both character types--he can be really, really manipulative and uncaring, but he is also seriously messed-up. Exactly what players perceive him as usually depends on how much they sympathize with him.
  • Xenogears is chock full of them. Ramsus & Hammer stand out the most. Xenosaga continues the tradition with characters like the tortured former serial killer/victim of government brainwashing/cultist/spy Cherenkov & Albedo, whose tragic life as a Tyke Bomb and agonizing over the thought of outliving his brothers turned him into the Ax Crazy Memetic Molester we all know and love. There's also Virgil, a first-class Jerkass who keeps harassing Shion, but who watched the woman who loved him and saved his life get eaten alive.
  • The end of Mother 3 implies this about Porky. While being the main villain and an Omnicidal Maniac who's doing it For the Evulz, Dr. Andronuts believes that the fact that he lived his life knowing that everyone hates him made him the insecure Psychopathic Manchild he was. In the end, a self-induced And I Must Scream is the only way he can be happy.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • DiZ, a.k.a. Ansem the Wise. He gets betrayed by his apprentices, whom he loved like family, and thrusted into a realm of nothingness that drove him half-mad. In his desire for revenge against his apprentices, he becomes a Jerkass and does many morally questionable things, and in the end, is overcome by guilt once he realizes this. To atone, he makes a Heroic Sacrifice to save Kingdom Hearts from Xemnas. It doesn't kill him, but sends him to the realm of darkness, where he once again must endure a lonely period of banishment.
    • Axel may also count, particularly in 358/2 Days. As an emotionless Nobody, he's fundamentally self-centered, and eventually loses Roxas's trust, but it can be sad seeing him watch Roxas walk away, claiming that no one in the Organization would miss him and, in the Secret Report for Day 357, forgetting that Xion even existed as she dies. Then, of course, he tries to kill Roxas, and feels so bad about it later that he tries to bring Roxas back until, after realizing that this won't happen, he sacrifices himself so that Roxas's "true self", Sora, can succeed in his quest.
    • Also, Terra, toward the start of Birth By Sleep. Not so much a jerkass as a villain-trusting idiot who keeps doing the wrong thing and making you want to bitchslap him for it, while pitying him all the while. When he finally gets over these character defects, he becomes an Iron Woobie instead.
    • There's also, Ienzo/Zexion, No. VI in the Organization and the youngest of Ansem the Wise's six disciples. The "Woobie" comes from Birth by Sleep, where it's revealed that his parents were killed, with the now-orphaned (and noticeably withdrawn) Ienzo living as Ansem's adopted son. The "Jerkass" comes from banishing said father figure into the Realm of Nothingness after convincing him to continue experiments on the darkness in people's hearts and, later, attempting a Mind Screw on Riku in Chain of Memories. This makes his Alas, Poor Villain moment (which is perhaps one of the most brutal deaths of the Organization members; instead of a straight up death sequence, Re:COM reworked his final moments to have a Riku Replica suck out his lifeforce) even worse, as not only was his life horrendously tragic, but Zexion was seen to be unquestionably loyal to the Organization's cause (regardless of their actions).
    • Vexen in Chain of Memories, who, despite being an arrogant, twisted Mad Scientist, dies a horrible death at the hands of Axel (either literatelly stabbed in the back or burned alive depending on which version of the game you're playing) all while begging for mercy. Even Sora, who hated Vexen, is horrified and saddened by this.
    • Saïx, given the glimpses we've seen of him and Axel in the past (as their Somebodies, Isa and Lea - seen in BbS), is another possible qualifier. And yes, he, too, had an Alas, Poor Villain moment.
    • Demyx is an infamous example. He's lazy, cowardly, funny, and would much rather play his sitar than do evil. Not a nice person, but not a mean one either. But when he finally gives in to his true, evil Nobody nature, he's killed by Sora, dying with a pitiful scream of "NO WAAAAAY!" and a sob.
    • To round out the above Organization XIII examples, the (albeit seldom canonical) novels implies that Larxene went through a particularly depressing number of troubles concerning the matters of the heart, which could explain her sadistic nature. And even in actual, undeniable canon, Larxene's death is played quite sadly. She's even played by Yuko Miyamura, who voiced the poster girl of this trope!
  • God of War: Kratos, who has spent a good amount of his life as a Cosmic Plaything of the gods.
  • Ace Attorney:
    • Franziska von Karma. Despite her rash demeanour in court, you've got to wonder what it was like to be raised by Manfred von Karma.
    • Miles Edgeworth in the first iteration qualifies as well, with the death of his father (which he, due to the circumstances, blamed himself for) and being raised by Manfred von Karma.
  • Metal Gear Solid
  • Ittosai, Yo-Jin-Bo's resident Psycho for Hire who spends most of his time insulting the rest of the cast. If you follow his path through the game, you eventually learn that his father was the one who messed him up terribly as a little kid in order to turn him into a bloodthirsty killing machine, even though he hated it. By the time he becomes The Atoner, you're glad that Sayori is there to give him lots of hugs.
  • Tales of Symphonia: Zelos Wilder. He's a jerk, pervert, and totally lazy, and betrays the group a few times, feeling the need to side with the side he thinks is the strongest. If you talk to him at Flanoir, however, you find out that he had to watch his mother die from an assassination attempt aimed at him. Her dying words were that he shouldn't have been born. He also says that his parents were forced together, which causes him grief. His people only see him as the Chosen and not as a person. If you choose Kratos's ending, Zelos betrays you, further solidifying his Jerkass status, but he also says, smiling the whole time, that he did it because Mithos promised to transfer the Chosen title to his sister. He also suggests that he's generally tired of living.
  • Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker, to a certain extent. Before that game, he was generally portrayed as a typical Evil Overlord who occasionally verged into Complete Monster territory (trying to feed all the Gorons to Volvagia comes to mind). His speech before the final battle in Wind Waker, however, shows that his desire to conquer Hyrule stemmed from the awfully harsh life he had in the unforgiving desert. Any sympathy he gains from players, however, gets a little diluted when he subsequently proceeds to beat the crap out of Link in order to snatch the Triforce of Courage.
  • LaCroix, the Camarilla Prince in Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. For all his ambition, ruthlessness, devious schemes, and the fact that he's the main antagonist in all but one of the possible endings, he's so damn ineffectual that he winds up coming off as more pathetic than villainous. Hell, unless you side with him, he doesn't get so much as a boss fight in the end. You just shrug off his attempt to dominate you and slice'n'stab him with a letter opener off his desk in a cutscene.
  • Doctor Zeppot from Dragon Quest VII isn't exactly a nice man, but his backstory as to why he's a jackass makes him oddly sympathetic.
  • In the Adam Cadre Interactive Fiction work Varicella, the young king-to-be Charles is a sadistic, bratty, unlikeable powder keg as a result of his constant physical and sexual abuse from his "teacher", religious minister Bonfleche. Because everyone in the palace seems more concerned with grabbing power rather than addressing the unhealthy atmosphere within, Charles is eventually guided to becoming one of the most hellishly violent and ruthlessly competent kings of all time.
  • The Warcraft universe has a few examples.
    • Fandral Staghelm is a racist who believes that night elves are the only true druids, is quite rude and patronizing toward players who do his quests, and, in Stormrage, works with the villain, helping to trap Malfurion in the Emerald Nightmare and trying to corrupt Teldrassil. It is, however, revealed that his wife died giving birth to their son and his son was brutally executed in front of him during the war of the Shifting Sands. Fandral's going astray is the result of seeing a hallucination of his son, and his mind is completely broken by essentially losing his son a second time.
    • Sylvanas Windrunner died a brutal death at the hands of Arthas during the invasion of Silvermoon before being raised as undead, and also lost many of her people to him. Even after being freed of the Lich King's control, she is uncertain what future awaits her, especially in the wake of the Lich King's defeat, and sees her existence as an undead as a form of torment. She is also incredibly ruthless to the Forsaken's enemies and tends to be fairly cold to those with whom she interacts. Sylvanas' woobification has grown to such tremendous levels that she's one of the Warcraft franchise's most notable example of a Draco in Leather Pants.
    • Illidan Stormrage is a Type V Anti-Hero at best and batshit insane, but his instability is the result of ten thousand years of imprisonment plus watching all of his attempts at heroism backfiring horribly.
  • Dante from Devil May Cry. He is constantly making snide remarks, complaining about money, extremely lazy (only works once a week), is in debt to all of his friends (and makes it clear that he won't be paying anyone back anytime soon), and is a major jerk to just about everyone. Then again, he consistently turns down payment (does the job anyway because it is the right thing) and refuses payment from the poor, saves the world on several occasions, takes care of Patty (to a certain extent), is shown to spare demons who are able to love and refuses to kill humans, and is shown to have a compassionate side as well as a kind side (he'll just give you a hard time).
    The Jerkass Facade is to cover up the fact that he is miserable (it can be seen basically everywhere, especially in the anime; really, he never smiles except when he is slaughtering a demon or when he does a good deed!). The Woobie part is that he witnessed his mother being slaughtered while she protected him at the age of eight and believed his brother to be dead as well. He also believes that his father abandoned them at a young age and it is assumed that he basically raised himself. He finds his brother completely insane and is forced to defeat him, which leads to Vergil's apparent suicide (or so Dante believed), and forced to finally (all the while not knowing that it was Vergil) kill a possessed Vergil ten years later.
    His friends constantely take advantage of him (manipulating him, forcing him to pay for clothing, etc.), he is forever hunted and hated by the entire demon world (and most humans hate him because of his demon heritage), and he has no hope of ever having a normal day (let alone a normal life). During everyday life, he is constantly being shot at (Lady shoots him point blank through the forehead twice and later through the stomach...in a period of six hours!), impaled (a Running Gag to be stabbed through the chest or stomach), and other things. Capcom really wanted to make sure that Dante had the worst possible upbringing and life possible, didn't they?
  • Bowser, especially in Super Mario RPG and the Mario & Luigi series, and most especially in Bowser's Inside Story, where he's the sympathetic Anti Villain Protagonist.
  • Subject 3 in Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. He was abducted and subject to many cruel experiments, resulting in him hating humans and taking on a very harsh Don't You Dare Pity Me! attitude.
  • Portal 2 gives us Cave Johnson, the insane CEO of Aperture Science. He is a Bad Boss of the highest degree, and doesn't care very much what happens to his employees. Yet still, most of the things he and his company invented were by accident. He wanted to make a diet pudding, he made the propulsion and repulsion gels instead (a pair of gels that are definitely not to be consumed). He had a similar intention with the conversion gel too, and even tried it on himself...only to find out that it is deadly as all hell and works better as portal conductors. On a related note, he definitely spent more time testing his products than actually marketing them due to how horrible Aperture was at that particular task. This eventually leads to his downfall as he eventually goes bankrupt and, in his last moments, he uploaded his assistant's conciousness on to GLaDOS so that she would be able to run the facility in his place (despite the fact that she did not want to). In short, he would have been a millionare and an everyday hero if he had at least a little more sanity and some marketing ability, and the sense to use that ability.
  • Alma Wade from First Encounter Assault Recon. Sure, she's a psychotic Yandere that tries and succeeds at raping you, but she's also went through hell itself trying to save her children, and the flashbacks that we see of her past, where she's taken to the vault, are horrible.
  • Silver, the rival from Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver. He's a huge Jerkass, but once you learn about his past and Freudian Excuse...
  • The Origami Killer aka Scott Shelby in Heavy Rain gets abused by the hands of his father, along with his twin brother, John, tries to help him by getting their father, but refuses. This is how he becomes the villain that he is. His goal is to find a father who can give up his life to save his son. How does he do that? Kidnap the son and place the father through sadistic tests. If you played the level where it's the last one where Scott is playable, then you can have sympathy for him.
  • Herschell Biggs from L.A. Noire. He refuses to accept Cole as his partner after his affair with Elsa got out, but he begins to like him afterwards. It's just that during World War I, he has witnessed people burned and is close to retirement.
  • Giygas from the first Mother game is an alien that loved Maria and she cared for him. However, he was forced to kill her when his people ordered an attack as vengeance on George stealing their PSI information.
  • Liesolotte from Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. you'll want to reach through the screen and hug her, telling her it'll be alright...then break her ribs when you see what she did to Rosea in the "A" and "B" paths. (Heck, even what she tried to do to you.)
    • To wit, the main source of conflict between the two is that they were expelled from the archmage's court because they were suspected of killing the archmage. Neither of them did it, all the know is that they didn't do it and think the other did it but saw their inability to own up as cowardice and this turned into hatred, resulting Rosea either stabbing Liesolotte, Liesolotte stabbing Rosea, or them stabbing each other to death. however, as it turns out, neither of them did it...it was Fauxnel - who even admits to doing it. Essentially, there's nothing they can do.
  • In the Grand Theft Auto series: Sean "Sweet" Johnson from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Yes, he is a gangster. But all he wants is to build his gang on respect and loyalty rather than money, to keep his neighbourhood dope-free and to wreak righteous vengeance on those who try to get his friends hooked on crack. He is betrayed by the people he trusted more than anyone and sent to prison. Oh, and both his mother and little brother were killed by drug dealers.
    • Niko Bellic in GTAIV, who had spend his early life growing up in the Yugoslav Wars and eventually becoming a criminal.
  • Scout in Hello Puppets is terribly rude to her host and quick to throw tantrums and insults when things go even slightly wrong. It's hard to blame her for being like that when you learn more about her, about all the lies she and other puppets like her were fed about humans and the outer world and how she made herself an outcast among her kin and a target to eliminate for Riley after learning the truth. She hates the facility she lives in and everyone there hates her guts. Her realization that her host is pretty much the only friend she ever had moments before giving her last breath a few steps away from freedom is a huge Tear Jerker.
Back to Jerkass Woobie
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Jerkass_Woobie/Video_Games?oldid=2037040"